Be sure to renew your Fossil Permits! Never Dig into the River banks! Collection of Artifacts is Illegal on Florida state owned land!

President's Message

2024-2025 Season

People “DIG” FossilFest! (Pun Intended)

What a weekend. Once again, what a successful show! I couldn’t be more pleased with the results. FossilFest had good coverage on both television and social media, and it sure brought in a great crowd. Boy, it was hot though, mid 80’s on both days. Our air conditioning bill was through the roof.

We have three major goals each year at FossilFest; earn funds to operate TBFC through the year, teach the public about Florida’s prehistory, and reach out to new members. We accomplished all of that! It looks like we had about 40 new families sign up as members with TBFC at FossilFest and over 45 membership renewals during the month of March. That in itself is a great success! If you’re one of those new members that signed up for the adventure, welcome to the Tampa Bay Fossil Club!

We appreciate the Florida Museum of Natural History setting up shop to issue new and renewal Fossil Hunting Permits. Rachael Narducci reports that she received 68 new permit applications and processed over a hundred renewals.

Everyone worked very hard, some for three hours, some for three days (some for weeks and months leading up to the show). I hate to thank individual volunteers by name in this writing, but I have to mention a few people here. TBFC Director David Faucher spent the night on the FossilFest floor both Friday and Saturday night to stand sentinel on the fossils at the show. David came on Friday and never left the fossil hall until Sunday evening!

I must thank my wife Seina for working on the volunteer assignments for months ahead of the show, and many of the other details at FossilFest that just seem to “happen” because of her. If it wasn’t for Seina, FossilFest might not be able to happen as we know it. Every year for as long as I can remember Barbara Fite has worked on scheduling the vendors and taking care of many other aspects of FossilFest. Barbara also handles many other problems as they occur before and during the three-day event. She spent many hours leading up to the show arranging and rearranging the floor plan to fit our show’s needs, and sometimes the last-minute changes that must happen. Our FossilFest trailer is 20 feet long and weighs in excess of 6 tons. We need a huge truck to make that move and someone capable of towing that much weight. For many years Mike Burnett (and his wife Jessica) have driven from Bradenton, Florida to pick up the trailer in Zephyrhills where it is stored on the property of TBFC members Darren and Nicole Watts. By the time Mike drives to Zephyrhills, hooks up, drives back to the fairgrounds, and then back home to Bradenton, it’s an eight-hour day (nearly 300 miles for the weekend). He does this on Friday, in morning traffic, and then again on Sunday afternoon. Hidden in all of the excitement of FossilFest is Bill Faucher collecting money, making change, and getting cash money safely to the bank. Dr. Bob Sinibaldi and Rachael Cronin assisted me with television appearances and Dr. Bob did two lecture presentations each day at FossilFest. Dr. Leslie Branin hauled a metric ton of books to the show. Fred Hendershot and the crew spent the entire weekend with kids at the Touch Table. Also working with the kids at the Sand Mine was Pat Appledorn for the entire weekend. It takes a bunch of patience to deal with all of the excitement in the kid’s area. Marlin Swikert runs the Silent auction all weekend like a well-oiled machine. Mike Barnes cooked a lot of hot dogs over the weekend for both volunteers and vendors. He tells me he can’t eat hot dogs himself anymore. And that’s just some of the big things that get done... I am so sorry I can’t mention everyone here in this writing.

Our furthest traveling volunteer for FossilFest? To my knowledge, it’s John Campbell who travels from Boston, Massachusetts each year to spend the entire weekend with us.

Again, I hate to mention individuals here because I know I’ll forget somebody who did an above the “call of duty” job and there were too many people to name that spent three entire days at FossilFest.

I have to thank TBFC’s Officers, Directors, and ALL of the volunteers who made the show the success that it was. We certainly couldn’t have done it without you. If you were one of the 130 plus volunteers during the show, thank you. From the admissions, to the silent auction, donations, club sales, kids mine, set up, break down, security, and everything in-between, I can’t thank you all enough.

I receive lots of accolades and slaps on the back during FossilFest. I want you all to know that I always tell everyone what a great support staff I, and FossilFest, have. FossilFest 2025 was a huge success, and that’s because of all of you.

So, I must ask... still tired from FossilFest? Sorry, no time to sit down; TBFC’s season isn’t over yet. We’re just getting started!

Peace River Field Trips - April 12, 2025

The Peace River Adventure has turned into one of TBFC’s most popular outings. Years ago, we worried if we’d get enough participation to make the annual event even worth the work. But some years we worried if we would be able to accommodate everyone who wanted to attend. That was before COVID though, and hurricanes, toxic algae blooms, and winter/spring rains, etc.

We hoped that we would be able to run the entire weekend event in 2025. However, it appears that the infrastructure of the area continues to be damaged by annual hurricanes. At the time of this writing the measurement at Zolfo Springs is nearly perfect (we need it at 6 feet, or below to hold a safe hunt). While we cannot plan a fullblown Peace River Adventure, we will run our annual canoe trip. The new folks we signed up at FossilFest will be biting at the bit to get out and hunt some fossils and we will be ready for them on April 12. Check out the Field Trips page in this edition of the Chronicles for details.

Read the Chronicles each month (Members Only), check the calendar here on the TBFC website, and follow us on Facebook. Also, please be very cautious while venturing out into the rivers and creeks. There’s nothing in those rivers worth dying for.

In closing, I want to again say thank you to everyone who helped out this past month. Thank you for making FossilFest, and everything else about TBFC so great.

Good Hunting,

Missed a meeting or just want to watch it again? You can view our past meeting recordings or live streams in the playlist below (Also found in the About section):