Hand Awarded Honorary Membership

President Jack Kallmeyer (left) presents Greg Hand with Jack's prized canvas collecting bag, Riker mounted. (Photo by Bob Bergstein)

The Dry Dredgers Board of Directors approved Greg Hand for Honorary Membership based upon a nomination letter submitted by Debby Scheid:

“I would like to nominate for honorary membership one of our most dedicated and worthy members, Greg Hand. Greg has been a member since September 1982 and he has a wealth of accomplishments under his belt.

In 1983, Greg took over the job of President of the club from Tom and Judy Traut. He retained the title of President until 1986, when he switched over to the Bulletin editor replacing honorary member Roger Laib.

Greg has been writing the Dry Dredgers Inc monthly bulletins for 24 years. This is not an easy task to perform each month. Not only has he been writing it, but he has been printing it and mailing it each month. When the internet began to be a household word, he went to great lengths to send a copy of the monthly bulletins by email to over 200 members. He still continues this activity today. Greg went to great lengths to keep the cost of issuing the bulletins to a minimum, including the purchase of a large amount of stock paper at a discounted price several years ago and as a result we are still using it this year. His bulletins are always insightful and an interesting read.

Greg has also served as the Dry Dredgers archives coordinator. This is very important to a club that has been in existence since 1942. All meeting notes, fieldtrip reports, financial information and other important records are archived by Greg. He also reserves the meeting room for us each year and greatly assists with coordinating activities between the Dry Dredgers and UC Geology organization.

When Jack Kallmeyer volunteered to be president in 1988, Jack leaned heavily on Greg for guidance in what needed to be covered and the flow of the meeting. Over the years, there have been agenda changes, but Greg has always been Jack’s “go to” guy regarding the club’s business activities.

Greg was great at gathering input from members in an effort to get more engagement at our meetings. Greg contacted me in 1992 regarding how I thought the meetings could be improved, and after discussing it more in depth, he encouraged me to take on the position of Beginner’s Class Chairperson. I never thought I could do it, but Greg was there to help every step of the way.

Thank you, Greg, for all your hard work and efforts. Your contributions over the years are very much appreciated and certainly worthy of the title of Honorary member. “

After reading the nomination letter to the Dredgers, Jack added some anecdotes from his recollections of Greg including these two:

“I had the pleasure of working with Greg Hand at the Geofair Identification Booth this year. We are usually not paired together so I had no idea what I was about to witness. A very nice woman brought in an assortment of non-Cincinnatian fossils which I was happy to let Greg tackle since my expertise is limited outside of Cincinnati. Greg jumped right in and identified one puzzling item after another. The real surprise came with the last of the fossils to be identified. I knew it was a fenestrate bryozoan but that was as far as I could go. Greg not only identified the specimen as a fenestrate bryozoan, but he proceeded to explain the structure and that “fenestrate” meant “window.” From there he expounded on the “Fenestration of Prague.” I knew about the Fenestration of Prague myself having read about it in one of Stephen Jay Gould’s books. In a nutshell, some old dude, back in the old days in Prague, jumped out of a window (get it?) to avoid capture or something. Greg knew more of the details I’ll have to admit, like who the old dude was, but once you know about the Fenestration of Prague you’ll never forget that fenestrate means window. I don’t think the lady whose fossils Greg identified took notes though. I relate this to illustrate the extra effort Greg puts forward in all he does.

Greg has changed over the years as well. When I joined the club in the mid ‘80’s, Greg had a nice head of hair which he parted on one side like any respectable college professional. I don’t recall the year, but Greg appeared at one meeting with a buzz cut! I was shocked! I couldn’t grasp why any adult male with a full head of hair would get a buzz cut. Was it lice? I didn’t want to pry. I had a buzz cut myself as a kid but once I grew up I had a big boy haircut and used a comb like grown up men. Something was going on but I didn’t know what and this was way ahead of the current shaved head fad. Maybe Greg was on the cutting edge of a new fashion statement. Then, years later Greg changed again. Still maintaining the buzz cut he added a hat. Not just any hat but one of those wool newsboy hats we used to see in old movies. As if that wasn’t enough, he wore it backwards! I couldn’t tell if he was coming or going. I figured that these radical hair and hat changes were signs of a shift in Greg’s psyche but I let it go since he otherwise seemed normal – other than that insistence of using cans when collecting fossils.”

After the awarding of an Honorary Membership to Greg Hand, president Kallmeyer made a further presentation to Greg in the form of a Riker Mount enclosing one of Jack’s prized canvas collecting bags. Below the bag is a caption reading: Lessons Learned Late Are Still Lessons Learned 

“.... We hope our many new members will take advantage of these field trips to start their collections. Pack your lunch box and water jug and join the crowd. Even though you may not know what to look for, you will find your fellow Dredgers will be glad to help you. Bring a sturdy bag with a number of small paper bags or papers in which to wrap your specimens; a geologist’s or stone mason’s hammer, a good stone chisel, and of course a pencil to record data about your specimens.....” Dry Dredgers Bulletin. April 1, 1965 Greg was quick to point out the April 1st date of the bulletin quote so the controversy may still rage on.

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