Minutes of the Chouteau Grotto Meeting
Wednesday, December 3, 2003


13 members were present.

The Membership Manual is still being drafted. If anyone has clip art of photos to add, please send them to Joe Dom

A tape transcriber is still needed for the Year 2000 Chouteau Reunion tape recordings. Is it possible to burn them onto CD? Kevin Feltz may have some leads here. There may be anywhere from 1-4 tapes.

Grotto Elections!

President: Marck Schneider was nominated last month and is still in the running!  Mike Morgan was nominated for president, but declined. Jim Huckins was nominated but declined.
Other nominations:
Vice President: Eugene Vale
Treasurer: Kevin Feltz
Secretary: Kat McCarthey

The four nominees were elected unanimously. Congratulations, Officers!

Upcoming Events

An Arkansas grotto winter campout is planned for President's  weekend, 14 and 15 February. This will be to the upper Buffalo and Fitton's. If you have contact information for leads down there, please let Joe know.

Grotto Stream Team: Amber Spohn asked permission (granted) to represent the Grotto in a spring issue of the Missouri Conservationist. They want to set up a photo shoot - scheduled for Friday the 12th of December at noon. Meet at Ashland exit McDonalds parking lot at noon and Amber will lead you from there. All are welcome! Rita will try to make it.

Amber went to Stone County two weeks ago, and found seven new caves. With Bob Lerch, Ben, Jesse and a couple of others they broke into three teams and mapped through the weekend. Amber and Ben will cave hunt for caves in the next five days, beginning December 4. Amber reports there are 207 known caves now in Stone County, and climbing! Come on down if you want to go caving AND surveying - contact Amber or reach her on the coollist.

Huck is planning trip to Shannon County this weekend to photo some caves. If you are interested, contact Huck at 876-1897 or 474-4558. He'll be leaving Friday evening.



Cave reports:

Rita and Orin Worden went to Finley Cave, west of Waynesville. Rita was given a lead to a property with sinkholes where a farmer did a 'dye-trace' using a 55 gallon drum of water with food coloring! There were several small sinkholes. She met a guy that "witches" for caves - he says he found Jacob's cave with this method. Geopotential and microgravity methods work, ways Eugene, in a more scientific fashion.

Late in the summer, Rita was going to go into the Scapegoat Wilderness in Montana and do a survey, but fires spoiled those plans. She ended up in the Anaconda Wilderness with Daryl Greaser and brother and found the "Black Hole of Calcutta." It was a four hour hike up there. It's a shaft. They mapped the whole thing and came out at sunrise. Bob, Ben, Nick also were there. They went on to the Tongue River to a cave there. They spent four days in the Bighorns, doing lots of ridgewalking. Alpine caving is stressful and dangerous, Rita says.

Carroll Cave survey is progressingäBen, Rita and someone else did 1200 feet of passage in 18.5 hours - a long haul!

Mapping is progressing at Garrisson Cave - notes are posted on the MSS Website.

Scott Schulte and Kat found a new opening on the Karst Trail area at Rock Bridge. It goesä  Scott reports geocaching is a major activity in the Park these days.

Joe Hobbs reported on the 'severe shortage' of caves he observed in Korea. But the North Koreans are tunneling under the DMZ into the south!

Marck Schneider was in Mark Twain cave. There are features of historic interest in there, Marck reports. Tour guides reported there are gray and Indiana bats in the cave. It's quite warm in the cave, apparently due to lighting.

Farewell to the Chief!

Joe Dom is leaving all of us to go to work for the Kansas Dept of Health and Environment in Kansas. Good luck there, Joe, and thanks for all you have done for the Grotto!

Joe's thesis manuscript is going to be published in the upcoming issue of the Journal of Cave and Karst Studies. Congratulations, Joe! 

The meeting was adjourned at 8:20 PM. There was no program.

Respectfully submitted, with the pleasure of serving you as Secretary since 1998.

Joe Hobbs