Join us as we welcome Captain Fred McLaren, the President Emeritus and a Director of The Explorers Club. As a naval officer, Captain McLaren made three Arctic expeditions on nuclear attack submarines, one on board the USS Seadragon during the first submerged transit of the Northwest Passage; two others were on the USS Queenfish: a Baffin Bay cruise and a North Pole expedition that included the first and only survey under ice of the entire Siberian Continental Shelf (2,600 nm).

During June 2001, Captain McLaren participated as a diver in “The First Manned Dives to the German battleship Bismarck,” using the deep-diving Russian MIR submersibles to depths of almost 4,800 meters beneath the sea. He returned to the Bismarck wreck site during July/early August 2002, making a second dive as part of an “Operation Bismarck” team, which thoroughly filmed the warship wreck site using high definition cameras. He is scheduled in early February 2003 to be one of the first ten deep-sea explorers to train on and be licensed to pilot submarine designer Graham Hawkes’ new “Deep Flight Aviator” submersible at world’s first Underwater Flight School in the Bahamas.

We would also like to welcome Bonita Chamberlin to our St. Louis Annual Dinner. Bonita has just returned from Afghanistan and is bringing with her local Afghani jewelry.

In addition to our speakers, we will be holding our annual silent auction.

Silent Auction Items this year include:

• 6 Box Tickets to The Full Monty at The Fox Theater on Sunday April 27, at 7:30 p.m. Sponsored by Bank of America Private Bank
• Trophy Room Dinner for 8 with Dr. and Mrs. Sherman Silber
• A Catered Lunch and Tour of The Wolf Sanctuary
• Books About Africa
• A Beautifully Decorated Rhinestone Turtle Box