Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 19, 1990 TAG: 9004200547
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: E-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETSY BIESENBACH SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Hunter Wimmer, a Cave Spring High School senior, is an artist who is doing it a little differently. Beginning July 14, Wimmer will spend two weeks in a swamp in Oregon.
Well, it's not a swamp, exactly. The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is a 180,000-acre wetland oasis, or marsh, in the middle of a section of Oregon that is dotted with dry lakes, lava beds and towns with cheery names such as "Stinkingwater" and "Buzzard Spring." While he's there, Wimmer will be sketching bones, sifting through dirt and making arrowheads.
What's more, he's glad to be going. Wimmer was one of 68 high school students selected from a pool of 850 applicants from all 50 states.
Earthwatch, an international organization based in Massachusetts, sponsors 20 scientific research projects like the Malheur program each year in places all over the world. Usually, applicants are outstanding science students. This year, said Cave Spring science teacher Rebecca Ross, Earthwatch also was recruiting students with experience in visual arts and photography.
"Hunter is unique" in his talent in both art and science, Ross said. He is currently enrolled in her anatomy and physiology class.
Wimmer is the kind of youth who can say "I do everything, basically," and still sound modest.
"He's an outstanding student, very affable, a very likable young man," Ross said.
"I'm an artist by vocation, and a scientist by avocation," said Wimmer.
Wimmer has lived in Roanoke for most of his 18 years. He has been an artist since elementary school, and last year was selected to attend the Residential Governor's School for Visual and Performing Arts at Radford University.
He is enrolled in several advanced-placement classes, and is currently involved in Roanoke County schools' Artist-in-Education Program, in which he is studying under professional artist Ed Dolinger. He also is one of Center in the Square's Center Scholars, a program that allows students to explore various branches of the arts, including the performing arts.
He also is president of the art club, and he works after school in a health-foods store. He has experience with photography, and is learning how to weld. In fact, he said, he hopes to enter a welded sculpture in the Festival in the Park art show this year. He's thinking of using the hood of his beat-up old Volkswagen as the raw material.
He has spent some of his time working with Ross on a study of the connection between aluminum residue from cookware and Alzheimer's disease. He won the county science fair this year and will be attending the regional science fair.
Wimmer has won a full scholarship to Virginia Commonwealth University, where he will study art. He wants to become a commercial artist, but while he is at VCU, he said, he hopes to be able to go over to the nearby Medical College of Virginia to take a few advanced biology courses.
During the Earthwatch program, Wimmer will be studying an area that once was home to prehistoric people. Several archaeological sites, which were uncovered by receding floodwaters, have been found to contain hearths, roasting pits, houses, burial sites and storage pits.
Scientists have discovered volcanic-rock spearpoints and knives, grinding tools and other artifacts that are far more advanced than those that were typically assumed to be used by people in that area. Wimmer's group will be studying the manufacture and use of stone tools. They will search for additional artifacts, and try to make similar objects themselves.
Earthwatch will pay all of the estimated $4,000 in expenses, Wimmer said, including room and board and transportation.
He and the other participants will be staying at the Malheur Field station, which is a complex of 34 buildings, with classrooms, dormitories, a dining hall, staff houses, a recreation hall and a gym. There is also a library and a herbarium, a rock collection, an insect collection and a collection of animal skins.
The scenery promises to be spectacular, according to preliminary information Wimmer has received. There are volcanic and glacial landforms and fault-block mountains. The area has no trees, and workers will be able to see 35 miles in every direction.
He has been asked to keep both a sketchbook and a journal. He is going to bring books to help him identify plants, and he will keep an eye out for animal bones, because his main interest is in biology.
"I don't see how much digging one can do in a marsh," he laughed.
by CNB