WHEREAS, the 77th annual meeting of the American Society of Mammalogists was held at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, on 14-18 June 1997; and
WHEREAS, the site of last year's annual meeting has been the victim of the raging Red River, it seems only appropriate that we hold this year's meeting in a place named Stillwater; and
WHEREAS, according to a member of the Board of Regents for Oklahoma State University, Stillwater's greatest claim to fame is that one of its patrons (Eskimo Joe's) sells more T-shirts world-wide than anyone else except the HardRock Cafe; and did you know that only in Stillwater can you buy a bonafide second Eskimo Joe's T-shirt; and
WHEREAS, our President Alicia Linzey, viewed a trip to OSU as "going to the boondocks", and the dictionary defines "boondocks" as any location where the cost of transportation from the nearest airport to that site exceeds the cost of airfare from your home to that airport; and
WHEREAS, President Linzey was unable to find a single outfit that matched the hot pink officer ribbon on her name tag; and
WHEREAS, mammalogists were seduced into enthusiastically registering at a location named the "Starlight Terrace" but were disappointed when they discovered that it was not a sleazy cocktail lounge; and
WHEREAS, the campus was prepared for our meetings by the setting of numerous pitfall traps and drift fences, all approved by the local OSU Animal Care and Use Committee, which in combination with 3.2 beer reduced the probability that mammalogists would become primary data points in a test of the floating cork hypothesis; and
WHEREAS, part of our registration fee paid for tuition in a self-study course in Landscape Ecology. Part A-spatial aspects: Where can you drink on campus? Part B-temporal aspects: What! You can only buy 3.2 beer on Sunday? and
WHEREAS, considerable coordination was required for a shower in the dorm, where postage stamp-sized towels that would only dry half of a normal-sized mammalogists were provided in concert with shower heads strategically placed to wet only the lower half of the body; and
WHEREAS, the food lines at the picnic recreated the competition and emotion of the Oklahoma Land Rush and resulted in symbiotic bonds and compromises, including the aerial distribution of fry-bread Frisbees; and
WHEREAS, the architect of the OSU Student Union building must have (A) been named Rube Goldberg, (B) been the absolute low bidder, (C) written a text book in hypervariable chaos theory, (D) been incapable of thinking in more than 2 dimensions, (E) had an intermittent ink pen when working on the blueprints, or (F) all of the above; and
WHEREAS, OSU had the wisdom to expel a student who now is an officer in our Society because of his over-exuberant pursuit of synthetic callipygian adornments; and
WHEREAS, those who visited the vendor tables now know where the skulls and bacula have gone from our vanishing wildlife; and
WHEREAS, the Society thanks the OSU Flea, Fly, and Ectoparasite Control Program that went to great pains to identify any member of our Society that carried such vermin by provision of a bright iridescent orange no-pest strip with a key-shaped ID number which hangs around the neck; and
WHEREAS, the Ectoparasite Control Program has been less effective than desired, because many mammalogists have chosen to use their iridescent no-pest strip to mark their trap lines; and
WHEREAS, Sidney Anderson's admonition to raise new funds was taken to new financial heights by the innovative idea of charging $6 for members to attend their own committee meetings in the dormitory cafeteria. The Resolutions Committee nominates Karl Koopman as Trustee of the new Cafeteria Fund for the support of AIBS; and
WHEREAS, Oklahoma has a rich Mammalogy heritage that includes the academic grandparent with the most offspring, Joseph Grinnell, and the individual to whom many of us sent our first ASM dues, Secretary- Treasurer Bryan Glass, of Sasquatsch Award fame; and
WHEREAS, OSU has the largest contingent of practicing mammalogists of any Local Committee in recent history; and
WHEREAS, Kaye White Walker coordinated an efficient meeting with excellent facilities, convenient meeting rooms, superb audio-visual conditions, and an appropriate environment for intellectual and social interactions; and
WHEREAS, the Continuing Education division, the Honorary Chair Bryan Glass, and the Local Committee were helpful, gracious, and efficient and arranged for a rainfree picnic with grandstand views of cotton candy thunderheads complete with spectacular lightning displays, awesome barbecued bison, and grilled corn, all embellished with a rich sample of cowboy poetry and music; and
WHEREAS, they provided a banquet with a diversity of food and cultural insights from Oklahoma's awesome native American history as well as an exhibition of the diversity of dancing skills of the officers of the ASM;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the American Society of Mammalogists expresses thanks to the University, the student volunteers, and Bryan Glass, Tracy Carter, Brenda Clark, Bryon Clark, Don French, Meredith Hamilton, Eric Hellgren, Chip Leslie, Bob Lochmiller, Karen McBee, Jim Shaw, and Ron Van Den Bussche for a memorable and productive meeting.