2007 President Richard ‘Bart’ Bartels

At the time of Bart Bartel’s second presidency, Bart and his partner Bev Vogt were at the center of the society. Bart had been leading GSOC geology seminars for a number of years and Bev was the society’s secretary. Not only that, but they were instrumental in finding good speakers for the Friday night lectures and helped plan many other activities in an effort to rebuild the society. Bev and Bart organized a field trip to the Klamath River with guest speakers Jad D’Allura and Bill Elliott from Southern Oregon University for the 2007 President’s Field Trip. The following year they led an excellent field trip that featured Christmas Valley and Summer Lake.

2007 - Richard Bartels

By 2011 Bev and Bart had reached an age where physical problems made it difficult to be so involved with the society. I remember with sadness the rock seminar they held in their back yard for their closest GSOC friends to announce their departure from society leadership. But they did lead one more field trip in 2013 to the recently discovered Crooked River and Wildcat Mountain Calderas near Prineville.

GSOC member Dave Olcott took over Bev and Bart’s role as major field trip planner for a number of years. His first GSOC field trip, the Waste, Wind and Water trip from 2009, was a great success and he subsequently planned several other trips with Steve Reidel and Terry Tolan that focused primarily on Columbia River Basalt and the Ice Age Floods.

One of my fondest memories of Bart was during the Waste, Wind and Water field trip. We got off the bus on top of the landfill at Arlington for a tour of the landfill. Bart immediately bent down and picked up a rock - a hand-sized chunk of beautiful green marble that had come from a countertop. We all laughed that Bart could find an interesting rock even in a garbage dump! I took a picture of Bart and his rock and this is the photo I put in this article, and I still have that rock in my collection.

-2024, Carol Hasenberg