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News from the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology at The Webb Schools
museum at webb
Raymond Alf: A Life in Full (A New Biography Coming This Fall!) The Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology was named in honor of its founder Dr. Raymond Manfred Alf, a man who established a museum devoted to paleontology on a secondary school campus, one now nationally accredited and world-class in status.
Ray Alf hanging from overhead pipes during his biology class to illustrate the use of the opposable thumb.
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Ray Alf and Webb students pointing to a trackway found on a peccary trip to Arizona in 1950.
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aymond Alf had a life full of rich experiences. e was born to a hristian missionary family in hina and moved to the states, where he attended oane ollege ebras a . There, he became a nationally ran ed sprinter, who set a national record and narrowly missed ualifying for the American lympic Team . Alf came to southern alifornia to run for the os Angeles Athletic lub in and got a job teaching at a country boarding school called Webb. While here, Alf developed into a teacher whose methods were revolutionary for their time and that had a life long influence on his students. To Alf, teaching paleontology was more than just an academic subject. t was a call to action to be creative and thin deeply without constraint about the larger uestions in life, as each student was as ed to consider what they would do with their little moment of time, in relation to the vast universe. Also, he melded his classroom activities with fossil collecting expeditions called peccary trips. o other high school teacher in America too their students on a search for fossils on wee ends, school brea s, and summer vacations. Alf s loosely organi ed group of fossil enthusiasts was called the eccary Society. n the new aymond Alf useum was built to house and display the fossils found by the eccary Society, and the rest is history, as the museum Alf created is thriving today. The life of aymond Alf is such an ama ing story that it warrants a boo length treatment. Moment of Time: The Life of Raymond Alf and the History of the Peccary Society by on ofgren, with ennifer iu is nearing the final stages of production and should be available for distribution in the fall of .
The book is filled with interesting Alf facts, such as: • In 1926, he scored the fastest touchdown in the history of football when he fell on the ball in the end zone of the opposing team, after his Doane College team kicked off in the second quarter (thus, no time elapsed on the game clock….making it the “fastest”). • Before finding a job at Webb School in 1929, he was new to Los Angeles and “starving,” so he applied for a job to play the French horn in a band on cruises to Hawaii (he could also play trombone and piano). • He established a small natural history museum at Webb in the spring of 1936, six months before “The Peccary” was found, a discovery always thought to have inspired Alf to establish a museum at Webb. • He took all the undergraduate courses for the geology major and then completed a master’s degree in geology, all in less than one year at the University of Colorado in 1939. • The Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology was dedicated to him on November 3, 1968, in a ceremony on the front steps of the museum (the golden anniversary of the dedication will be celebrated on Alumni Weekend 2018). • He hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon 50 times, the last with the Class of 1970, who asked him to be their commencement speaker. • He received three honorary PhDs in the 1970s, from Lewis & Clark College, Claremont Graduate School, and Doane College.
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Thompson Webb, Robert Reynolds (president of the Webb Board) and Ray Alf in 1966, with Millard Sheet’s sketch of the new museum that would soon be built and dedicated to Alf.
Patrick Muffler ’54 pouring Ray Alf his morning coffee and Dick Lynas ’55 lighting his cigarette on the 1953 Summer Peccary Trip.
Alf passed away in at the age of , having lived of those years on the Webb campus, many of which were spent in a house built specifically for him in . ver former students and faculty were interviewed for the boo , as well as members of the Alf family. Their ay Alf stories and experiences are woven into the text of the boo to capture the essence of what he was li e. Also, the boo documents the “ eccary Experience,” the impact ay Alf had on his students in the classroom and on peccary trips, a powerful one as these quotes attest. Roger Millar ’61: ay enriched the lives of all he met. is passion for discovery was contagious, his charisma inimitable, his energy boundless, his integrity nonpareil a unique and unforgettable man who will forever remain in the
hearts of all his students. f one had to pic one truly pivotal, transformative experience in one s formative years, invariably it would be that of the peccary trips. Peter Plaut ’60: eccary trips were fun escapes to a di erent world with no classes, no deadlines . when loo bac , recogni e how meaningful those trips were in learning to be independent, responsible, in uisitive, and how important they were in answering ay Alf s challenge of what to do with your moment in time. Sam Zemurray ’61: ay Alf was the greatest teacher ever had .his real classroom was the great American West where he led young boys li e me on adventures of discovery. What we discovered were fossils, earth history, the beauty of our vast country, and many times ourselves. ay had an unbounded
News from the Raymond M. Alf
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Museum of Paleontology at The Webb Schools
A peccary trip group in Arizona pose before they prepared a slab of sandstone with trackways for removal in 1960. Front (kneeling) L to R: Bob Warford ’63, Bob Mixon ’63, Bob Baum ’61, Jim Hall ’59 Back (standing) L to R: Sam Zemurray ’61, David Procter ’63, Bill Schulze ’63, Dwight Ray Alf was captain of the Doane Col-
Morgan ’65, Ray Lindquist ’59, Thad Smith ’56
lege Track team and led them to two state championships.
intellect that could soar and inspire all around him. Through the study of fossils, he instilled in his students a profound reverence for life. Dale Boller ‘63: eccary trips bring personal engagement with roc s, mountains, sore muscles, a stac of dirty dishes, and the thrill of discovery and infinite reflection life serving experiences you ll never get in a boo or lecture. t s Experiential earning at its best, ay Alf and Webb School style. Mark Anton ’74: The eccary trips were the ultimate adventure for a young boy .ta ing the cue from the indomitable spirit of r. Alf. is life force was o the charts and has moved so many in purposeful directions.
inally, as with most great educators, ay Alf was an entertainer. e li ed to hang from the pipes in his classroom while lecturing about the opposable thumb in primates, or do chin ups while waiting for his students to fi nish a ui . n his peccary trips, he would ta e a raw egg and crac it on his bald head and then swallow the contents, or climb over a fence in a cattle pasture and taunt a bull to chase him. When a fossil was found, he would shout “ utay ” When students entered his classroom, they would often as him, “are we going to have a test today ” Alf s reply was that “every day is a test of a man s character.” ay Alf weaved honor and integrity into everything he did at Webb. As ard ameson said, “on the planet there are a lot of great men and women, but there are few giants. ay Alf was a giant.”