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About the Crater Lake NP Oral
History Series
I know that the Mazama newts is
endemic. You talked at some length about the period when one
species separates from another.
That is right. In
the article there was discussed that particular thing,
towards the end of it.
Was that something that seemed to be
worthy subject to pursue later on?
No, I don’t think
so. It was something that was right there at hand and as far
as I was concerned, the end of the investigation. There is
an interesting sidebar to that. Don and I wanted to have the
Crater Lake newts looked over by a man who knew more about
amphibian taxonomy than we did. We also wanted a
collaborator for the paper. The individual that we picked
out was the logical choice from the standpoint of his
location. That was Bob Storm at Corvallis
(8). Don wrote to Bob and asked
him if he would be willing to collaborate with us and
examine the Crater Lake newts. In other words, to be our
amphibian authority on them. We asked him to be third author
on our paper. Do you know that we never heard from him at
all
(9)? It was on that basis,
then that we shipped the newts to the herpetologist at the
University of Kansas, Edward Taylor.
I wondered about that connection.
Well, Don had been
on the faculty at the University of Kansas. He took the job
there right after he got out of the Army. He went from there
to Washington State in Pullman, and was in contact with
Edward Taylor through his association with the University of
Kansas. It was through that contact that these newts were
then shipped to Taylor. I was leaving the park at that
point, so I could stop over in Lawrence and work with
Taylor. That’s exactly what I did, and Taylor looked them
over. Actually, he just sort of glanced at them. He didn’t
of over them very carefully at all, and by no means looked
at all of them. He saw only a few and then gave us his
advice on what to do with them.
Was that while you were still at the
University of Missouri?
I was just heading
for the University of Missouri.
You mentioned over the phone about
your appointment at the University of Oregon. How did Ralph
Huestis play a role in that?
Well, do you know
that Ralph Huestis played a very prominent role in my
getting the job here? He and his wife, Geraldine, visited
the park the first summer that I was there. He met me at
that time. He must have realized that old Jim Kezer was the
man for his department, so he offered me a job at the
University of Oregon which I had to turn down because I had
already signed a contract with the University of Missouri. I
told him that if another job opened up here I would
certainly be interested in applying for it. Sure enough it
did. Another job opened up and that was how I finally came
to the University of Oregon.
What year was that?
It was around
1954.
