I read over what I wrote yesterday about John O’Brien and Stan Dodson and I realized I had left out mentioning one of the lasting tributes to John O’Brien. I know I don’t remember the entire story but in the late 1970’s John and a few of his colleagues in the region thought it would be nice if the aquatic scientists in that part of the country would get together and share the doings in their labs. I don’t know the conversations but I do know that the birth of the Great Plains Limnologists had much to do with John’s encouragement and support. The group, with no officers and no central administration of any sort, has managed to hold a meeting every year for at least 30 years. Students have a chance to present papers to a friendly audience and perhaps a few libations are shared in the evenings. As a graduate student I had the good fortune to attend these meetings at Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. It was a treat for me to return to the meetings more than 20 years after my first attendance and see the group stronger than ever.
I spoke with John at the last such meeting before he left Kansas and I could tell that the parting was more than a little bittersweet. I think that it is remarkable that the loose network of colleagues in the loosely defined “Great Plains” could maintain the meetings for so many years. I think the persistence of the group is a tribute to his tenacity and his desire for everyone to share their knowledge, and perhaps a beer or two. I wish I had known John better.
Perhaps one of the readers of this could offer me and others a little more about John and Stanley. Although I hadn’t seen either in so many years, I miss them.
I am a recently graduated Master student from UTexas, Arlington, and I had the great joy of meeting John O’Brien up at Toolik Field Station, the Arctic LTER site in Summer 2006. While my advisor, fellow lab techs and grad students and I were dissecting plant tissues in the lab, John came in and told us wonderful stories from his adventures in Alaska. They were very entertaining; he definitely had a knack for telling stories! He lifted the mood in our small work area that evening. I’ve shared a few beers with John both at Toolik and at the planning meeting in Woods Hole, MA. My advisor, Dr. Laura Gough at UT Arlington, would like to get all the stories John told about Toolik and Alaska written down; it would make a fine addition to the tradition at Toolik, although it won’t be the same as coming from the man himself.