Mammoth in the news

Siberia isn't the only place where you can stumble over mammoth parts while minding you own business.

Patrick Walker, a groundskeeper at Morrison Lake Country Club, says he's glad he paid attention in high school science classes.

That's how he knew he was probably looking at the tooth of a 10,000-year-old mammoth while grooming the course last week.

"Mr. (Douglas) Schmuck always told us to keep your eyes open, you never know what you'll find," said Walker, a 2009 graduate of Lakewood High School. "He's into archaeology and taught us about that kind of good stuff."

[...]

[Scott Beld, a research assistant at the Ann Arbor museum] said the mammoth probably lived 10,000 to 12,000 years ago at the end of the Ice Age. It was probably a young adult or a female -- about the size of a circus elephant -- and weighed more than 2,000 pounds.

Mr. Schmuck deserves a lot of credit for producing a student like this. And Walker is a pretty classy kid for giving Mr. Schmuck that credit. This is the kind of thing that can change a kid's life and send him off into a life of science and dirty fingernails.