Newsletter title

June 2008

In This Edition

Visitors to the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve

—Iris McPherson

Things were picking up in April when we had 507 visitors, but that was almost doubled in May with 941. There were 27 states and 10 countries represented in April and 34 states and 15 countries in May. April found Oklahoma visitors leading the list with 286 signing in. Kansas (40) was in second place with California (27) and New York (19) following. England (9) had the most visitors from another country. In May Oklahoma had 612 visitors with California second with 41 and Kansas and Missouri tied for 3rd with 29 each. Germany led the list of international visitors with 23 and England was second with 14. Serbia and Suriname were new countries that were represented for the first time.

So far this year there have been a total of 1,847 visitors with 1,742 from the U.S. and 105 from other countries. There have been 43 states and 28 countries represented. The missing states at this point are Alabama, Delaware, Hawaii, Nevada, North Dakota, South Carolina and Wyoming.

There was a rather interesting name and location that appeared on the April sign-in sheets — The Flash located in Alternate Dimensions. I suppose he was wearing a disguise so that the docents working April 20th just thought he was a normal human being, or could you pick him out from the visitors that came? There were the usual comments about the scenery, but there were several complimenting the docents recently, especially when the docent stayed with late visitors.

Please remind people to sign the visitor’s register.

Visitor’s Center Interactive Kiosk

—Andrew Donovan-Shead

Even though school is in recess for the summer and our team at Holland Hall is in transition to 7th Grade, they continue to meet to work on content for the kiosk project. Since the beginning of the summer vacation we have had two meetings, each of three hours duration. We meet again on Tuesday, 17 June.

In talking with Margery Armstrong, the 6th Grade science teacher, I discovered that the visit to the Preserve of the entire 6th Grade in September last year, the subsequent kiosk project, and the meeting with us at Docent Reorientation this year has been a particularly enriching experience for the students. This coming school year, Margery is planning to cover arthropods with the 6th Grade that will include another field excursion to the Preserve in September as part of their school without doors event. News of this plan for next year produced an indignant response from one member our kiosk team who took umbrage, exclaiming: You didn’t do arthropods with us! Of course, just because our 2007-2008 team is moving on it doesn’t prevent them from continuing to participate if they so desire; in fact James, our computer expert, has agreed to continue to help us.

Back Issues

Back issues of the Docent Newsletter, to April 2008, can be found in the two green and one blue zip-binders, stored in the Perspex rack by the file cabinet in the office of the Visitor’s Center.

Newsletter Publication

Deadline for submission of articles for inclusion in the newsletter is the 10th of each month. Publication date is on the 15th. All docents, Nature Conservancy staff, university scientists, philosophers, and historians are welcome to submit articles and pictures about the various preserves in Oklahoma, but of course the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in particular.