Gate Replacement Project

     The replacement of the cave gate went very well. It was a lot of work but also a lot of fun.    We hope you will come out soon to take a look at it – it is very impressive. 

     Many people donated time or items to help with the project – several volunteers were there for three or four of the days, all day long!

We would like to thank the following:

First of all, the Friends of Dunbar Cave for their donation of lunches, as well as tremendous physical and moral support.  All participants were vocal in expressing their appreciation of and amazement concerning the amount of effort the Friends put in to make them feel appreciated.

Workers:  Gate Constructor Extraordinaire: Kristen Bobo; from TDEC: Charlie Tate, Sam Reed, John Froeschauer, Dan Webber, Stuart Carroll, Bill Lawrence; from UT-K: Jan Simek and Annie Blankenship; from Vol. State: Joe Douglas; FODC: Ron Hunter, Jerry Clark, David Boen, Norbert Puszkar; from The Nature Conservancy: Heather Garland; Cavers: Tom Willoughby, Christine Richards, Rebecca Dettorre, Charles Blakeway, Brian Williams and Others:  Jeff Osgood, Kipling Turner and Bill Larson – we had 94 volunteer hours put in by the Friends, 276 hours by other volunteers, and 171.5 hours by the staff of Dunbar Cave – total hours worked: 541.5!

Thanks to: Kitty Madden and Beverly Fisher, $65 for lunch on Friday; Shirley Berardo, bottled water; Charlie Tate, water, Gatorade, ice, copies of newspaper; Suva Bastin, Barbara Wilbur, Amy Wallace, cookies and cake; Debbie Boen, ordered and picked up lunches, brought salad, buttons, brought dinner Monday night; the Boens stayed at the cave overnight on Friday while the gate was down; Kitty, Beverly and Amy kept them company for part of the time; Pat Wright and Carl Buckner of Montgomery Bell State Park, generator, oxygen and acetylene tanks; B. Wilbur, ordered lunch Saturday; Jeff Osgood, drill tip, Mrs. Osgood, picked up and delivered drill tip; Bill Larson, tea and biscuits;  the Bastins ordered and  picked up lunch on Sunday; Charlie Tate traveled to six or seven stores on Sunday morning looking for a needed part – David Boen went back to the third store to pick up the part it was decided would do just as well; Chris McMahan sat at cave with Adam Sunday night; Ron Hunter provided lunch on Monday; Casper Wallace, drinks and ice.

Special Thanks to David and Debbie Boen for canceling their vacation so that they could help out.

Special Shout-Out to Adam Neblett who gets the award for longest time without leaving – from 8:00 a.m. Sunday morning to 8:00 p.m. Monday, he stayed with only one two hour break.