The Tri-State Bigfoot Study Group hosted the 15'th Annual Bigfoot Conference on Saturday April 5, 2003 in Newcomerstown, Ohio. Master of Ceremonies was Don Keating. Four great speakers gave presentations.

Ron Schaffner of Milford, Ohio spoke about the once defunct Operation Appalachia project, which will be headed by Schaffner very soon. The entire concept of the project is to gain what appear to be legitiment sighting and track reports from the Appalachian mountain region.

Stan Gordon of Greensburg, Pennsylvania spoke about a lot of his research that he has conducted in southwestern Pennsylvania. He recounted many accounts from the region dealing with sightings and track disocveries of the Pennsylvania Bigfoot. Gordon utilized a feature on his camcorder to show many still photos on the 60" wide screen TV, from his many years of research. Gordon also touched briefly on his research in to the Kecksburg, PA UFO crash. He had videos available at the event of his award winning documentary and you can find out more at www.westol.com/~paufo/

Scott Herriott of Los Angeles, California was next to speak. Herriott gave a brief update of his activities since he last spoke at a conference a few years back. He then spoke about his new documentary of 43 minutes titled "Squatching". Complete ordering details are available at www.squatching.com The documentary shows via helicopter view the location of his encounter in 1992 with then research associate Darryl Owens. If you have Herriott's first film titled "Journey Towards Squatchdom" then this second film is a must add to your video collection!

Final speaker of the evening was John Kirk of Vancouver, BC, Canada. John spoke about his expedition to Africa in search of the supposed extince dinosaur (the name escapes me). He then spoke about the increasing number of sightings on Vancouver Island, BC, Canada. He advised me that he would keep me abreast of any new developments on the Island or anywhere in the vicinity.

Next year's event is scheduled for April 3'rd, 2004. This is NOT a firm date and the event is NOT a definate thing. More information later.

On Sunday the 6'th several people participated in going for a mini hike in Coshocton County. We met at the Back Door Cafe' restaurant at 11 a.m., later than the originally scheduled 10 a.m. time because of the time change.

We all went to the now famous Film Site and took a walk into the areas known as Sasquatch Lake and Piney Lake. It was a raw day with air temperatures in the lower 40's and wind chills in the mid 20's.

After about 90 minutes of freezin with colder than normal temperatures and damp weather, we decided to go our own ways. Several photos were taken of which a few are below.

The biggest reason for taking the Sunday hike is not to find a Bigfoot, its prints, or anything like that. The biggest reason is so that those people in the area for the first time can get an idea what the topography is like in this area. Many people who come to Ohio for the first time tell me they had the impression that Ohio was nothing more than farmlands and cities. Nothing could be further from the truth.