OSU geology field camp marks 75th anniversary
Friday, September 6, 2024
Media Contact: Elizabeth Gosney | CAS Marketing and Communications Manager | 405-744-7497 | egosney@okstate.edu
This summer, the Les Huston Geology Field Camp celebrated 75 years of providing hands-on experiences for aspiring geoscientists.
Since its establishment in 1949, the field camp has become a staple of Oklahoma State University’s Boone Pickens School of Geology. It has offered OSU students — as well as students from other institutions — the opportunity to apply their education to real-world field research and mapping projects. Students travel to Cañon City, Colorado, and spend five weeks putting their geological skills to the test. Among their activities, they conduct detailed geologic mapping, measure stratigraphic sections and hike Cañon City’s vast mountain range.
To commemorate the camp’s 75th anniversary, OSU’s BPSoG has initiated an update to not only the summer program, but the camp as well. With a plan in the works, incoming field camp director and OSU geology professor Dr. Brandon Spencer spoke about the vision he is working to implement.
“This year, we want to celebrate history, but also present our vision for the future publicly for the first time,” Spencer said.
Spencer has taught at OSU field camp for three summers. In 2022, he co-directed with Dr. Jim Puckette, an OSU geology professor who was field camp director since 1998, and then stepped into the director role in 2023 and 2024. Spencer and the BPSoG alumni group plan to build a new camp facility within the next two years. They also intend to update the camp’s technological capabilities and insulate the buildings for year-round usage.
“We’re working with an architect in Tulsa called GH2,” Spencer said. “The idea is to make a functional facility that’s technologically capable. It will be a four-season camp and serve as a research station for other schools and universities to come into the area and do field work.”
This summer also marked Puckette’s retirement. Puckette attended OSU Field Camp as a student in the ’70s and has since become one of the longest-tenured professors to lead a field camp nationwide.
“When I completed field camp in 1975, it was one of those unforgettable life experiences,” Puckette said. “I was also fortunate to have teammates on group projects who were as passionate about geology as I was. All aspects of field camp were enjoyable: fieldwork, breakfast and supper … organizing informal field trips to see more geology, and the recreation, which consisted mostly of playing volleyball in camp in the evening.”
During his first summer at the camp, Puckette established a friendship with the camp’s namesake, Les Huston, and his neighbors who lived on the land where the field camp is located. Huston’s daughter, Tiny Striegel, told Puckette throughout their friendship how important the camp’s research was to the local community.
“This relationship with our neighbors was more than social because during the severe drought season in the summer, the Eight Mile Creek dries up and our neighbors haul water from the camp well to use domestically and water their livestock,” Puckette said. “Through good times and the tough times, Ms. Tiny Striegel remained our most important benefactor and advocate. Tiny, like her father Les, looked forward each year to the day the camp opened.”
Until her passing in 2018, Striegel positively impacted OSU, her local community and generations of geoscientists. The university named her a matriarchal donor in 2019 to honor her contributions.
“Tiny was an essential part of field camp,” Puckette said. “She not only helped us with access to property in the area, but she was also our advocate for getting permits approved in Fremont County when we rebuilt cabins following the flash flood of 2006. Tiny loved the camp and the students. She visited often to read her poetry to the students and staff and visit with students and her friends and former neighbors.”
Like Huston and Striegel, Puckette has been a key figure in the development of field camp — something he is excited to see continue under Spencer’s leadership.
“Field camp must evolve as geological science evolves,” Puckette said. “I am very enthused and supportive of the proposed camp improvements that can make the facility available for other disciplines outside of geoscience and extend the use of the camp into the spring and fall.”
Spencer said that taking over the field camp director role from Puckette was intimidating, as Puckette was recognized as one of the best field instructors in the country. However, Spencer intends to create his own legacy with the vision he has planned.
“I don’t think anyone can be the new Jim Puckette,” Spencer said. “So there’s pressure at times. Our alumni had Puckette as their field camp instructor 15, 20 years ago. There’s an expectation there that we’ll continue to run a quality field camp. But of course, it will be different. I’m making it my own.”
In his plan, Spencer will work to expand the marketing of field camp. He plans on introducing a few new concentrations to widen the pool of applicants.
“Going forward in the next three or four years, we’ll market ourselves not only as a geology field camp, but also a geophysics field camp and an environmental geoscience field camp,” Spencer said. “Running simultaneously in the same field areas or similar field areas, having everybody together, feeding them together, all within the same facilities will be really advantageous.
“With this, we can probably reach students that are environmental majors, environmental geoscience, environmental geology and engineering — fields where our students could use this field experience.”
The energy of field camp lies within the students, something both Spencer and Puckette agree on. They explained that the remote nature of the camp in Cañon City influences students to collaborate and create memories together.
“We want to see students having fun and making friends,” Spencer said. “Jim and I have talked a lot about keeping the spirit alive and living up to their expectations of field camp.”
Although Puckette is retired, he will still be present at OSU as an emeritus professor and mentor to the program.
“He’s not going anywhere, honestly,” Spencer said. “He’s passed the torch on, and we hope to have a great time out there for years to come."
Story by: Jade Dudley | CONNECT magazine