WHEREAS, the 82ndannual meeting of the American Society of Mammalogists was held at McNeese State University, Lake Charles, Louisiana, 15–19 June 2002; and
WHEREAS, we regained our focus on undergraduate and liberal arts education as the foundation of Mammalogy and learned that red teeth explain why we never see nocturnal smiling shrews. And Tim Lawlor in a coat and loud tie—was he dressing for success, or what?; and
WHEREAS, we learned from Ted Fleming that nectar-feeding bats are constrained from rapid speciation, but that's OK, because they are the expensive supersonic Concords of the sugar-sippers and nectar-lickers; and
WHEREAS, we learned that Oklahoma petroleum landfarms have altered rodent faunal assemblages; Vespertilionid bat geography is a better predictor of phylogenetic relationships than is morphology; that explanation of latitudinal change in bat communities is correlated with the richness and diversity of species and functional groups; and that female bears are more restless than previously thought; and
WHEREAS we learned ad infinitum, over space and time—and into the business meeting—about macroecology, including bode size patterns, latitudinal gradients, nested subsets, and universal laws of ecology; and
WHEREAS, President Kunz masterfully employed Kunzian Rules of Order to lead 8 hours of Saturday Board meetings whose only significant result was to produce an agenda for the supposed “two-hour” Board Meeting on Tuesday. The first rule of Kunzian Order was “President-elect Bruce Patterson will take care of that”; and
WHEREAS, we thought we were in Louisiana, but after a suspicious triple runoff, torn ballots, and Kunzian Rules of Order during the attempt to elect our next President, we suspect that we're really in Florida; however, at least no hanging chads were observed; and
WHEREAS, the steeplechase ditch-jump admission policy for the group photo eliminated one-third of our Board of Directors and all our members in high-heeled shoes. Nothing short of a global positioning system and satellite analyses will identify the position of individuals in the photo; and
WHEREAS the local definition of a microbrew is a 10 oz. bottle; and
WHEREAS, as an ultimate test the meeting attendees hired the Department of Homeland Security to decode the various drafts of the ever-shifting meeting program to tell when and where to present their papers; however Terry Bowyer still didn't know; and
WHEREAS, the dorms were beyond our wildest expectations; and
WHEREAS, we appreciate the offer from President Hebert to tear down the dormitories, but we regret to inform him that someone beat us to it; and
WHEREAS, the ASM has searched for years for the college dorms with shower nozzles located closest to the floors. No more phone calls please—we have a winner; and
WHEREAS, gender bias discrimination suits were avoided by permitting both females and males access to all dorm bathroom facilities; and
WHEREAS, this was the Society's first case where the key deposit for a dorm room was greater than the value of the building; and
WHEREAS, it was a bit confusing to distinguish between the rec hall for the banquet and the wrecked halls for the dorms; and
WHEREAS, sightings of the phantom Capstone Speaker and/or Karl Koopman were frequently reported but impossible to verify. We suspect that the elusive phantom was searching for his lost e-mailed abstract and transferring his PowerPoint presentation to overhead transparencies and that Karl was hiding on the front row; however, everybody did see Elvis impersonating an alligator; and
WHEREAS, we were intrigued by the following sentence from the Membership Committee report: “When broken down by sex, 67% of males and 49% of females…” Could this be a feeble literary attempt to provide a functional description of “dangling participle”?; and
WHEREAS the bridge over the bayou provided the perfect observation point where mammalogists could observe local wildlife, including nutria, gar, turtles, and raccoons, and employ their new-found skills in wildlife handling; and
WHEREAS, the Society honors and expresses great appreciation to Duane and Dahnelle for 18 years of unselfish service and unwavering commitment to the Membership; and
WHEREAS, we enjoyed comfortable weather, beautiful flowers, thunder storms with spectacular dances of lightening through the clouds, riverboat gambling with bars that even a mammalogist could not close down, the Cajun band, and the festive atmosphere of Mardi Gras; and
WHEREAS, we have never experienced a host staff with as much grace, dignity, and commitment to friendly service, revealing McNeese's greatest resource—its people. We all enjoyed the wonderful Louisiana hospitality;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the American Society of Mammalogists expresses heartfelt thanks to Gale Haigh, Greg Hartman, Kathryn Dehner, Keith Edwards, Elizabeth Fitzgerald, Amanda Fontenot, Kristy Fontenot, Beau Gregory, Kendra Haigh, Tabatha Hibbs, Jamie Houston, Elizabeth Hoyt, Alan Inzer, Sean Kinney, Jim Lane, Heather Lewis, Jessica Light, Chris Melder, Mark Merchant, Harry Meyer, Kaili Mills, Sarah Pearce, Frank Phillips, Mark Paulissen, Mary Rachal, Gus Stacy, Trey Sherwood, Bill Taylor, Lacy Vincent, Ashley Wilson, Bruce Wyman, and Mark Wygoda of the Local Committee and McNeese State University for a wonderful and productive meeting.