A Tribute to Dan Varner What to say about Dan? - or as he called himself, little Danny Varner. I've encountered few people that exude the sort of kindness Dan possessed. He was a private person, but had an intense passion for people around him. Dan's personality includes a pleasant mixture of Mel Blanc, Stan Laurel and your best friend from primary school. Dan was an accomplished paleontological field collector, and knew as much about historical geology, stratigraphy and paleoecology as those with degrees. He was a wonderful blues guitarist, and a lover of modern wildlife more so than the prehistoric beasts we've come to associate his work with. Funny thing about talented people, often they are reluctant to show off certain gifts. Dan would chunk out a guitar diddy at the drop of a hat, but asking him to quickly produce anything seriously artistic on paper was just short of impossible. If the subject matter were a fun or silly doodle, then fine. Some of my fondest memories are staying up late, taking turns drawing on a pad and passing back and forth humorous roughly hewn cartoons, most with some sort of hidden reference to historical paleontological people and events, and waiting for the other to guess the context and laugh. I've shed as many tears related to laughter in my life largely due to those evenings giggling over doodles. But anything professionally artistic and a different part of Dan would switch on. He was incredibly serious, deliberate, and meticulous about his oil painting, even the rough sketches leading to his final work. This is why the images he brought to life are so 'real' - his level of commitment toward each piece would often never allow them to be quite finished, but merely resigned as 'done enough'. Seeing certain of his rough draft sketches for the first time in many different variations would be exhilarating, many of them looked ready for publication. I quickly learned however not too comment often on how much I liked them - bring concept drawings to Dan's attention in a positive way and he would wad them up and chuck them in the bin. And in the end, what a truly lovely person. Being around Dan made you unconsciously focus your personality toward the better part of yourself. That is perhaps Dan's greatest gift - he brought out the best in others. His legacy will endure as instrument in giving us what remain our most inspiring glimpses of the Cretaceous marine realm. And several of his rather prophetic paintings and attention to anatomical details have now become accepted science - tail bends and forked tongues in mosasaurs, intraspecific competition amongst various marine reptilians, and predator-prey relationships amongst sharks, bony fishes, reptiles both swimming and flying, and birds. Though I'm sure Dan would say all of this is attributable to historical research and the work of Charles R. Knight. See ya' someday Danny! Bruce Schumacher