It's my understanding that all of Meador's cave history about New Mexico was turned over to Carlsbad Caverns National Park on his death. I think I heard that from Andy Komensky so he will probably corroborate that when he tunes in to this thread.
As a young caver who showed up in the Guads the first time in 1969, I was introduced to Meador through Andy K. They had been good caving buddies for a long time. I met Tom the first time at the Lovell, Wyoming convention that summer and we agreed that we would get together later that summer down in NM. Our first real caving trip together was with Tom, Andy, my caving buddy Alan Malkiel and me in 3 Fingers. It was certainly a memorable trip for many reasons. It was the following year that Tom and I spent a lot more time together with one another. We went into many different caves that following summer, discovered a few of them, mapped a few, set off some dynamite in one of them with Andy and discovered the whole lower section of Hicks/Wind Cave. The following summer of 1971 was also full of caving trips with Tom. One of the more memorable trips was when Tom, Charlie Peterson, Bobby Crisman and I went into Misery Pit (nee Lechuguilla Cave) to see what was down there. Bobby Crisman, Asst Superintendent of CACA NP at the time, made his famous statement that "Lechuguilla was a small and disappointing little cave". It was not long after that when I rolled his Ford Bronco over by the turnoff to Sitting Bull Falls. I have no actual recollection of the crash, but the vehicle was totaled, Tom lost some skin on his arm from lying in a puddle of gasoline, Manuel Alfaro (a visitor from Barcelona, Spain) went for help at the X Bar Ranch (in the Guads) and I had a 6 inch fracture across my skull and nearly died. Throughout all the ups and downs of my time with Tom, he was genuinely friendly, well versed in the history of the local caves, would share his knowledge willingly and was generous in so many ways. We communicated regularly for that short period of time, wrote some articles together for publication in the NSS News and had a good friendship with one another. Unfortunately, Tom seemed to drop out of caving for a long stretch not too long after the accident in 1971. He did resurface sometime later (early 1980's???) and his gallon of milk per day was now superseded with champagne and a wife (I believe she was his ranch secretary). It was not long after that Tom passed away from a brain tumor, aneurysm or cancer (not sure which) in 1986. Not too many years ago I managed to get in touch with his niece who has now moved back to El Dorado where Tom lived. I learned quite a bit more about Tom as a result. Hope to visit their ranch some day as it is now a Nature Retreat. How times change….. I do hope we follow through with this award and call it the Tom Meador Award. He would feel honored and deserve to have his name remembered in that manner. Peter Jones On Oct 23, 2013, at 2:32 PM, Pete Lindsley wrote: > So what happened to the "Cave History Collection"? Tom collected NM cave > history as well as TX caves. Carl Kunath is probably a better representative > of Texas Cave History, but perhaps Tom was the better known NM cave historian. > > - Pete > > On Oct 23, 2013, at 11:49 AM, James Jasek wrote: > > Tom was pretty much the Historian for the TSA, and he had a massive > collection of memorabilia of caving, photography, postcards, literature of > Texas and New Mexico in his collection. > > Collecting cave history was a passion for Tom. Since collecting an maintaing > caving history is our window to the past, I feel the Tom Meador Award should > be designed to encourage the collection of Texas caving history. > > Tom was a personal friend and a really good fellow. > > James Jasek > > On Oct 23, 2013, at 12:37 PM, George Veni <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I never had the pleasure of meeting Tom but have heard many great things >> about him. One thing I haven't heard is about him focusing on mentoring new >> cavers. If SWR will be developing an award for new cavers, then it should be >> named for someone whose focus was new cavers, as in the case of Chuck Stuehm >> in Texas. Maybe Tom fits that perfectly. I don't know one way or the other. >> If not, I suggest naming the award for someone who better fits the award and >> creating another award named for Tom that would honor him more by being more >> appropriate to his strengths, interests, and accomplishments. >> >> George >> >> >> Sent from my mobile phone >> >> ******************** >> >> George Veni, Ph.D. >> Executive Director >> National Cave and Karst Research Institute >> 400-1 Cascades Avenue >> Carlsbad, New Mexico 88220-6215 >> USA >> Office: 575-887-5517 >> Mobile: 210-863-5919 >> Fax: 575-887-5523 >> [email protected] >> www.nckri.org >> >> >> >> >> -------- Original message -------- >> From: [email protected] >> Date: 2013/10/23 09:48 (GMT-07:00) >> To: Harvey DuChene <[email protected]> >> Cc: Bill Bentley <[email protected]>,[email protected],Steve Peerman >> <[email protected]>,"jen ." <[email protected]> >> Subject: [SWR] Tom Meador Award >> >> >> >> good idea, Harv! >> DirtDoc >> From: "Harvey DuChene" <[email protected]> >> To: "Bill Bentley" <[email protected]>, "Steve Peerman" <[email protected]> >> Cc: [email protected], "jen ." <[email protected]> >> Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2013 9:07:49 AM >> Subject: Re: [SWR] PBSS member Kayde Hill wins "Chuck Stuehm Award" >> at the Texas Cavers Reunion >> >> I recommend naming the award for legendary Tom Meador! >> _______________________________________________ >> SWR mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.caver.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/swr >> _______________________________________________ >> This list is provided free as a courtesy of CAVERNET > > _______________________________________________ > SWR mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.caver.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/swr > _______________________________________________ > This list is provided free as a courtesy of CAVERNET > > _______________________________________________ > SWR mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.caver.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/swr > _______________________________________________ > This list is provided free as a courtesy of CAVERNET
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