Jon Smith
Jon Smith, NSS#37052, started caving in 1992 with the Highland County (Virginia) Cave Survey, was introduced to Kentucky caving through CRF in 1993, and began caving in Fisher Ridge in 1995 when he grew bored with CRF's increasing aversion to long, hard exploration trips. He got what he wanted; his introduction to the system was the miserable base camp trip on which Peter cursed and whined all the way through the newly-flooded Penny Lane. For some reason Jon nevertheless returned for another base camp trip before the Quick Exit finally rendered such horrors temporarily unnecessary. These days he mixes easier base camp trips with long one- day trips to such areas as the Rough Route and, when Suzanne makes him, Park Avenue.

Neither a great climber nor a beautiful sketcher, and possessed of a serious distaste for exposure, Jon tries to make up for his near-total lack of useful skills through physical fitness. At 40, he can still bench press 260 pounds and run a 5:20 mile. But he's aging like the rest of us.

Jon has caved in Virginia, West Virginia, Iowa, South Dakota, Idaho, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Indiana, Texas, and Mexico. In 1998 he took part in the international expedition to Isla de Mona, Puerto Rico, led by Professor John Mylroie. Fascinated by Caribbean caving, his dream is to cave in Cuba.

Jon holds a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Yale along with two master's degrees and a doctorate in English from the University of Virginia. His coedited book Look Away! The U.S. South in New World Studies comes out in summer 2004 from Duke University Press and his own book Southern Culture on the Skids: Narcissism, Branding, and the Burden of Southern History is forthcoming from the University Press of Mississippi. Neither is about caving. An Assistant Professor of English at the University of Montevallo, he teaches courses primarily in postcolonial and Southern literature and lives high up on Red Mountain in Birmingham with his wife Gail and their big dog Emily. When not caving, he gets his thrills by drafting off large trucks on the interstate in his Honda Insight in hopes of achieving triple- digit mpg. He still enjoys running, triathlons, and travel.