Last summer a Calvin College professor of geology and a crew of his students worked on "a dream come true" as they unearthed the skeleton of a mastodon - a now-extinct animal that once was prolific in North America, including Michigan.
In the media coverage that followed a local artist, Marilyn VanOort (left), recognized the site of the find as her childhood home. She came out to visit one day and a relationship between her and Calvin College began to form. Eventually she offered to do a painting of a mastodon and present it to Calvin as a gift. Calvin professor Ralph Stearley, who heads up the project, eagerly accepted. And now the lab in which the mastodon bones are being cleaned and examined is graced with that painting.
VanOort presented the painting to Calvin in a formal ceremony at the school on April 18, 2000. She spoke about her excitement for the project and told tales of her childhood on the farm. Stearley thanked her for the gift and updated the audience on the project's history. Among those in attendance were members of Ada Bible Church, volunteers who had worked on the project, members of the media and, perhaps the most important guest of all, the bulldozer operator who noticed the first fragment and alerted others to the find.
Stearley says there are over 200 mastodon sites in the state of Michigan, but at most of those sites only a bit of the animal was uncovered - perhaps a tooth or a bone. This most recent find is a big one - much of the mastodon is being excavated. Only three dozen or so such sites exist in the state with many of those located in southeast Michigan.