I'm afraid I'd have to split my ticket down the middle if it came to a
vote...half for Gene and half for you, Harry. Gene "Supersheller" Everson
is perhaps the most devoted and dedicated (now, I didn't SAY "obsessive"!)
sheller I have ever known. Shells, shell cabinets, shell books and shell
trophies fill his basement, and shells (and mermaids) decorate every part
of his house. Rumor has it he even has a shell on the headboard of his bed.
He brought over Christmas goodies to Richard and me the other day; some
were pretty chocolate and peanut butter swirled candies made in a pecten
mold he bought!
He has a magnificent memory for the zillions of shells in his collection,
and an eye for the special and unusual, the large, the odd. He'd rather
compete in shell showing than eat chocolate, and that's saying a lot. He
has bought and traded a lot of his shells, but many of them are self
collected from almost every shelling hot spot on the globe.
He is a master at cleaning and beautifying a shell. Sorting shells for the
COA 1999 Auction next June in Louisville, I encountered a pecten with a
jingle shell attachment point...one of the most tenacious chunks of
extraneous matter that can be found on a shell. I got an immediate
explanation of how best to remove this eyesore. And he can do that for
about any attached foreign crud you can find.
He will also give his all for the shelling community. This year he has
volunteered both to host the annual COA Midyear Board Meeting and to be
convention chairman for the first COA convention without a host club. He
has already done a vast amount of work toward this convention, which is
shaping up to be both innovative and inexpensive...two qualities he insists
on. Gene is also CHEAP! (And he is not on the internet, darn it, so I can
get away with saying stuff like that about him!) He likes to save his money
for his shells.
But Harry's willingness and ability to both help the novice and contribute
on the expert level are legendary. Yes, as he says, there are many
professionals who contribute lots more than he does, but that is their
profession, while Harry is an amateur. His "doctor" title represents the
medical, not the malacological.
Harry's own knowledge is vast, and his interests range far beyond the
marine cones and cowries and pectens and murex. He seems to know a lot
about everything. He is an endlessly fascinated student of the land and
freshwater realms, And his own collection, while not occupying so large a
space as Gene's due to the small size of many of his specimens, is still
well along toward Harry's goal of a million specimens. He is both an
armchair collector and an active self-collector. He is a contributor to
museums and institutions. He is an author of a book on the species of NE
Florida, soon to be published. (What a labor of love that is...to lead a
Jacksonville Shell Club project of many years and see it through to
completion!)
Much more of this and we'll lose him to embarrassment, but let me throw
another name in the hat: Emilio Garcia. He too is a world traveler in
pursuit of shells. He is a great trip leader, a finder par excellence, a
student of all things molluscan, though he has a fondness for shells
marine, and does have his favorite families. He is not an exhibitor,
liking better to compare and study. He is a sharing and contributing member
of the community, writing frequent articles and a few scientific papers,
and keeping track of and authoring the new species (marine) section of the
Conch-Net website. He speaks, judges shows, travels and otherwise infects
shellers with his own enthusiasm. His generosity is legendary. Well, you
get the idea.
Three very different men, with different approaches and different
interests, yet they make up a core of shell collecting that buoys the rest
of us. And there are other US shellers who should be mentioned in this
context. (I don't pretend to know the non-U.S. shellers well enough to
discuss their strengths.) Tucker, of course! And Walter Sage, gone off
with Tucker to that big shell show in the sky, but a major contributor
whose name will be long remembered. And there are the Vokes. I won't even
attempt to mention all the amateur greats with which West Coast shelling
abounds. And the Hawaiian legends like Ellis Cross and Stu Lillico and and
and. I won't mention dealers, though there are some I would like to
"immortalize" here for their knowledge, their generosity and benificence.
I really must not continue to mention the people I consider greats...I'm
sure to omit one I should name. This persuasion could not be the great
hobby it is without many "supershellers." It seems it takes all kinds.
Forgive me, all you great shellers whose names I haven't mentioned. Like
Bret Raines and his great Mollusc Net. No sheller has worked harder to make
shelling on the web great! And what a super describer of new species Bret
is...so observant and methodical and articulate!...
While we're at it, I'd like to throw in another qualification for the title
we're bandying about: conservation activism AND defense of our hobby. Here
I should mention Tucker, and another contributor, Kim Hutsell...whoa!
Here I go again! Enough.
'Night all,
Lynn Scheu
Louisville, KY
Home of the 1999 COA Convention
"Louisville, Your Kind of Place!"
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