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Region 9

Meet the Regional Director — May and Jim Schmidt

Regional News — September 2010

Work continues at TARL on Field School materials from 2010 and 2011.  Among the volunteers, coordinated by Jonelle Miller-Chapman and May Schmidt, are Joanne Carpenter, Ken Headrick and Cidnye Stott.

Alice Stultz continues her work with Laura Nightengale and Frank Sloan is working on Gault materials.

Work on Joyful Horse has been suspended due to the Bastrop Complex fire but Nick Morgan was able to rescue the paperwork.

Several individuals have called to report possible sites they have found and preliminary surveys have been done with formal recording to be done when it cools off!!!

May and Jim Schmidt visited a historic farmstead near Serbin (Lee County) recently.

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May and Jim Schmidt     E-mail: at region09@txarch.org

May and Jim Schmidt have been actively involved in Texas archeology for more than thirty years.  May's family first participated in the 1962 TAS Field School when family friend E. Mott Davis invited the family to Comal County to camp and dig.  Jim came along to the Guadalupe Mountains Field School after he and May returned from Peace Corps service in El Salvador. From the mid-1970s, Field School has been their family vacation involving their two children, Erna Martin and Christian Schmidt.  They are looking forward to a fourth generation of participation with their granddaughter, McKenna Martin.

Both are Texans by birth: May from Austin, Jim from Boerne.  They met as students at UT Austin.  Jim graduated from Huston-Tillotson College (BA in Sociology), Austin Community College (L.V.N. and R.N.) and returned to UT Austin after retiring as a nurse at the Austin State Hospital to complete a B.A. in Anthropological Archeology.  May graduated from U.T. Austin (B.A. in History and Economics, M.A. in Latin American Studies, Masters in Library Science) and retired from the Austin Public Library.  Both continue to work part-time: Jim at the French Legation and Wells Branch, May at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory (Librarian).  Both are Archeological Stewards with the Texas Historical Commission.

In addition to TAS, they are members of the Travis County Archeological Society, the Southern Texas Archaeological Association and the Llano Uplift Archeological Society.  Current archeological projects include excavation at the Bowmer Site and San Felipe de Austin, lab work at the Texas Historical Commission (rebagging the Red River Field School) and screening materials from Military Plaza in San Antonio.

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