Many of you here on the list are not on Facebook. Thought I had better share the sad news that dear friend and mentor to many of us, Dick Pugh died this week. Dick was a wonderful guy, a science teacher, an educator to a world audience, a fireball expert, published author, a true mentor, and someone who anyone could approach to ask questions about meteorites. He was a country boy from Montana who lived his adult life in Oregon, teaching students, educating locals on native plants of Oregon, and replanting them in organized events. Dick was a walking, talking encyclopedia of the geologic history of the Northwest and over the years he recruited tens of thousands of meteorite hunters. Dick had a way of making difficult issues simple and putting things into layman’s terms so that understanding meteorites and hunting for them was easier to understand and get excited about. I remember the day like it was yesterday. I went into Portland, to the campus to meet with Dick for his lecture on meteorite identification and hunting for them. There on his desk was a collection of world-renowned dream specimens, from Henbury to Allende. I knew about meteorites and I had a couple, but this was my first encounter with a collection and its owner! I say it this way because I could not take my eyes off his collection of ‘eye candy’. This man infected me with a passion that has never faded. We had connected because I had seen a massive fireball driving home in mom’s 62 Volkswagen van the night of my 17th birthday on a cold, clear night in January. It took a month of searching before I was referred to the Northwest’s fireball expert. Dick asked me a list of questions over the phone about what I had witnessed. I could tell from the questions that this guy was taking what I had seen very seriously and that I had finally reached the right person. It was a little over a month later when Dick called to say, “well congratulations, your fireball was seen by 113 other witnesses!” Then he invited me down to the campus for his “two-bit lecture on meteorites and fireballs.” I’ll always remember what dick shared with me that day, he said “every year when the new classes start, I tell all my students, if you can predict the winning team for every Monday night football game for this coming season or you can find a new meteorite, you get an automatic A.” Two of his students went on to find new meteorites years after they graduated his class. Dick was the heart and soul of Cascadia Meteorite Laboratory. He left a Black Hole in our universe. He is up there right now throwing rocks at us! Rest well dear friend. ______________________________________________
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