The Washington DC premiere of "Journey into Amazing Caves", hosted by the NSS and Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, was a superb evening. The success was due in a very large part to the outstanding help, dedication, effort, enthusiasm, time, and energy given by a group of VAR cavers over the last few weeks, and the willingness of many others to pitch in with all sorts of jobs on the evening. You're all stars! The NSS absolutely could not have pulled this off without you.

Specifically, kudos and thanks to:
     Pat Bingham, who managed the invitation list data base, then coordinated the exhibit set-up, but kept her sanity.
     Meredith Hall Johnson who managed the program and people side, and also managed to keep her sanity.
     Eli Florance, who took care of the press aspect.
     Ted Dangerfield and Jan Prowell, who created data for the invitation lists in a very short time.
     Bruce Bannerman who produced the outstanding pre-program multi-projector slide show in the IMAX theater.
     Fang Kramer-Harnage who directed the Underground Players in their terrific pre-program theatrical production.
     Marshall Fausold and Sharon Newman who adopted the BCI exhibit and managed it on their behalf.
     Plus: Kelsea Johnson, Beth Strausser, Dave, MarySue and Nicholas Socky John Pearson, Mike Manke, Gordon Birkhimer, Craig Hovey, Kristen Matak, Barbara Moss, Gary Moss, Janet and Rex Tinkham, Eric Berge, Mark Ziemianski, Dan Ladd, Raymond Herlong, Dan Frye, and Mark Botkin, Cat Lazarus, Rafi Reyes, Paul Gillis.

I hope I've mentioned everyone.

Thanks too to the sponsors for the evening: Virginia Karstlands, NSS Cave Diving Section, ACCA and the National Speleological Foundation. Without their financial support, it would not have been possible for the NSS to host the DC premiere.

The audience of about 400 included congressmen and senators or staff, house Natural Resource Committee staff, and top officials from the NPS, USFS, US Fish and Wildlife Service, BLM, Department of Interior, and National Science Foundation…as well as a good turnout from the leaders of the DC area caving community.

The NSS hosted the premiere to raise the visibility of the NSS and other caving organizations, as well the awareness of the value of caves and responsible cave and karst resource management, at an audience level we rarely have the opportunity to address. I think through the speeches, the interaction of cavers with guests, the packet of material handed to each guest, and the exhibits, we did as good a job as we could to accomplish this goal. The film would have been made with or without our involvement, so deciding to make the best of the situation by using the film to our advantage was logical strategy. The NSS and Project Underground were able to influence the direction and message of the film from the beginning, and to contribute greatly to the accompanying educational material. Hosting the DC premiere was a bit of a grand finale to a couple years' work. Again, thanks a million and congratulations to the dedicated team that made the DC premiere such a success.

Cheryl Jones
NSS AVP

Cheryl Jones email: mailto:listaccess@HOTMAIL.COM

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