Sport Chalet in La Canada provided a new pair of leather hiking boots for our barefoot boy Owen Maloy.
Last, but by no means least, Edna Erspamer donated one of her original mountain serigraphs as the grand prize. Gene Olsen was the lucky winner.
After a brief stretch to restore circulation, Joe McCosker introduced Dr. Bernard "Bunny" Fontana of the University of Arizona as the speaker of the evening. Dr. Fontana's subject was "Papago Country". The Papago Indians ranged over a large area of the Southern Arizona/Northern Mexico desert. Dr. Fontana's slides and commentary depicted the environment and lifestyle of historic and present day Papagos. These people existed in what is to us a very harsh and hostile environment and yet seemed to prefer this to seeking a more friendly terrain and climate.
See you all at DPS in October.
Biographical information on Dr. Bernard (Bunny)Fontana
He has lived in Arizona since 1955. He went there to study Anthropology at the University of Arizona Graduate School. He received his PhD in 1960. Was ethnologist in the Arizona State Museum from 1962.1978, from 1978-present, field historian in the Univ. of Arizona Library, Since 1956 D. and his wife have lived next to the San Xavier (Papago) reservation(front yard gate is in the reservation fence). All three of their children were born and raised there.
He is now President of the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum former]y a member of the Western Regional Advisory Committee of the National Park Service. George Hubbard discovered at the Banquet that Dr. Fontana was a cousin he hadn't seen since George was a young man.
For some time the Keene Wonder Mill-Mine in Death Valley had been closed to visitors while the NPS attempted to make it safe for visitors. It was recently reopened. Then on June 9, a visitor, William Eimer of Laguna Beach, California, left the group to explore an adsit in a posted area and stepped into a 40-foot shaft, falling forty feet to his death.
While three shafts in the vicinity of the mill are covered with steel mesh, open shafts still exist throughout the Monument.