N-O Graduate 'Digs' Internship At Ashfall, Finds Bone On First Day

Maybe it was beginner’s luck, but on her first day of digging, Sam Wright unexpectedly hit bone.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln sophomore and Neligh-Oakdale High School 2017 graduate was working at her summer internship at Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park when she made her first discovery.

”Within the first hour of digging, all of a sudden, I struck bone,” Wright said. “And, it surprised me because we were at such a high elevation in the ash that we weren’t supposed to find anything.”

The bone belonged to a baby rhinoceros and broke off the end of its toe, Wright said.  

“Because longer bones tend to have growth plates on them, that’s where the bone starts growing from, and the growth plate wasn’t fused,” Wright said. “So, that’s how you know it was a younger rhino.”

However, this moment was a long time in the making. As a young child, Wright first developed a love for animals that later evolved into a passion for fossils and an interest in paleontology when she reached junior high.

”I was like, ‘I like animals.’ But at the time, I liked living animals, not dead ones,” Wright said. “But then as I got older, I was like, ‘Yeah, I really like this, I really like dead animals and fossils.’”

Every summer for as long as she can remember, Wright visited Ashfall and saw its development over the years. The rhino barn Wright works in was built in 2009 and used to be a small shed covering original excavated fossils.

”I just remember how small that was,” Wright said. “And when it was my first time, it awed me. But now, after seeing how much they’ve uncovered, it’s even more of an awe to see how much progress they’ve made.”

Nevertheless, Ashfall’s history goes further back than Wright’s childhood visits.  

According to Ashfall superintendent Rick Otto, paleontologist Mike Voorhies discovered the first skeleton in the 1970s on a hillside of what is now park property. Voorhies’ research revealed that was not the only skeleton buried in the bed of volcanic ash, and he wrote to the National Geographic Society, requesting funding for an excavation.   

“That dig, which took place in both 1978 and 1979, revealed dozens of intact skeletons of barrel-bodied rhinos, three-toed horses, walrus-sized camels,” Otto said. “It was during that excavation that locals would come out and sit on the hillside and watch the paleontologists at work. That gave Mike the idea to develop the site into a public park.”

From there, the University of Nebraska and the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission made a long-term management agreement. And in 1991, the park opened to the public and hired its first student paleontologist summer interns, Otto said.

Wright’s eyes were initially opened to the summer internship during one of her junior high years. She said she was surprised when she saw a young person working at Ashfall and heard they were an interning college student. After Wright’s revelation, she patiently waited until college to apply. 

As soon as applications were released in February, Wright said she immediately applied.  

“I’m like, ‘I’m getting this thing.’ And so, I sent it in really quickly and I think I surprised my boss, Rick, at how quickly I applied,” Wright said with a laugh.

According to Otto, applicants have to be geology or biology majors and demonstrate an interest in vertebrate paleontology. He said Wright matched those requirements. 

“Samantha is a geology major, and it was apparent that she had an interest in paleontology and animal life from her many visits to Ashfall,” Otto said. “And, she had also volunteered at the Henry Doorly Zoo.”

Since Wright lives in Neligh, she was close enough to go to the park for an in-person interview around UNL’s spring break. 

“I think it went well,” Wright said. “I was nervous beforehand and I remember walking out of there after Rick told me that I got the internship, and I just did a victory jump in the air and I think I hurt myself when I landed.”

Wright was one of six interns selected for the summer position. In the park’s first years, only two interns were hired, whereas now, Ashfall hires five or six every summer, Otto said. 

”We offer these during the summer, and it’s also the time of year when more people are traveling and have the opportunity to visit the fossil beds,” he said. 

Other interns working there this summer include UNL students: Andrew Harms, who lives in Kearney, Eli Kliment, who lives in Creighton, and Regan Douglas, who lives in Weeping Water. The other two interns are Sophia Beery, who lives in Findlay, Ohio, and graduated from Ohio Northern University and will go to grad school at Ohio University, and Aaron Pemberton, who lives in Peoria, Illinois, and attends Calvin College. 

One of Wright’s favorite parts of the summer so far has been meeting the other interns.

”Meeting the other interns has been really interesting,” Wright said. “They’re all really cool, and since we all have similar interests, it’s like we have a lot of stuff to talk about that I can’t talk about with other people.” 

Wright said they were all ecstatic to start digging for the first time on the ash bed, but soon learned just how hard of work it is. 

“The first day was super exciting because we were like, ‘Yes, we’re finally getting to dig!’ And then the next day, we were kind of sore from digging, from sitting on our butts all day and digging through the ash,” Wright said.

Every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Wright spends half of her day working in the barn digging through ash. During the other half, she works in the lab on plaster jackets or on sorting microfossils. Plaster jackets are used for transporting fossils from out of the ground. 

“You wrap them in basically burlap strips covered in plaster, and it molds to them and protects them, and it makes it so that you can transport them back to a laboratory,” Wright said. “And then, you just have to dig the soil within the jacket out from around the fossil.” 

Wright’s work in the rhino barn will continue for 12 to 15 summers before further expansion, according to Otto.

“There are still 12 to 15 summers of excavation left in the Hubbard Rhino Barn, so there are no plans to expand at this time,” Otto said. 

Wright said her experience at Ashfall has made her fairly certain she will continue on her path to paleontology and attend grad school at either UNL or the University of Kansas.

While she is not sure what her job will be in paleontology, Wright knows she would like to explore other countries.  

“I don’t know exactly what my job will be, but one of the big things is I would like to travel to other countries to do digs internationally, just to kind of see what else is out there,” Wright said. 

Her family and friends in Neligh have shown support for her summer endeavors. 

The daughter of Phillip Wright and Tammy Marshall, Wright said her mom asks her every day about work when she comes home. Her grandparents also constantly display encouragement and interest in her internship.

Whenever she runs into familiar faces in Neligh, Wright said they tell her they plan on visiting and ask what days she works.     

“I haven’t really seen a lot of people from Neligh come through here yet, but I’m expecting more toward mid-summer, I’ll see quite a group come through,” Wright said.

While Wright’s first discovery at Ashfall was a dream come true, she hopes to strike something larger. 

”I hope to find something bigger than just a toe bone,” Wright said. “We always joke about how there’s going to be a complete skeleton in one of our squares, and that person’s going to get lucky.”