Clad in a camouflage sun hat and a grey dinosaur T-shirt, 12-year-old Zayne McFarland-Terrell wades through Luxapalila Creek at the future site of the Dr. John “Jack” Kaye Cretaceous Fossil Park early Sunday afternoon, lugging with him a sifter-screen box piled high with rocks.
It was his first true fossil hunt. Guided by Joe Gibson, a member of the fossil park’s development team, McFarland-Terrell learned how to shovel, sift and sort through mounds of rocks to search for fossils.
Since he was about 5 years old, it’s been McFarland-Terrell’s dream to become a paleontologist.
“I can’t remember exactly how long I’ve been interested in (dinosaurs and fossils), I just know I’ve liked them for a really long time,” McFarland-Terrell said.
Last week, he was asked by Susan Wilder, the city’s grant administrator, to join the fossil park’s development team.
“We want him involved as much as possible, so he can, one, learn about paleontology and geology with the experts we have; and two, he can learn about community involvement,” Wilder said. “I think all of that is very important, but we just want to encourage him … as much as we can to continue his interest.”
Planning began last fall for the fossil park project at The Lux near Propst Park. The city council earlier this month officially named the park after the late Kaye – a decorated World War II pilot who taught geology and earth science and was among the first to find authenticated dinosaur fossils in the Luxapalila Creek. The name, among other things, aims to help raise funds necessary to build the estimated $700,000 fossil park.
Wilder first learned of McFarland-Terrell’s interest in fossils in January after he brought a rock collected from his grandmother’s house into school.
He asked his teacher, Wilder’s daughter, to identify the rock, and after sending it off to an expert, he learned it was actually a chunk of jasper with quartz crystal formations along the sides. He was thrilled, and Wilder said she knew then he needed to be a part of the fossil park team.
“It’s his enthusiasm about dinosaurs and fossils,” Wilder said. “It’s in the spirit of what Jack Kaye would have done, involving children, and because it’s in the spirit of Dr. Kaye, we asked him to join our team, and we know it means a lot to him.”
McFarland-Terrell’s mother, Amanda Terrell, said the invitation has been a blessing.
“I never thought that something like this would happen to him at 12, 13 years old,” Amanda Terrell said. “I thought he’d have to make it through school before someone recognized his love and knowledge for (paleontology). It’s nice to see it happening now, rather than down the road, and he doesn’t have to keep going on thinking that no one sees him.”
Big ideas
McFarland-Terrell trudged back up the creek Sunday with a Ziploc bag full of quartz stones and small mussel shells, and though he didn’t find any dinosaur bones, Gibson surprised him with two small boxes of shark teeth and fossilized animal dung collected from the area.
Eventually, though, McFarland-Terrell hopes to discover his own fossils at the park.
“There’s a bunch of dinosaurs that we probably haven’t discovered yet,” he said. “ … My favorite thing about dinosaurs is that there are more we could still discover and also, they’re really cool.”
McFarland-Terrell has learned most of what he knows about dinosaurs on his own through online research and Youtube videos, he said.
He knows how to pronounce the longest dinosaur name (Micropachycephalosaurus), and he also knows all about the titanoboa, the world’s largest snake, which lived between 58 and 60 million years ago and was somewhere between 45 and 50 feet long.
While he’d prefer to find the remains of a spinosaur, McFarland-Terrell’s favorite large dinosaur, he said he would also settle to find a marine reptile fossil, which are common along the Luxapalila Creek.
Wilder and Gibson said they look forward to hearing some of McFarland-Terrell’s ideas for the park, though at the moment, he has just one.
“I’d like to see something possibly like a full-sized mold of a … larger dinosaur skeleton, and then other dinosaurs too,” McFarland-Terrell said. “They probably wouldn’t be able to get the bones of a real one, but they could make a model.”
Gibson said he sees McFarland-Terrell’s involvement with the fossil park as key to its success.
“You can have all the adults in the world, but if you don’t have the youth interested, it doesn’t mean anything,” Gibson said. “As long as we can spark that interest in the youth, I think we’re going to have something big.”
McFarland-Terrell attended his first fossil park meeting just last week where he met two paleontologists, a bucket-list goal of his, his mother said. Though he was too nervous to talk much at the first meeting, he’s excited to contribute more to the park, he said.
McFarland-Terrell’s mother said she’s noticed a huge change in his character since all of this began in January.
“… Last year he didn’t want to make it known that he liked dinosaurs because he was scared that other kids might judge him, but this year he’s like, ‘You know what? I’m gonna wear my dinosaur clothes and not care what anyone says. All my friends know I like dinosaurs, and their opinions are the only ones that matter to me.’
“I don’t know what else I can say, other than this is him,” she added. “… He’s always had the most struggles and hardships thrown in front of him … and to see him blossom and to see this happen to him … no one deserved it more than him.”
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You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 34 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
