[meteorite-list] Re: The other Brenham hunter

Tue May 16 00:09:42 EDT 2006

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 at 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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