I contacted about 20 old Ass'rs, or at least as many as my fuzzy repressed memories could dig up. I found most of them on various social sites and sent them a message.
Here are some names of people I have lost contact with: Chris Sobin Tim Jones ( maybe in Austin ) Steve Tonneson ( maybe in Austin ) Pete Baron Travis Kitchen ( I think he stays in touch with other cavers ) Patricia Wise ( was on Facebook last year ) Cesar Koppel ( maybe Austin ) Audrey Wright ( Sulpher Springs in the late 80's ) The comments below are my personal observations of the A.S.S. from 1984 to 1993. Many of the former Ass'rs I sent a message have probably not been in a cave in 25 years. Back in the mid 80's, each fall semester there would be a handful of students that would get super enthusiastic about caving, and "want to" go every other weekend for about 2 months, but they usually backed out of the trip to study, so most of the gatherings were social gatherings at a food establishment near campus. But after those few months, they would just drop off the face of the earth. There was never anybody to keep track of who they all were. Some where in my storage building I might have some old members list, but I think I contacted everybody that was active in the club from 84 to 87. I doubt any of them show up, but one of them is still a hiker at least, and lives in the vicinity of the party location. I do not know any Ass'rs after 1993, or at least not that I know of. There were lots of girls in the A.S.S., in the mid-80's and many of them were very enthusiastic about the club, but the actual physical part of caving was something that they were only briefly interested in. Some of them were dating one of the guys in the club and appeared to be tagging along. For example, I can't help but remember in 1986 on a trip to Langtry Lead Cave, everybody had to wait at the entrance for Susan Shupak to get her make-up on. She got mad when her boyfriend abandoned her in the twilight zone, but I was able to guide her all the way down to the beginning of the crawl to the Hall of Unicorns, before she became claustrophobic. She and I were close friends till 1989, and then she married and disappeared. Another example, is Audrey Wright. She took the National Rescue Cave Class in New Mexico around 1987, and never went caving again, at least, as far as I know. There was one exception though. I won't mention her name, but she won numerous vertical contest at TCR, and had dedicated her life to the outdoors. Also, each semester there would be a grad student who was an experienced caver that would come to the meetings and a local non-student adult, but they were too busy to go on caving trips, and just attended meetings. They would often offer insight and suggestions, but the only one I remember has passed away. Also, a lot of the members in the club were just the roommates of someone who liked caving or considered themselves a caver. That roommate or friend, would attend meetings and help out, and might have gone to Enchanted Rock Cave or something like that, but by the end of the fall semester they had dissappeared. The spring semesters were really hard to get new members and to encourage members to go caving and by late April, it was almost hopeless. Each fall, the club started over from scratch, with almost zero input from any experienced caver, and equipment and stuff from the previous generation of cavers disappeared. And like any caving club, there would be people that attend who have no desire to go caving, but just want to be part of something. So the A.S.S. would sometimes have 75 members by the 2nd fall meeting, and the last spring meeting there would be about 4 people. So in a nutshell, I am almost no help. David Locklear 1987 A.S.S Vice-President ( Disclaimer: Appointed V.P. by outgoing 1986 president because there were only 2 people in the club ) --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com
