A Final Look Over the Editor''s Shoulder

TOP TEN REASONS YOUMIGHT BE A GEOLOGIST: 1. You know what leaverite is.
A Final Look Over the Editor’s Shoulder They are the unsung heros of the Bulletin, because without their help, the Bulletin would appear a lot different.
When I got a call from Craig Dingler asking me to step in to replace an open Editor-elect position late in the year, my first thought was to turn it down as quickly as possible. But then I thought it could be interesting, already being familiar with the operations of the Bulletin through my several previous stints on the Board. It has given me the opportunity to read and write about many topics in the Editor’s column. Philosophy, mythology, hurricanes, Bulletin history, polar reversal, volcanoes, the Long Point Fault and the Yoakum Channel were the varied topics, as well as last month’s insight into the world of an independent geologist. It’s amazing what you can come up with when pressed by a deadline. The photo contest suffered a slow start, but then gained momentum, and was featured in last month’s issue.
What I found is that everyone appreciates the work that goes into the Bulletin, but they do not really know what goes on behind the scenes. First, there’s the deadline, six weeks prior to the first of the month the issue will be mailed. That’s April 15 for the June issue. Then there’s about a week or more of looking for all the things that didn’t come in by the deadline. After most of the things to be published are in, they get reviewed and briefly edited by the Editor. Then they go out to the Advisory Editors for proofreading.  There are three Advisory Editors, Elsa Kapitan-White, Jim Ragsdale and Charles Revilla. They are the unsung heros of the Bulletin, because without their help, the Bulletin would appear a lot different. They edit for consistency, readability, grammar, punctuation and more. And they read it at least twice, as you will see in a minute. Then they send back their edits to the Editor, who compiles the three versions into one proof copy for layout, adding his or her edits along the way. Then it is sent to our layout person, Lisa Krueger, for laying out the text and pictures into the form that you are reading right now. Lisa also provides consistency and historical knowledge from issue to issue. The entire Bulletin is then printed into an Acrobat PDF file and sent back to the Advisory Editors for yet another round of edits. They mark-up that copy, and the Editor again compiles three versions of edits into one. The layout is finalized, checking dates, page references, indexes and the calendar. It goes to the printer after it is prepared in the right format, different from the one you see, for the printer.
The Editor-elect is not sleeping during this process, either. He or she is tasked with projects like the calendar events, chasing down stray candidate or awardee photos, and generally helping the Editor with his (or her) tasks.
The advertising chairman, Lilly Hargrave, is responsible for selling and renewing advertising, getting the ad copy in and delivering it to the layout person prior to its delivery to the printer. The advertising is what keeps the Bulletin going, and pays for most if not all of the Bulletin expenses.
The Bulletin then goes from the printer to the mail house, where it is addressed and sent to the post office. And of course, a week or two before the mailing, the next deadline has passed, and the process is going again. Kind of like the instructions on your shampoo bottle, “lather, rinse, repeat.”
I have thoroughly enjoyed my term as Editor, and like all previous Editors, I wouldn’t do it again. But the team that persists on the Bulletin staff is who makes it really work, and I would like to urge everyone to thank those volunteers whenever you see them; the Advisory Editors—Elsa Kapitan-White, Jim Ragsdale and Charles Revilla, and the staff—Lilly Hargrave and Lisa Krueger, for their hard and unrelenting work that gets the Bulletin into your hands. And don’t forget the printer, Prime Source, whose flexibility when printing deadlines are missed or last minute changes have to be made has been invaluable. I would also like to thank all of the contributors to the Bulletin last year. Henry Wise and Arlin Howles faithfully provided the Government Update and were on time for every deadline. Also the organizers for each of the technical talks every month who have to be sure that the speakers provide abstracts, biographies and photos—no small task. And thanks to the authors that have submitted articles, memorials, book reviews and various HGS events that regularly post in the Bulletin.Without all of these, the Bulletin would not be what it is.
As I said earlier, it has been great fun editing the Bulletin this last year. As I prepare the final copy to go to the printer, the temptation is to pick up my red pen yet one more time for more edits. But then I decide to “leave ‘er right” there on the desk, and hand the Bulletin to my successor, Bill Rizer. Good luck, Bill.
* * * Leaverite (From Wikipedia) Leaverite is a slang term used by geologists, minerologists, and amateur rock collectors to identify a specimen in the field that may look interesting but is actually not. Rocks identified as such should be left in situ, as they are not worth the hassle of transportation or deserving of a place in a respectable collection.
The term leaverite derives from the phrase “leave it right there.” Specimens of even lesser interest are considered trashite. Top Ten Reasons You Might Be A Geologist: 10. If you have ever responded “yes” to the question, “What have you got in here, rocks?” 9. You have ever found yourself trying to explain to airport security that a rock hammer isn’t really a weapon. 8. Your rock garden is located inside your house. 7. You have taken a 15-passenger van over “roads” that are intended only for cattle. 6. You consider a “recent event” to be anything that has happened in the last hundred thousand years. 5. In an art museum, you spend more time looking at the walls than the paintings.* 4. Your photos include people only for scale and you have more pictures of your rock hammer and lens cap than of your family. 3. The souvenir collection from all your vacations consists mostly of rocks.* 2. You have been on a field trip that included scheduled stops at a highway road cut and a liquor store. 1. You know what leaverite is.* * Contributions to these reasons came from Richard Howe, Bill Rizer and Diane Yeager. Thanks, all.