Letter to CIM
Ore Gangue Alumni of the CIM Saskatoon Geosection,
I for one had some serious fun during my Ore Gangue years in the early ‘70’s. I am very certain a good number of you as Ore Gangue Alumni recall much the same experience. Many years later, we continue to enjoy the camaraderie, not to mention long standing friendships, of Alumni through a number of annual and intermittent events. As examples, Alumni in Calgary have annually hosted a very successful golf tournament for about 2 decades and a Christmas reception that has been carried on for almost 3 decades. Alumni functions connect all ages. A recent function which we called the “Vintage Ore Gangue Alumni Reunion” included spirited folk from as far back as the ‘50’s. This recent “Vintage Alumni Reunion” brought old friends into Calgary for an afternoon & evening gathering, from various areas of AB, Lac La Ronge & Flin Flon of SK, Lake Superior (ON), Vancouver Island (BC), and Dallas (TX). Though we as individuals are aging, it appears the spirit of the Ore Gangue has not been. During September, 2016, I spent a full week digging though the Archived Files in the GeoScience Building in Saskatoon. The week allowed me the added pleasure of meeting several current GeoScience professors, 5 now-retired professors, a few old friends from the mining industry, and by invitation of the current Ore Gangue, attended a Friday night Ore Gangue Party held within the current Ore Gangue Coffee Room. It’s much bigger than the old one we had in the old wing of the Engineering Building!! According to the current President of the Ore Gangue (Kyle Snarr) the evening raised approximately $2500 profit while thoroughly enjoying the evening! This past week has certainly confirmed with me that the Ore Gangue spirit hasn’t changed one iota. For reasons above, a concerned group of Alumni have taken on the sizeable task of organizing an electronic data base to exemplify the history of the Ore Gangue, which began in 1934. Frankly this Society has been the most successful group on the Saskatoon Campus, and perhaps the most successful of all University GeoScience Groups among Canadian universities. Certainly its history has had an impact on many. We feel it behooves us as Alumni members to preserve the heritage of this Group. I am hopeful that many of you will not only agree this should be accomplished, but will make an effort to contribute in the form of time and memorabilia forwarded to each of Tracey Jungwirth and Cliff Herman (contact info below). After all, the Ore Gangue really has been about friendships, sealed during a short time at University that have inevitably become long term relationships. A committee is currently in the making, intent on organizing this Ore Gangue Historical Publication. The initial credit for this idea goes to Tracey Jungwirth, a graduate Geologist from the early ‘90’s. The level of work will be substantial. But with input of pictures from all those who had the foresight to do more than just partake, and documented “stories” to the undersigned from all those with a computer or close to a mailbox, I expect this approximate 3 year project will be another Ore Gangue success. We ask for your active support, either as a collector of data from your personal collection, or better still become a volunteer at some level to help with ideas and/or to assemble a considerable accumulation of submissions. Tracey and I would like to receive a copy, either as prints or scans if possible (e-mail addresses below). We’d appreciate very much if you’d put together one or multiple e-mails that reflect your recollection of your time as an Ore Ganguer and who made your time there something to remember. It might even include one of our illustrious prof’s!! Our hope is to have a substantial collection of not only pictures but equally important, an accumulation of stories that happened during our Ore Gangue membership years but not limited to these years. Certainly many more stories of Ore Ganguers of interest continued after their departure from the ‘less responsible years’ at the U of S. I have confirmed that the Ore Gangue spirit absolutely has been continued by the next accumulation of “reprobates” (a Mel Stauffer reference). We challenge everyone to put recollections to pen and send these stories to Tracey and Cliff so we can keep records for the future publication!! Tracey has asked me to inform those who do use other forms of social media, for future and current announcements about Ore Gangue Alumni related events, that they may find this information via the following websites/links.
1) LinkedIn Group Ore Gangue Alumni
2) Facebook Group Ore Gangue Alumni
3) Ore Gangue website www.oregangue.org
CONTACT INFORMATION - Cliff Herman: (Cell #403-850-7378) (E-mail CHTaxConversions@shaw.ca) Tracey Jungwirth: (Cell #403-863-4237) (E-mail oreganguealumni@gmail.com) Rob Holben: (E-mail rob.holben@gmail.com) (Cell #306-380-9932) Cheers, Cliff Herman ‘73
