Death and friendship form themes in film about Georgia Entomologist.

Filmmaker's Statement

Jerry and I met each other in the 1950s, riding the school bus to our small rural Marshall High School in northern Virginia. His highschool nickname was "Osmosis" because of his interest in the biological sciences. We are both in our 70s now.

Jerry grew up in a tenant farmer family on Llangollen, a 4000 acre estate and thoroughbred horse farm in Loudoun County near Upperville, Virginia. Jerry describes his family as "hunter gatherers." His father and mother came from Appalachian backgrounds, with only grade school educations, but Jerry's mother Becky Payne encouraged him to get an education so he could leave the farm. "When I got to college and they closed the door of the classroom, we were all equal."

Jerry excelled and completed his PhD at Clemson University in South Carolina. With the encouragement of his beloved teacher, the entomologist Dr. Edwin Wallace King, Jerry did a remarkable study of insect succession in carrion, using dead baby pigs he collected from local farms.

This study attracted national attention in Time Magazine and Scientific American and became a foundation of modern forensic science. Jerry donated his 16mm time-lapse footage of the decomposition of a baby pig to the Smithsonian Institution, and on Youtube the clip has over two million views.

After retiring from a career in the field with the US Department of Agriculture in Georgia, Jerry and his wife Rose devote themselves to their 80-acre nature preserve near Macon, Georgia, which they walk nearly everyday in the tradition of Darwin and his wife.

Both he and Rose excel at the taxonomy of birds, butterflies, and native plants, and they are active in naturalists circles in Georgia where they often bird and butterfly watch with their friend Father Francis Michael Stiteler, the abbot of the Trappist Monastery of the Holy Spirit near Conyers, Georgia. Jerry's artwork of painted bones and odd pieces of wood he finds in the woods are often given as prizes in fund-raising efforts by the Environmental Resources Network (T.E.R.N.)

The film is 43 minutes long and will be especially interesting to

~ Bird and butterfly watchers and clubs
~ Science and religion teachers,
~ Entomologists
~ Forensic scientists
~ Anyone interested in the history of northern Virginia
~ Those who ponder death, aging, and friendship.

Tom Davenport is the founder and director of www.folkstreams.net which was recognized by the American Folklore Society "as a visionary project that has become an extraordinary democratic initiative in public folklore and education, exponentially increasing the visibility of the field, and giving grassroots communities across the US access to their own traditions, folklore, and cultural history."

Beside his documentary films related to American folklife and religion, Tom and his wife Mimi are known for their live-action adaptations of fairy tales in the series "From the Brothers Grimm" which has received all the major awards for children's film in the USA included the Andrew Carnegie Medal for the best children's film of the year by the American Library Association.