Need your recommendations for an expert

Outside our current iris experts, who would be your top pick for another expert to join our forums? Or, who would you most like to be able to ask your toughest iris questions?

The criteria is:

1) Please nominate just one name, along with any contact info you can locate;
2) It should be someone who is not currently a member here;
3) This person should be a familiar name in iris circles (hybridizer, grower, or collector)
4) Since this person would be a regular participant in our forums, their availability/willingness to participate and their personality (no overblown egos, please!) should also be taken into consideration.

Oh Terry, the first person I think of right off -
who would greatly benefit all of us is Neil A Mogensen (one of the most knowledgeable hybridizer and grower of irises around)
neilm@charter.net

He has had years of experience as an iris hybridizer, has introduced irises, is very well informed on genetics, quite knowledgeable, and has time that I think he may be willing to donate to participate in the forums.

Here are a few more who are highly regarded in this field: (but, I'm not sure how much time they have on their hands to particpate).

Rick Tasco and Roger Duncan (owners and hybridizers of Superstition Iris)
randrcv@sierratel.com

Paul Black and Tom Johnson (owners and hybridizers of Mid-America iris)
midamerg@earthlink.net

Keith Kepple of (Kepples Iris - with over 50 years of hybridizing behind him)
plicataman@earthlink.net

Don and Ginny Spoon (owners/hybridizers of Winterberry Iris Gardens, and Don is an author of a new soon-to-be released Book on irises)
VSpoon@aol.com

Margaret and George Sutton & son Mike Sutton (owners and hybridizers of Sutton's Iris Garden)
suttons@lightspeed.net

Larry Lauer (owner and hybridizer of Lauer's Flowers)
lauersiris@earthlink.net

All of these people are good, down to earth, everyday-friendly people who love what they do and do what they love. There are still other good ones out there too, that others may suggest.



This message was edited Jan 1, 2005 3:48 PM

I wholeheartedly agree with the suggestion of inviting Neil Mogensen to join the forum, but I don't know if he will accept the offer. Neil has had substantial medical difficulties over the last couple of years that have greatly reduced his participation in all sorts of activities, including online discussion groups. He is already a member of at least two other online iris groups of which I am aware, and I don't know if he'd feel up to joining another. There's certainly no harm in asking him, though. Neil is an astounding intellect with extensive iris experience and an almost encyclopedic knowledge of these plants which he freely shares. He is also a very accessible person with a teacher's heart. This iris forum couldn't do better than Neil.

Laurie