So much news, so little space. We are coming close to a November grand opening of our new headquarters. We are seeing it shape up into our first “combined space.” Sebastian Wiedmann, Rick Paige, and I have been organizing to a compulsive degree. Let me give a little history on this move. Of course, it goes back to Owen. Owen’s grand view always had a sooner or later approach to “unification” and he purchased a lease at 6 Points that would have held everything, but Owen filled it with……..wait for it…….wait for it……….BONES and MAPS. Owen developed relationships with TAMUK professors and Ronnie Thomas. Ronnie has been leading the annual fossil hunts at the Wright Gravel Pits (with the generous sponsoring and organization from Juan Cabasos). Now back to Owen. He persuaded (how could they resist) the TAMUK folks to give the CCGS many of their hundreds of fine quality ice age critter bones that they had to store. Owen, being the ever helping person he was, offered to take all these heavy and dirty bones off their hands His “Bones in Schools” was off and running. But where would we store them? Sebastian Wiedmann has been the keeper of our archive data, bulletins, etc. He informed Owen that there was no room at the Inn. What did Owen do? He signed a lease under his own name and secured at his expense the 6-Point’s site. He had a vision and wasn’t going to allow this “small obstacle” to get in the way. Presidents Dan Pedrotti, Juan Cabasos, and Rick Paige led the CCGS to support Bones and Maps and enlist all sorts of financial support from CCGS generous members and various charitable foundations. Now it has become a self sustaining program that is reaching into Oklahoma, Louisiana and even into Florida. Rick Paige has enlisted promising ties with the GCAGS and the AAPG to maybe take the program national and provide major funding………………….Now where was I? Oh, yes, our new headquarters space. The 6-Points site changed ownership and we could not work out many obstacles to transferring the lease into the CCGS. Rick Paige stepped up and found this AWESOME space that is fairly priced and holds everything (maybe a little crowded). Sebastian has even taken all the old bulletins out of hibernation to again see the light of day. This new site has a kitchen and will have enough room for meetings up to 10 people. (We still have to buy or get donated 10 chairs). We are going to encourage CCGS and CBGS members to use the space for all types of meetings surrounded by ice age bones.

We had a great Kickoff BBQ and it was well attended. Thanks again to Cheryl Oxsheer of CGG Veritas for sponsoring the bar. We also want to thank Juan Cabasos with Corelab, and Mike Bullard with Wel-Lab who each sponsored half of the admission fee for TAMUK and TAMUCC students. Mary Vance with EOG is our new Arrangements Chair, and she did a great job organizing the event.

Michael Lucente
CCGS President, 2011-12