1

__________________________________________________________________ TTHHEE CCAALLIIFFOORRNNIIAA AACCOORRNN RREEPPOORRTT

Selfie/Where’s Kim Jong-un? edition

Volume 18 The Official Newsletter of the California Acorn Survey 20 October 2014 Walt Koenig and Jean Knops, co-directors

Editor: Walt Koenig _________________________________________________________________________ SUMMER PARTY TIME As has become traditional, summer—defined as the time in between when I return to Ithaca from California after the breeding season and when I go back to California from Ithaca for the acorn survey—consisted of a host of activities celebrating the forthcoming acorn-counting season. First was the long-anticipated visit by our good friends Ben and Cate, who came all the way from Carmel Valley just to check out what happened to the concrete acorns they lent us when we moved here and to see if there was any truth to the story we’d been feeding them that we have jobs here. I’m not sure we convinced them otherwise on the latter point, but at least the concrete acorns are still on our front steps and we did do our best to show off the local sights, which are indeed lovely for those of you for whom a vacation in the Finger Lakes has never even crossed your mind. In the end, the most impressive show was the fireflies at dusk from our back deck, an exhibition that almost made up for everything else in the area being closed, apparently, we eventually concluded, in honor of their visit. The fireflies almost make up for the winters, and are certainly one of the wonders of nature, especially if you’re entomologically inclined, which, as it happens, is a direction the youngest member of the Family Unit appears to be headed. ê

All bee’d out and ready to partay: Janis, me, and Phoebs model the Dyce Lab beekeeping hats at the end-of-summer bash that Phoebe (who worked there for Michael, one of our more bizarre and favorite NB&B grad students in costume behind the truck) and her coworkers hosted in August before the semester started. Not just one, but TWO honeys!

Next up was the ISBE meeting in New York City. If you don’t know what ISBE stands for, tough. (If you Google it, the first entry you’ll get is the “Illinois State Board of Education.” Spoiler alert: that’s not it. You get to guess between the next several entries, which include the “International Society for Business Education” and the “International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.”) Two things stood out at the meeting. First was the attendance of Phoebe, who has transferred to Cornell as—drum roll please!—an entomology major interested in the Standard Bible Enyclopedia! No wait, that’s not right—I meant in behavioral ecology, which is, after all, the vocation of the rest of the family, with the exception of Dale, who continues to pursue a career in the Dark Arts of topology and combinatorics.

The Phoebster at the ISBE meeting in New York City having the time of her life talking with Bruce Lyon, an old friend from UC Santa Cruz, and Natasha, Eric’s Ph.D. student studying dispersal strategies of acorn woodpeckers at Hastings. They’re no doubt busy discussing the stunning plenary on preening behavior just given by the surprise celebrity speaker mingling in the background. In any case, it’s great fun having Phoebe get involved in the kind of esoterica that both her parents have wallowed in for the majority of their careers. Indeed, it portended what has thus far been a wonderfully enjoyable fall having her at Cornell where we irregularly run into her on campus. The latter is in fact more than occasional, since Phoebe is, among other things, taking my Advanced Acorn Studies course. Talk about a once-in-a-lifetime

2

opportunity to spend several hours a week lecturing one’s progeny with total impunity! The second outstanding feature of the ISBE meeting, besides the symposia on “Business Education and Acorn Counting” and “The Acorn’s Role in the New Testament,” was the chance to visit with our friends Marty and Andy. We spent many a fine time with these guys in the old days when our kids were small and it was great exploring New York with them. I look forward to visiting them in Halifax where I intend to start their kitchen remodel, even though, as is traditional, I only plan on having time to complete the first step of tearing out the back wall of their old kitchen.

A selfie with Janis, Marty, and Andy playing hooky in Times Square during the ISBE meeeting. Meanwhile, a missing persons announcement blazes from the jumbotron on the right. Back from The Big Apple, we did our best to relax and celebrate our 27th wedding anniversary before heading off for a long weekend in LA where Bill Carmen and Karen Nardi’s son Nick was preparing to celebrate his 0th anniversary. Bill, as you know, is the official drinks coordinator and Karen the legal counsel of the California Acorn Survey. Meanwhile, Nick participated in the 2007 survey and is working his way up to being the official documentarian of the entire enterprise. The wedding was fabulous; the Yaqui Acorn Dancers took everyone by surprise, as did the gourmet acorn casserole. Good work, guys! After the wedding, we did some antique shopping, took my stepfather Keith out to lunch, and spent an evening with our friends Brad and Louise in the new house they recently purchased, having apparently decided that the LA real estate market had finally reached its peak. Then it was back to Ithaca, in time (amost, anyway) for my birthday!

Nick Carmen and Marianne’s wedding in Malibu on 14 August. We weren’t sure about the guy performing the ceremony, but otherwise it was an awesome event. The Lebanese acorn goulash was especially amazing! In honor of both that sacred event and the birthday of our friend Steve, both of which were in August, Natalia, Steve’s SO, arranged for us to have dinner at Suzanne Fine Regional Cuisine (9013 New York 414, Lodi) overlooking Seneca Lake. The dinner—we got the five course farm-to-table tasting menu—was excellent, and the entire evening was quite lovely. We were particularly impressed by the street sign (“JANIS LA”) Steve and Natalia picked up at the Bouckville Antique Fair the prior weekend and gave to Janis for my birthday. I can only assume that the “Janis Lane” signs were being sold off because the street was renamed “Acorn Lane”. In any case, while I’m off the subject, our Investigative Reporting Team was recently shocked to learn that no state has “acorns” as the official state nut, a distinction conferred on almonds (California), pecans (Alabama and Texas), and hazelnuts (Oregon). Clearly this is an oversight that the California Acorn Survey lobbying department will need to work on rectifying in the near future.

Besides dinner, Steve and I celebrated our birthdays by attending the roller derby bout between the Ithaca BlueStockings and the Rideau Valley Sirens. Here’s a selfie commemorating the event taken while the referees debate one of the more contentious calls in the background.

3

Speaking of birthdays, we closed out the summer by travelling to Ron Mumme and Sarah Sargent’s house in Meadville, PA, for Ron’s 60th birthday party. Ron, of course, is one of the Founding Fathers of the California Acorn Survey, having had the dubious distinction of going out with me back on that fateful day in October 1980 to count the first trees at Hastings. Since then, Ron has gone through extensive counseling and hopes to get out of rehab in just a few more years. Keep up the good work, Ron!

Ron at his 60th birthday bash in Meadville near the end of August, nostagically trying to hold back the tears as he brings out the prized photo of his long-lost twin brother, Kim Jong Mumme. Separated since birth, Ron still dreams of a reunion. Good luck, Ron! I’ll be sure to let you know if I see him.

ACORNS ARE AWESOME DEPARTMENT

The count season was delayed this year not only because of the class I’m teaching, but also so Jean could be home for his daughter Tilly’s birthday—payback for all those years when I insisted on being at Hastings for Phoebe’s birthday on 8 September (The only year I missed was 1999—the year when a big lightening storm started the Kirk Complex fire that burned 86,700 acres nearby.) As a result, it wasn’t until 17 Sept. that Jean and I flew to SFO for the start of the survey. For once, everything was on time and worked; Jean and I met around noon at SFO and drove to Jasper Ridge where we met Bill and Mario. Mario, having overindulged in acorn cider, immediately drove back to Hastings, but the rest of us set to work and counted acorns, everything going well until my cutting-edge iButton reader—a Palm Pilot i705—stopped working, apparently in sympathy for protests going on in Hong Kong (where all those Palm Pilots came from, perhaps?). Fortunately, Palm Pilots are inexplicably cheap these days on eBay; I currently have four and may scarf up a few more for next year.

Bill in front of one of the

larger-than-life sculptures at the 2014 Burning Man

Festival, where he goes every year to fine-tune his

gin-and-tonic mixing skills in anticipation of the acorn survey. Photo mostly by Karen Nardi. The other irregularity

was picking up son Dale at the San Jose train station, which I did in the minivan while Bill and Jean toured the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz, near where we have a tanoak site. All went smoothly and we succeeded in reuniting for the celebratory Arrival Day dinner at the Noodle Bar in Seaside well before its 8 pm closing time. The next three days were taken up with the Hastings count (year 35!), going through the stack of mail in my office, and hosting a potluck for the fall interns, which otherwise get shortchanged in the social activites department. Finally, on Sunday morning, Jean and I piled into the red minivan and headed south for Day 1 of the survey. Janis suggested that it would be good to have at least one genuinely nice photo in this thing and who better to showcase than our neighbors Ben and Cate, fresh from their East Coast visit? Ben’s a neverending inspiration for how to have fun in retirement, while Cate is the quintessential hostess, constantly putting Martha Stewart to shame. Here they are at the dinner they made for Dale and me during the Hastings acorn survey. Thanks guys, and please don’t ever leave the upper valley!

4

This year’s statewide circuit was, like every one of our surveys before it, totally awesome! A small sampling: “Ready? OK; go. Stop. Anything? No? OK. Next tree is that one. Yes, a douglasii. Go. Stop. Nothing? Alright; got it. The lobata is next. Go.” And so on. For days. Sounds amazing, right? Maybe you had to be there. Perhaps it’s just as well you weren’t. And yes, we did just see the Lego Movie. Why do you ask? One highlight was Liebre Mountain, where after lunch in Gorman we met Tasha Hernandez, the Natural Resource Manager for Los Angeles National Forest, who escorted us up to the black oak site on top of the mountain. As you may recall, this is the site, closed in 2013, that Kyle and I managed to count last year using drones borrowed from nearby Edwards Airforce Base. This year, thanks to a nice USFS guy with the unlikely name of Evalds (Evy) Rimbenieks, I got a real live permit, with the proviso that we be chaperoned by Tasha, whose professional goal is apparently to count acorns when she grows up. In any case, she was great fun and made a thoroughly enjoyable addition to the day’s festivities.

Yet another selfie with Jean and Tasha as the moon rises over Liebre Mountain on the afternoon of 23 September. (I never noticed that creepy man-in-the-moon before…) The black oaks there are some of the most productive anywhere in the state, making it a site we work hard to get to every year, despite access having become something of a logistic nightmare. A second highlight was staying with our friends Brad and Louise. As you may recall, Brad (or, as I prefer to call him, ‘H’), moved from Davis to LA a couple of years ago in order to pursue his goal of becoming a lizard wrangler in Hollywood, a job that’s become quite lucretive since the success of the most recent Godzilla movies. In the meantime, he has temporarily kept his day job at UCLA where he runs the La Kretz Center for Advanced Acorn Studies. As mentioned earlier, Brad and Louise have

recently bought into the burgeoning LA real estate market and, for the nth consecutive year, were generous enough to host us as we breezed by their house, in this case on the way south to Riverside and San Diego Counties.

It’s always fun staying with H and Louise, who have been staunch friends of the California Acorn Survey since before it was born. Here H dreams about the old days back when he had hair as well as his future training giant snakes for Hollywood while lounging in their Back 40 in West LA. Their new house, part of their fantasy of it still being the 1930s, is indeed lovely. And yes, next year I promise to have a photo of Louise instead. A third of the many, many awesome highlights of the survey (detailed in my forthcoming book entitled “Tree by Tree: Some Instructions on Acorn Counting and Life”) was the addition of a new site at Oak Grove Campground on the way to Cahuila Casino to replace the coast live oaks in the San Jacintos that were badly burned last year and in any case located along an annoyingly busy stretch of Hwy 243 heading down the mountain to Banning. With the new site, the survey now encompasses 1,106 trees of nine species (eight Quercus and Lithocarpus) divided among 52 populations. Of these, 55 trees have died during the course of the study. Although this includes a good number that were burned or apparently cut (presumably events they can’t prepare for), the hope is that eventually all our trees will die, thus allowing us to at long last declare “Mission Accomplished!” and end the survey with a modicum of dignity—something that is typically in short supply during the survey. Alternatively, we’re hoping to have enough expired trees to test the “terminal investment” hypothesis that when trees begin to die they differentially invest in current reproduction and have unexpectedly large acorn crops. I personally put this hypothesis up there with the “big acorn crops predict a wet winter” hypothesis (no they do not; as I like to say: if acorns predicted the future, I’d be a rich man today), but that, of course, doesn’t mean it’s not worth testing and writing a paper about (see Can. J. For. Res. 40: 2115-2122 [2010]).

5

The Editor posing next to one of the Joshua trees on our way to Tehachapi pass on Day 4. Some kind of government survey was apparently taking place nearby (who are those guys, anyway?) but otherwise it’s a charmingly deserted (not to mention deserted) part of California. Anyone out there up for a Joshua tree seed survey?

Hightlights of Day 5 included inquiring about the health of Kathy Purcell’s long-time imaginary partner at the San Joaquin Experiment Station and hiking to the Merced Grove of big trees in Yosemite, where we had a nice conversation with Ranger Erica Tucker about acorns. Erica went on to win a year’s subscription to The California Acorn Report by mentioning that she was “especially interested in acorn woodpeckers.” Little did she know she was talking to the current president of the Tompkins County Acorn Woodpecker Appreciation Society!

A selfie of Jean taking a selfie in Yosemite Valley on Day 5. We dedicate this photo to Maria, who came all the way from Spain and accompanied us on the survey in 2013 only to have the Valley so smoked up from the Rim Fire that she was unable to see any of the sights, including Half Dome (in the background). With so many other highlights from which to choose, it’s hard to know which to mention. Dinner on Day 6 with Eric Knapp, an old acorn colleague who now works for the USFS, and his wife Stacey helped improve the usual dreary Redding culinary experience. A side trip to Lassen Park on Day 7 was

awesome as well. It was too cold to contemplate climbing Mt. Lassen but we did hike to Bumpass Hell and tentatively put a hike up Brokeoff Mountain on the agenda for 2015. Jean after overindulging on the Datura flowers growing alongside South Fork Road in Three Rivers, here with a rare hiker in the background. I tried to talk him out of smoking those things, but admit that Jean was in a distinctly mellower mood the next couple of days. They’re certainly better than the cheap cigars he smoked in the old days.

Lassen Park seems as good an excuse as any for the Strolling Down Memory Lane Department. Here’s Phoebe and Janis on our trip there in 1996. They sure are totally awesomely adorable, aren’t they?

Bill and Jean toast the end of what best any of us can remember is year 21 of the statewide survey. Hopefully someone is keeping track. Oh, right. That would be me.

6

AND THE VERDICT IS… For those of you who have gotten this far thinking you might learn something about the acorn crop, this clearly must be your first time reading The California Acorn Report. All is not lost, however. Here you go: In general, it’s a medium-to-poor acorn year. Is this related to the current lack of rainfall in California? Perhaps. Then again, at least a couple of species (valley and blue oaks) usually do better in dry years, so it’s hardly a given that a dry year will be followed by a poor acorn crop. If only someone were studying this stuff! Oh wait; that would be me again…. With 52 populations of nine species, don’t expect a simple answer. In general, however, there are a lot more populations falling into the “one of the worst years” category than “one of the better years” category. This is particularly true for the live oaks; it is, for example, either the worst or next-to-worst year ever for coast live oaks at Pozo, Sedgwick, and Switzer’s, for canyon live oaks at Hastings, Switzer’s, and Tower House, and for interior live oaks at San Joaquin Experiment Station. Blue oaks are generally fair to poor. It’s even a fairly poor year for tanoaks, being the next-to-worst year on San Marcos Pass and the worst year so far in Santa Cruz, although in a bad tanoak year the trees still have relatively a lot of acorns (mean of 8.8 per 30-sec count on San Marcos Pass; 26.1 in Santa Cruz), in stark contrast to the Quercus species. If you’re a valley oak fan, however, the news is not that bad: it’s a reasonably good year for valley oaks at Sedgwick, Sierra Foothills, and Dye Creek. It was also a decent year for Oregon oaks in Trinity County and for California black oaks on Palomar Mountain. Nonetheless, none of the 52 populations made it into the “one of the top 5 years” category, whereas 16 (31%) were in the “bottom 5 years” group. All in all, not an acorn year to write home about, much less craft an entire newsletter around. In total, we counted 9,262 acorns (8.7 per 30-sec count). This does not make it the worst year ever, which was 2003 (6,572, or 6.5 per count), at least since the total number of trees we count more or less plateaued, but it is the worst year overall since 2003, and is way down from 2012 (18,420 acorns; 17.1 per tree) and 2013 (19,687 acorns; 18.3 per tree). Is the world, as we have long suspected, going to hell in an acorn basket? Probably not; after all, even small acorn baskets are hard to find. There’s also always next year. Stay tuned. We’ll be back.

It may not be a particularly good acorn year, but the buckeyes sure seemed to be doing fine. Here’s Jean checking out one of the many trees loaded with nuts at Tower House in Shasta County. Too bad nobody is paying any attention to them, unless I’ve overlooked someone’s California Buckeye Survey. My recommendation—for those of you wasting your time on those wimpy samaras [that would be you, Mick] is get with the program and start counting buckeye seeds!

Although the acorn crop was generally below average, it wasn’t terrible and probably wasn’t significantly impacted by the drought which, as I like to point out, has been going on for a few thousand years anyway. It did, however, apparently drive several of our trees, whose leaves were entirely or nearly entirely brown, to the brink of suicide. Whether they recover or not remains to be seen. Here’s one at Dye Creek that looked very, very sad.

Meanwhile, while we were on our way to Pozo Sept. 21st, Janis was in New York City with 400,000 or so other people counting acorns in Central Park. That didn’t take all day, so when they were done they had the fabulous idea of marching down Sixth Ave. to

protest government

inaction on climate change.

Quick thinking, guys!

7

THE TACOPALOOZA/RESTAURANT REVIEW As most of you are probably aware, the California Acorn Survey is a thinly-disguised excuse for the Editor to spend a couple of weeks in California each fall eating tacos—a nutritional commodity that is in woefully short supply in upstate New York—as well as a few other cuisines. In contrast to 2013, however, this year’s dining was on the hit-and-miss side. We started with a sure hit on Arrival Day with the Noodle Bar (1944 Fremont Blvd., Seaside), an establishment favored for its old world ambiance and fabulous Vietnamese food. With a total of 13 bar seats and no tables, we were lucky that all four of us managed to squeeze in. Rating: 4 spring rolls.

One last selfie at the Noodle Bar on Arrival Day. Jean and Bill are in the back trying to avoid the creepy guy; meanwhile Dale—who I’d strong-armed into coming to see me since he was going to be off visiting his Aunt Laurie when we passed near Davis later on in the survey—is in front. The food was, as usual, excellent and made a great start for the survey. Next was a lovely dinner Chez Ben & Cate. With Dale around for the day, we had a wonderful evening enjoying the perfect Carmel Valley weather while catching up on their travels since they visited us in Ithaca in late July. Thanks, as always, guys! But back to tacos, or at least Mexican fare. Day 2 of the survey found us at Liebre Mountain, where we had lunch at El Grullense (49713 Gorman Post Rd., Gorman) before meeting Tasha and going up Liebre Mountain. El Grullense is at this point not only very good but also an old staple. Once again we ordered full lunch plates, with me getting the chiles rellenos and Jean the carnitas. As before, the faux Thomas Kincade paintings and disgusting bathrooms added that je ne sais quois of third-world charm that’s hard to beat. The only thing missing this year was Maria singing along with the music, as she did in 2013. El Grullense is surely the best Mexican restaurant in the area unless things have changed drastically down the

road in Fraser Park. We’re lucky it’s there; patronize it when you can. Rating: 3.5 tacos. Our streak abruptly ended on Day 4 on our way over Tahachapi Pass. Most of this route goes through Nowhere, California, and thus we were proud of ourselves for running across the promising-looking 20 Mule Café (26979 Twenty Mule Team Road) in Boron, a town distinguished by several superlatives including the world’s largest open-pit borax mine, one of the largest solar facilities in the U.S., and a really big yellow truck parked at a corner of town for no obvious reason other than to provide shade for escaping tourists. All these highlights failed to compensate for the bad Mexican food. The availability of only “ground beef and chicken” tacos probably should have sent us looking elsewhere; what we got were largely inedible Americanized taco-like sandwiches served in hot-dog-shaped paper baskets. Rating: 1 taco.

After 20 Mule Café I became leary of random Mexican restaurants in unlikely localities, which prompted me to skip Serrano’s Mexican Restaurant (40869 Sierra Drive, Three Rivers) later that evening. This turned out to be a good choice; Jean’s taco was, by all reports, terrible. Are there really no good restaurants in Three Rivers? Suggestions are welcome; don’t forget the (purely nominal) $99 processing fee (bitcoin now accepted!). Rating: 0.5 tacos. Having failed to talk Jean into trying something new for lunch, we once again went to The Ahwahnee (1 Ahwahnee Drive, Yosemite Valley) for lunch on Day 5. This is the fourth or fifth time we’ve had lunch there, and the best I can say is that it’s consistent in its mediocrity. Jean got the Southwestern chicken salad and I got the BBQ pork potato canoe appetizers that were potato skins on par with what one would get at TGIF. That’s not actually so bad; in fact, what we eventually realized is that lunch there is fine as long as one thinks of it as a TGIF with a fabulous view and incredible dining room. The only downside is if you get saddled with one of the more pompous waiters, who need to come to grips with the fact that the food just isn’t that great. Rating: 2 acorns. Our next attempt at Mexican food was La Fuente (9631 E. Stockton Blvd, Elk Grove) south of Sacramento. With every indication of another looming disaster, I left Jean there to have dinner while I got gas and picked up a quick In-N-Out Burger. Jean’s meal, however, apparently wasn’t

8

terrible. Apparently the chicken salad he ordered was “fresh and the chicken grilled perfectly—better than the Ahwahnee; it just wasn’t ‘Mexican’.” Rating: 2 acorns. After La Fuente things improved, first with Johnny’s Boys [sic] Taco Truck (2185 Solano Ave., Corning), parked across from the Olive Pit, and then with Burgers My Way (13600 Mountain House Rd., Hopland), which we went to only because our usual lunch stop, the taco truck at the corner of Hwys 101 and 175, was nowhere to be found. I was again skeptical, especially after ordering a carne asada taco and having the lady at the window ask if I meant ground beef, but the tacos themselves turned out to be quite good. Rating: 3 awesome tacos (for both). Last but not least is Zippy’s Korean Barbeque (1750 Pleasant St., Redding). I can’t claim that it was the cheeriest or most charming place we ate at this year, but the meal—prepared by the Korean couple who also run the Chevron gas station in which it’s located—was better than a lot of the other food we’ve had in Redding over the years. Next year I’ve definitely got to try the “acorn noodle soup.” Rating: 3 Bibimbaps (whatever they are).

THE PUBLISH OR PERISH DEPARTMENT Contrary to popular opinion, not to mention all available evidence, we are not totally brain dead. Yet. I think. In any case, the California Acorn Survey team did publish several papers last year, including one describing the environmental correlates of acorn production from our way-too-many years counting acorns at Cedar Creek in Minnesota (Pop. Ecol. 56: 63-71) and a paper investigating the odd habit of serotiny in some California trees (particularly coast live oaks, but also, oddly enough, an occasional valley oak), by which they hold onto their acorns through the winter and even into the next spring (Madroño 61: 151-158). In case that’s not enough to get you to hesitate pulling the plug, we also have two papers in Ecology (in press, anyway), one by Ian (currently reliving his childhood in Illinois) presenting the results of his experiment testing pollen limitation, and the other detailing the hypothesis that within-population variance in phenology driven by differences in microclimatic variation in temperature correlated with overall spring conditions drives variability in pollination, fertilization success, and ultimately the acorn crop. And yes, I did manage to get that all into a single sentence. Do I get a prize?

End of an Era: to those of you familiar with the Ithaca region, it is with a heavy heart that I report the closing of the Rongovian Embassy. The Rongovians, known for their upbeat music and funny military uniforms, are being deported as we speak, although there are rumors that they may attempt a comeback, so with luck their absence will only be temporary. Here Natalia, Janis, and Steve reminisce about fun times at The Rongo after our dinner on 17 August while a few of the remaining Rongovians enjoy their last days in the background.

WRAP-UP AND FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE

And that would be it for the 2014 California Acorn Report. We gratefully acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation, which continues to be the awesomest science foundation ever! Our editorial offices remain:

Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Road Ithaca, NY 14850 and Hastings Reservation, 38601 E.

Carmel Valley Rd., Carmel Valley, CA 93924 (wdk4@cornell.edu)

and School of Biol. Sciences, Univ. of Nebraska, 348 Manter

Hall, Lincoln, NE 68588 (jknops2@unl.edu)

The California Acorn Survey, founded in 1980, is an international conspiracy dedicated to the understanding

of acorn production by oaks in California and the appreciation of fine taquerias everywhere.

Names and years of indentured servitude include

Ron Mumme, Meadville, PA (1980-83) Mark Stanback, Davidson, NC (1989-90, 1992) Elizabeth Ross-Hooge, Mt. McKinley, AK (1991) Jay McEntee, Tucson, AZ (2005) Xiaoan Zuo & Wenjin Li, Lanzhou, China (2010) Eric Walters, Norfolk, VA (2006-2010) Maria Dolores Carbonero Muñoz, Pozoblanco, Spain (2013) Ian Pearse, Champaign, IL (2012-2013) Bill Carmen, Mill Valley, CA (1981-88, 90-92, 94-98, 2000-14) Jean Knops, Lincoln, NE (1993-2011, 2013-2014) Walt Koenig, Ithaca, NY/Jamesburg, CA (1980, 1984-2014)

We also wish to thank our dedicated staff:

Janis Dickinson (Chief Content Officer & Chair of Risk Management) Tamara Kaup (Operations Officer, Nebraska Division) Karen Nardi (General Counsel & Director, Black Rock City Division) Vince Voegeli (Commander-in-chief, Hastings Central) Mario Pesendorfer (Chief Slave) Kyle Funk (Intern, Special Operations) Dale Koenig (Chief Topological Knot Specialist) Phoebe Koenig (Beekeeping Intern)