This summer, the Les Huston Geology Field Camp celebrated 75 years of providing hands-on experiences for aspiring geoscientists. Since its establishment in 1949, the field camp has become a staple of Oklahoma State University’s Boone Pickens School of Geology. It has offered OSU students — as well as students from other institutions — the opportunity to apply their education to real-world field research and mapping projects. Students travel to Cañon City, Colorado, and spend five weeks putting their geological skills to the test. Among their activities, they conduct detailed geologic mapping, measure stratigraphic sections and hike Cañon City’s vast mountain range. To commemorate the camp’s 75th anniversary, OSU’s BPSoG has initiated an update to not only the summer program, but the camp as well. With a plan in the works, incoming field camp director and OSU geology professor Dr. Brandon Spencer spoke about the vision he is working to implement. “This year, we want to celebrate history, but also present our vision for the future publicly for the first time,” Spencer said. Spencer has taught at OSU field camp for three summers. In 2022, he co-directed with Dr. Jim Puckette, an OSU geology professor who was field camp director since 1998, and then stepped into the director role in 2023 and 2024. Spencer and the BPSoG alumni group plan to build a new camp facility within the next two years. They also intend to update the camp’s technological capabilities and insulate the buildings for year-round usage. “We’re working with an architect in Tulsa called GH2,” Spencer said. “The idea is to make a functional facility that’s technologically capable. It will be a four-season camp and serve as a research station for other schools and universities to come into the area and do field work.” This summer also marked Puckette’s retirement. Puckette attended OSU Field Camp as a student in the ’70s and has since become one of the longest-tenured professors to lead a field camp nationwide. “When I completed field camp in 1975, it was one of those unforgettable life experiences,” Puckette said. “I was also fortunate to have teammates on group projects who were as passionate about geology as I was. All aspects of field camp were enjoyable: fieldwork, breakfast and supper … organizing informal field trips to see more geology, and the recreation, which consisted mostly of playing volleyball in camp in the evening.” During his first summer at the camp, Puckette established a friendship with the camp’s namesake, Les Huston, and his neighbors who lived on the land where the field camp is located. Huston’s daughter, Tiny Striegel, told Puckette throughout their friendship how important the camp’s research was to the local community. “This relationship with our neighbors was more than social because during the severe drought season in the summer, the Eight Mile Creek dries up and our neighbors haul water from the camp well to use domestically and water their livestock,” Puckette said. “Through good times and the tough times, Ms. Tiny Striegel remained our most important benefactor and advocate. Tiny, like her father Les, looked forward each year to the day the camp opened.” Until her passing in 2018, Striegel positively impacted OSU, her local community and generations of geoscientists. The university named her a matriarchal donor in 2019 to honor her contributions. “Tiny was an essential part of field camp,” Puckette said. “She not only helped us with access to property in the area, but she was also our advocate for getting permits approved in Fremont County when we rebuilt cabins following the flash flood of 2006. Tiny loved the camp and the students. She visited often to read her poetry to the students and staff and visit with students and her friends and former neighbors.” OSU GEOLOGY FIELD CAMP MARKS 75TH ANNIVERSARY OSU professor Dr. Jim Puckette (center) attended field camp as an OSU student in 1975. OSU COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 9
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