[meteorite-list] Re: The other Brenham hunter

From: MeteorHntr_at_aol.com <MeteorHntr_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue May 16 00:09:53 2006
Message-ID: <3ee.28c8a0c.319aaa86_at_aol.com>

In a message dated 5/12/2006 12:34:36 P.M. Central Standard Time,
MexicoDoug_at_aol.com writes:

Only Steve (AR), Phil, Geoff, Don and Sheila Stimpson, USA today and maybe
the mayor of Haviland know best what is going on here.

Hello List,

Sorry I am late in posting, as I have been off line for a well over a week
now.

First off, I want to express my sincere appreciation to Don Stimpson for
waiting well over 10 years to start hunting his land for meteorites. That gave
me an opportunity to come in and start hunting and finding first. No hard
feelings from me on his delay in getting started. Of course if he wants to now
hunt his own land, which he did buy over a decade ago for the purpose of
hunting and building a tourist site out of, that is good for him. I don't think
anyone thinks he can build a "Canyon Diablo Meteor Crater" type of tourist
center at his place, but if he can get anything going it probably would be a
good thing.

Second, the USA Today story was kind of weird. I think the reporter
intended to write one story ("Stimpson wants scientific attention brought to his
'crater'") then decided to change the theme of the story to the rivalry between
Haviland and Greensburg once some of those juicy details surfaced. Then,
with a deadline approaching, she kind of mixed the two stories together and
tossed in a little bit about me for good measure to get a hodge-podge of the
"tourism story" that was printed.

I asked the reporter how she came upon doing the story, and she said she had
read the Wichita Eagle story a couple of weeks before, and "just knew there
was more to the story." She had interviewed me a few days before over the
phone, then earlier that day had been at Stimpsons for a couple hours, and then
had just interviewed Stephenson the manager of the Big Well with me present.
 I then asked her what angle she was probably going to take with the story,
and she said she would most likely do it on the rivalry between Haviland and
Greensburg.

I am sure it is obvious to most that I would have rather had my photos and
more of my story published in USA Today, however the irony is that I don't
think ANYONE else is happy with how the story came out either.

I talked with the mayor of Haviland, the evening that the story ran and he
was a bit upset, mostly at the comments attributed to his so called
cross-county "rivals." The quotes he was bothered with were, in my opinion, taken out
of context as I was present when the reporter interviewed Stephenson. The
story also makes it look like the Mayor of Havilan is trying to steal the
meteorite museum idea from Greensburg.

I have not yet talked with the mayor of Greensburg or with director of the
Big Well since the story came out, but I am sure they would not be too happy
with being the ones misquoted either as it puts them in a bit of a negative
light.

Stimpson's main objective seems to be to gather attention to his so called
"crater" and yet there was not one word mentioned about it in the USA TODAY
story. Rather there is mention of him starting tours of plastic swimming pools
covering holes on his land. Then later he is quoted as saying "It is just a
rock...just holding it - that's the value." Then the story boldly claims
that his financially valuable 150 pound meteorite will join the collection of
other meteorites sitting in his garage. I am sure he has moved all of them
from his garage by now, but none of the area crack-heads needing quick cash will
know that until they try to break into his garage. It is hard to imagine
that Stimpson can be too happy with ALL that even with his photo on the page.

The citizens of both Greensburg and Haviland, while they acknowledge the
rivalry between the two communities, I am confident are not so excited to have
that rivalry and the negative spin be the primary focus of their one and only
exposure ever in "Section A" of USA TODAY!

Haviland wants to proclaim itself as "The Meteorite Capital of the U.S.A."
yet USA Today displays in their chart accompanying the story that 1,528 other
locations in the USA might have a similar claim. Good thing USA TODAY didn't
mention Hale County, Texas or Roosevelt County, New Mexico or Haviland's
bubble would have been really popped.

Geoff Notkin understandably joins the "not so happy crowd" getting his
headline hijacked.

I tired to console Haviland's Mayor by saying if it were a story without
some negative edge written into it, it would likely have not made it past the
editor's desk. And so I console myself, as well, along those same lines.
Maybe my story, or my angle on the Brenham Story is too old, or worn out for USA
Today by now? After all, they are 7 months late on covering the story! Or
maybe it just doesn't have enough of a negative edge to it? Whatever the
case, the way I see it, it's not worth being too upset over.

Obviously Stimpson's side of the story fits more with the tourism angle the
story. So if that story gets more exposure now for the Brenham Story, then
hey, at least it is exposure for all of us.

It is kind of sad that all of the other smaller newspapers, on much tighter
deadlines, as well as the TV programs have done a much better job of
reporting their stories than "The Nation's Newspaper" did. While the story could
have been written worse, at least their map of Kansas put Haviland and
Greensburg in the right place! You gotta give them credit where credit is due.

Steve Arnold






In a message dated 5/12/2006 12:34:36 P.M. Central Standard Time,
MexicoDoug_at_aol.com writes:
Only Steve (AR), Phil, Geoff, Don and Sheila Stimpson, USA today and maybe
the mayor of Haviland know best what is going on here. Our Steve Arnold has
stolen the show from Nininger and Haag, and apparently walked into a dream
of
Stimpson's. Just one pesky native wants to sow his own field I guess, dang,
there is always seems to be one and what do you do if they live there...take
Franconia, for example:)

The Stimpsons (Chicago!, of course not IMB) don't appear to be bungling
fools, though. They are cerrtainly not farmers as their PR would indicate
and it
is doubtful they are in financial straights as implied. It looks like they
may
have planned their retirement for over 10 years to harvest meteorites on
their 1000 acres bought with this in mind the investment is certainly there.
 But
they've been a bit busy publishing high powered scientific publications on
the
National Institutes of Health budget if google is interpreted right (It is
good work and coincidentally in my field). So, not that Stimpson is much of
a
native or neophyte himself. Look up the holder of the main mass of the
Valentine meteorite (MB 1993). Is it he? Or look at Dr. Stimpsons'
publications in
the top echelon Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA). Or
check some of his publications, some published with the address: Haviland
Meteorite Crater for correspondence:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&itool=PubMe
d_Abstract&term=%22Stimpson+DI%22%5BAuthor%5D

Is that the same hapless "Mr." Stimpson who got his clock cleaned by gutsy
IMB?

I guess Steve may have forced Stimpson to review his retirement plans as he
probably is scratching his head on how he was scooped. As for USA Today,
Geoff, it's a stinking fishwrapper, man, I agree ... what a lame
journalistic
response, the author really should be required to respond to their
pea-brained
plagiarism - that is what it is in my book. Though the irony is there:
Your
article mentions "Field of Dreams". Could this be someone's dig: that there
are
more than one, as USA Today puts it in "their" title, "Fields of Dreams"?
Reading between the lines can be bad for one's health I guess it isn't a
hidden
message for the REAL Dream Team, though the "other meteorite hunter" (That
would
be, the one who got his booty pounded but is coming back more peeved than
ever as he laments being the "other" instead of just Haviland Man...) is
owner of
and heavily invested in the Haviland meteorite crater...
Saludos
PS I wouldn't expect a clone meteorite sales company soon. More like
havilandmeteoritefarm.com - now that's an original idea...as long as there
are newts!
PPS USA goofed big time by this article next to Stimpson's:
("fall mainly in the SW USA!!!)

METEORITES FALL MAINLY IN SOUTHWESTERN USA
A total of 1,529 meteorites have been found in the USA.
States with the most:

Texas: 296
New Mexico: 215
California: 164
Kansas: 138
Colorado: 89
Arizona: 78
Nebraska: 48
Nevada: 47
Oklahoma: 39
North Carolina: 30

Sources: Natural History Museums - London and the Meteoritical Society





En un mensaje con fecha 05/12/2006 11:47:08 AM Mexico Daylight Time,
rsvp321_at_hotmail.com escribe:

<< Sender: meteorite-list-bounces_at_meteoritecentral.com
To: h3chondrite_at_cox.net, geoking@notkin.net,
meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com

Wouldn't the analogy be more related to a gold rush, rather than the
insinuated plagiarism?

Cheers,
Pete


From: JKGwilliam <h3chondrite_at_cox.net>
To: "Notkin" <geoking_at_notkin.net>,"Meteorite List"
<meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Re: The other Brenham hunter
Date: Fri, 12 May 2006 09:13:59 -0700

Geoff,
Your link to www.BrenhamMeteoriteCompanyClone.com is broken - I can't get it
to load.

Seriously, don't you think that someone was going to do just what Mr.
Stimpson has done? This world is full of people who lack creativity, vision
and character. When they see someone else producing a successful enterprise
they hustle to find a way to swipe a slice of the pie.
Imitation surely is the sincerest form of flattery...but most folks of
character recognize it for what it really is. Don't you remember all the
copies of the Hula Hoop?

Best,

JKGwilliam


At 09:21 PM 5/11/2006, Notkin wrote:
>Darren posted:
>
>>Meteorites mark fields of dreams
>>By Judy Keen, USA TODAY
>
>
>Sorry, I cannot help making fun of this : )
>
>So . . . I propose that we change the name of Kiowa County, KS to Copycat
>County, KS.
>
>My article on Steve's Brenham finds in the (current) February issue of
>"Meteorite" is entitled: "Field of Dreams: Rediscovering the Brenham
>Pallasite." Notice any similarity to "Meteorites Mark Fields of Dreams"?
>
>Steve, you showed Keen the current issue of "M" during your interview
>right? What a shameless swipe! The real headline here should be: "USA Today
>Journalist Unable to Come Up with Original Story Idea."
>
>
>>Don Stimpson peers into a 3-foot-deep hole on his farm as
>>friends help dig up a 150-pound meteorite. "Interesting shape," he says.
>>The new
>>find will join the collection of meteorites sitting on foil-covered chairs
>>in his garage.
>
>Well, at least he knows how to to display them properly.
>
>Stimpson (owner of the land which contains the Brenham "crater") has been
>doing little or nothing to locate new Brenham pallasites during the past
>ten years. Once Steve and Phil figured out how to find the deeply-buried
>Brenhams with new techniques and technology, Stimpson copied them, and has
>been trying to jump on their bandwagon ever since. It's unfortunate that
>Steve did all the groundbreaking work at Brenham, yet this journalist
>decided to focus on the hapless Stimpson.
>
>
>>He'd like to give tours of his excavation sites, where small plastic
>>swimming pools cover the impressions made when the meteorites
>
>Gee, I can't wait to see that. A plastic swimming pool cover will surely
>allow visitors to experience the full excitement of unearthing a meteorite.
>Maybe he could have little newts swimming around in the pools as well. And
>everyone could wear those caps with the funny propellors.
>
>I expect Stimpson will now get to work on his new website:
>www.BrenhamMeteoriteCompanyClone.com
>
>My Mom always used to tell me that imitation was the sincerest form of
>flattery. I just call it laziness.
>
>
>Geoff N.
>www.aerolite.org >>
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Received on Tue 16 May 2006 12:09:42 AM PDT