24 Field Camp Marks 75th Anniversary Last 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. A plan is in the works to build a new camp facility, update the camp’s technological capabilities and insulate the buildings for year-round usage. “We’re working with an architect in Tulsa called GH2,” said OSU geology professor Dr. Brandon Spencer. “The idea is to make a functional facility that’s technologically capable. It will be a fourseason 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 the retirement of Dr. Jim Puckette, who attended OSU Field Camp as a student in the ’70s and was field camp director until 2022. “Field camp must evolve as geological science evolves,” Puckette said. “I am very enthused and supportive of the proposed camp improvements that can make the facility available for other disciplines outside of geoscience and extend the use of the camp into the spring and fall.” This excerpt was taken from a 2024 article by Jade Dudley published in CONNECT Magazine. Read the full article at news.okstate.edu. spring.2025
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