WEBB Magazine excerpt: Webb Today Alf Museum at Webb

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ALF

News from the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology at The Webb Schools

museum at webb

L. Collection space before renovation; stacks of immobile storage cabinets were bolted to floor. R. Compactor rails were installed before concrete was poured in the empty collection room.

World Class Collections Make a World Class Museum For decades, the Alf Museum has hosted stellar exhibits, students, staff, lab spaces, and fossils—yet, the collections storage space for priceless documents of past life did not match our aspirations to be a truly world class facility. The fossil collection is the heart of our museum. Cabinets and shelves were bursting at the seams with specimens, limiting the museum’s ability to collect new fossils

L. First carriage installed on rails that would soon house a double row of cabinets (those in foreground were mounted on this carriage). R. Collection space after installation of compactor system; double rows of cabinets now move laterally on rails and storage capacity increased 60 percent.

and safely house historical ones. We needed additional space, and we needed it soon! Constructing a new building or expanding into existing rooms wasn’t an option. Fortunately, storage technology offered a creative solution.

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LIFE TRUSTEE

Hugh Rose On the 4th of July, the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology lost one of its great leaders and supporters, Hugh Rose. A very successful business executive, Hugh and his wife Mary amassed a spectacular collection of fossils and taught paleontology out of their Illinois home decades ago. In the 1970s, Hugh was asked to assess the Alf Museum’s collections and ended up becoming a founding member of the Museum’s Board of Trustees, and enrolling his son Matthew ’82 in Webb School of California.

Hugh and Mary recognized the largely untapped educational and research potential of the museum and donated most of their fossil collection in 1985, and also established the Hugh & Mary Rose Endowed Fund to provide a permanent revenue source for the museum. Also, Hugh was the creative force behind the museum’s Peccary Society Dinners and Peccary glasses, as well as the first Mongolia Peccary Trip.

Without Hugh’s foresight and pragmatism, the museum could not have experienced the tremendous growth it did over the last 25 years. As Board Chairman Larry Ashton ’70 recalls, “Hugh was a giant supporter of the Alf Museum in every sense of the word. It is largely because of Hugh’s efforts, at a time when the then fledgling museum was in question, that we have the museum today. Hugh rightfully earned his place as a Life Trustee. His passing is a big loss, but I’m glad that we have his daughter Mary Rose on our board to continue in the Rose tradition.”

Museum Director Don Lofgren also notes that “when I was new to Webb in the 1990s, I was able to gain a lot of confidence knowing that I could count on Hugh. A more enthusiastic, dedicated, and visionary leader is hard to imagine. I think the legacy of Hugh Rose will be felt far into the future as his infectious passion for paleontology was an inspiration to all.”

L-R. Wann Langston, Mary Rose, Hugh Rose and Don Lofgren at the Flaming Cliffs of Mongolia in 1995.

Webb seniors in Calgary, (l-r) J. Bibbens, A. Tarakji, B. Kong, K. Henry, P. Raus, E. Lee, A. Bi.

Staff & Students Present at Conference in Canada In August, seven Webb students, Collections Manager Gabe Santos, Webb science teacher/Museum Research Associate Tara Lepore, and Museum Director Don Lofgren attended the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) meeting in Calgary and participated in various workshops and technical sessions.

News from the Raymond M. Alf

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Museum of Paleontology at The Webb Schools

Students were coauthors on two research presentations: 1) “Mammalian biostratigraphy of high elevation Tertiary strata in the Gravelly Range of SW Montana,” by D. Lofgren, D. Hanneman, J, Bibbens ’18, B. Kong ’18, and A. Tarakji ’18; and 2) “A new azhdarchid pterosaur from the Kaiparowits Formation of southern Utah,” by N. Carroll, A. Farke, S. Chai ’17, and A. Oei ’18. By attending SVP, students were able to interact with paleontologists from all over the world. The paleontological research program at Webb continues to flourish, as 58 Webb students have now coauthored a paper published in a research journal. Of the total number of 34 papers that have appeared, 22 were published in the last five years. Only Webb provides the opportunity for high school students to do paleontological research and our Advanced Studies in Paleontology classes are always fully enrolled.

“Joe” to an adult dinosaur and human. Currently, Phillip is doing a first-ever artistic reconstruction of a long-running museum study of 60-million-year-old fossil vertebrates from California.

Phillip notes that “at a museum like the Alf, I have immediate access to a well-documented library of specimens as well as multiple paleontologists specializing in a variety of study areas.

These resources help ensure that the media I am creating is not only engaging, but accurate to current research.”

Wes Lachman (right) with museum director Don Lofgren in the renovated Rock Room.

Rock Room Upgrades Phillip Krzeminski, science illustrator intern.

Alf Museum Hosts Science Illustrator The fossils at the Alf Museum hold clues to long-vanished worlds; yet it can be difficult even for paleontologists to imagine what these worlds looked like. It takes an expert artist to resurrect a prehistoric environment and through internships, the museum gains an opportunity to collaborate with professional artists, while the artists gain professional experience in a museum setting. Thus, we are fortunate to host Phillip Krzeminski, from Cal State Monterey Bay, our second intern from that nationally renowned science illustration program. Phillip was a high school art teacher before transitioning into science illustration and he has collaborated with the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History on illustrations and sculptures for their ornithology hall.

Phillip’s first rendering at the Alf Museum featured a comparison of the internal skull anatomy of our baby dinosaur

Gear storage isn’t glamorous, but well-organized camping and cooking supplies ensure a successful start to any Peccary Trip. An Eagle Scout project by Wes Lachman (son of museum trustee Carl Lachman ’86) featured a major upgrade to shelving, cabinetry, and tables for “The Rock Room.” This space, adjacent to the fossil preparation laboratory, has long served as storage for field and lab gear.

“This Eagle Project is my way of giving back to the Alf Museum and showing how much I appreciate all that I have learned from its staff and volunteers,” says Wes Lachman.

Wes, a student at Newport Harbor High School in Newport Beach, has attended numerous alumni and summer peccary trips with his father since he was four years old. He solicited funding for the project from local community organizations, and assembled the new storage items with his fellow members of Boy Scout Troop 90 of Newport Beach.

“Thanks to the efforts of Wes and his scout troop, our Rock Room is a much cleaner, and more organized and effective space from which to launch our field expeditions. We really appreciate his support of the museum—the Eagle Project makes a big difference,” says curator Andy Farke.