The following [slightly edited] e-mail was received from Arthur Clarke from Tasmania (Australia) on November 8, 2001.
Rob and Louise:
About two weeks ago - following the note by Rob and the
the CD entry by Louise, I placed the following note about George’s death
(underneath the asterisks below) on two Australian list servers, including the
ACKMA List Server. Since George was a
member of ACKMA, the ACKMA Journal Editor has asked if he could publish what I
wrote (see below) and I have said - OK, provided that I can get your permission
to re-quote your contributions, plus be permitted to correct my erors or typos
and expand on my words a little. It was
an interesting experience with George in 1999, travelling down from Kentucky
(because he was very keen to have some company for part of his long drive from
Wisconsin) and then sharing a room with him in Chattanooga during the last NCKM
Symposium. Intersting in another way
as well, because with George’s daily and sometimes twice daily phone calls to
Betty, I ended up getting to know her too, without meeting her and I was
occasionally in our hotel room to reeceive her calls when George wasn’t
there! (I probably won’t make mention
of the fact that I had a few sleepless nights due to george’s snoring... but we
did have several engaging conversations about a number of karst related topics
& conservation issues. We kept up
an email dialogue for a short time afterwards.)
I imagined in my mind that George’s death may in part have
been due to another long driving trip from Wisconsin to Tucson, perhaps also
driving on his own without a travelling companion to help keep him awake. I had at one stage thought I might be
coming over to your recent NCKMS at Tucson and had even imagined the
possibility of being George’s travelling companion again, but NOT sharing a
room with him!!
Below (after the horizontal bar) is what I submitted to
the two List Servers. Are you happy for
that or an amended/ enlarged version (and your respective contributions) to go
into print in the December issue of our ACKMA Journal? Please advise asap. For my own personal peace of mind, I would
also be interested to know some more detail about George’s passing: whereabouts
his death occurred, what time of day etc. and whether he was travelling on his own. How far (in distance & time) would his
drive from Wisconsin to Tucson be?
Cheers,
Arthur Clarke.
Following are two items relating to the recent tragic
death of the American cave conservationist: George Huppert, who died about two weeks
ago while en route to the North American NCKM Symposium held at Tucson
(Arizona). Two years ago, I was
privileged to be George’s traveling companion on the long drive from Horse
Cave in Kentucky - from the site of the American Cave Conservation Association (ACCA)
Museum - south to Chattanooga
(Tennessee). Prior to collecting me at
Horse Cave, George had already done the long drive from Wisconsin. En route to the Chattanooga symposium, we
stopped at several diners where I experienced my first taste of carbonated soft
drinks in USA made with a heavily chlorinated water base and George explained
some of the problems of accessing drinking water from polluted karst aquifers.
We had many conversations about the problems of karst
management and George showed a keen interest in the management issues in
forested karst areas of Tasmania, including my recent RFA report on cave fauna and
the Atlas of Tasmanian Karst produced by Kevin Kiernan. Our in-depth conversations continued at
length during the course of the last (1999) NCKM symposium at Chattanooga,
where we shared a room together at the Clarion Hotel.
Two recent email postings are included in full below:
-----Original Message-----
From: Rob Stitt [mailto:rstitt@wingedseed.com]
Sent: Saturday,
27 October 2001 12:41
To: Cave
Conservation and Management E-mail List
Subject: George
Huppert
For those working on NSS Related Cave Conservation
projects and issues.
Date: Fri,
26 Oct 2001 06:41:02 -0700
From: “Rob Stitt” <rstitt@wingedseed.com>
Subject: George
Huppert
For those of you who don’t subscribe to the Cavers Digest,
George Huppert was killed in an automobile accident while he was on the way to
the National Cave Management Symposium.
This is a great loss to the cave conservation community, as George was
one of the primary experts on cave wilderness and was one of the only
university professors who specialized in cave conservation and management. I’m
putting together an obituary for the Journal of Caves and Karst and would
appreciate any information that people can fill in about George’s life and
activities. Please e-mail me off-list
at rstitt@wingedseed.com.
Speleotations,
Rob Stitt, Webmaster
NSS Cave Conservation and Management Section
http://www.caves.org/section/ccms
From
CAVERS DIGEST: Number 5744 -
From: “Louise Hose” <hosel@mediaone.net>
To: “Cavers
Digest” <cavers@caversdigest.com>
Subject: George
Huppert dies
Date: Tue,
16 Oct 2001 13:17:02 -0700
George Huppert died in a head-on car accident in northern
Arizona while driving to attend the National Cave and Karst Management
Symposium. George was extremely active in the American cave conservation and
management community and had been very excited about the Tucson meeting taking
place this week (October 15-19th). Among his many activities, he
served the Journal of Cave and Karst Studies as the Associate Editor for
Conservation. (Anyone with a manuscript
currently in review with George should contact me as I do not have that
information.)
George is survived by his wife, Betty Wheeler.
Louise D. Hose
Department of Physical Sciences
Chapman University
1 University Drive
Orange, CA 92866 U.S.A.
714-997-6994
http://www.chapman.edu/wilkinson/natsci/chem/faculty/hose/index.html
Arthur Clarke
P.O. Box 245, North Hobart,
Tasmania, (AUSTRALIA) 7002.
Phone: (03) 6228 2099 (in Hobart)
(03) 6298 1107 (in Dover) or +61.3.6228 2099
(International to Hobart) or +61.3.6298 1107 (International to Dover)