Dr. Jack Harvey is a retired sports medicine physician whose interest in astronomy was sparked by the gift of a small telescope from his wife Gina. Like the purchase of “the table napkins that caused the entire house remodel”, Jack and Gina soon built an observatory with a 14.5 inch RCOS telescope on their Coyote Rim Ranch near Fort Collins. And when that wasn’t enough, they joined a cooperative with three other astronomers and created the Stars Shadows Remote Observatory (SSRO) in New Mexico. That led to work with the astronomers at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill on the Cerro Tololo Inter-America Observatory (CTIO) in Chile, and work with UNC as visiting scholar.

Jack Harvey was born and raised in Cheyenne, Wyoming. He attended high school at the New Mexico Military Institute, and received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. from Sam Houston State University and his medical degree from University of Texas Medical School at San Antonio. After moving to Fort Collins he became a partner in the Orthopedic Center of the Rockies. During his sports medicine career, he was team physician for USA Wrestling, Colorado State University, the Denver Broncos and the Coors International Bicycle Classic. He also created the Rodeo Sports Medicine program at the OCR, where we would presume they massage the sore necks of all those steers. Besides astronomy, his interests include hiking, kayaking and “fine whisky”, according to his website.

He’s given up rock climbing and bull riding, for fairly obvious reasons.

The Board also received applications for membership from two additional candidates, Peder Halseide and George Frysinger. These two candidates have yet to meet with the representative of the Membership Committee, a requirement before they can be approved for membership. The Board also approved the resignation of Paul Solko, who has moved to Berthoud due to his job. Leave of Absences were approved for Allen Kirkpatrick and P. K. Vedanthan. And as usual the Board reviewed the budget, and discussed many other things like membership, fundraising, attendance, etc. Club members are always welcome at board meetings. Attendance at a Board meeting is also one of the requirements of getting a blue badge.

Tyler plans on attending Lewis and Clark University in Oregon and major in International Relations. Tyler's mother, father and school counselor, Susan Takahashi attended our meeting. Tyler thanked the club for the honor.

Harry Taylor

Bob Keiss

Bob noted that World War II had seen extensive use of such animal carriers, especially by the Japanese and Germans (who had more than 800,000 in service). In the 1950's, Fort Carson used horses for its color guard and still had 400 trained mules. Bob's numerous pictures of the uniforms of the time and the mules on parade were fascinating.

While assigned to Fort Carson, Bob and his men would often go up to Camp Hale to train in what he called "pre-Green Beret tactics and survival." He showed some chilling pictures of life in the winter at Camp Hale where they lived in fabric 10-man quonset huts with gas heaters. The men spent a lot of time keeping warm in sleeping bags and had to eat their rations rapidly before they froze. Then Bob reveled that because his wife was teaching in Leadville, he was able to stay with her in an apartment.

He ended his presentation with pictures of returning to Fort Carson in the spring and described their march up to Cheyenne to participate in Frontier Days. They returned in September and were getting ready to go back to Camp Hale when their unit was abruptly done away with. The story that the men heard was that an undersecretary of the Army had come out from a visit and had asked some senior officers what all the mules were doing there and had been told that no one knew why. The 4th Field Artillery Battalion was officially deactivated on December 7th, 1957, and all of the mules were sent to destinations around the country, mainly to the US Forest Service and even one to West Point as a mascot.

Warren and Genny Garst Wildlife Collection at CSU Click here or on the "tiger."

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Copyright © by Lannie Boyd and Alan Ashbaugh for the Rotary Club of Fort Collins, Colorado, October 28, 2009