Marie L. Hopkins Memorial Scholarship

Pocatello—A memorial tribute to archaeological excavations which provided the now Idaho Museum of Natural History with its fine collection of bison and camel fossils has been established at Idaho State University through the bequest of $66,000 from the paleontologist who conducted the excavations.
Marie L. Hopkins Healy wanted to remember ISU and memorialize the “digs” which uncovered the Bison latifrons (giant bison) and other mammals from the Pliocene and early Pleistocene.
She epically wanted to show her appreciation to the Fort Hall Indian Reservation for allowing her to conduct digs on reservation land so the bequest will be used to set up a scholarship fund whose priority will be Bannock-Shoshone Indian students. Ms. Hopkins-Healy was the first paleontologist allowed to conduct excavations on the Fort Hall Reservation.
Working on the American Falls Reservoir, focusing primarily on two late Pleistocene horizons eroding out of the shores and cliffs, Ms. Hopkins-Healy established that the American Falls and other Snake River beds were a major source of fossils in North America
“During her 33 years of work, she established a major collection of late Pleistocene vertebrate fossils,” wrote the late Earl Swanson, museum director, upon Ms. Hopkins-Healy’s retirement in 1966. The collection became “known both nationally and internationally for its high quality,” he said. “Her work documented the associations of animals now extinct.”
In 1951, Ms. Hopkins-Healy unearthed two fossilized Bison latifrons skulls, restored them and published papers on the find. From this dig and subsequent excavations which have uncovered further Bison latifrons remains, the Idaho Museum of Natural History has built “the finest example of giant bison remains anywhere in the world,” Swanson said.
One of the skulls is now on display in the museum, and the bison has become the logo for the museum.
Other species in the collection are mammoths, mastodons, ground sloths, horses, short-faced bears, saber-toothed cats, musk ox, deer, mountain sheep, and birds.
Ms. Hopkins-Healy joined the ISU faculty in 1933 when the institution was Southern branch of the University of Idaho. She taught biology and physical education, became an assistant professor of vertebrate paleontology in the Department of Biology, was promoted to associate professor in 1964 and was granted emeritus status when she retired. She had an S.B. degree from the University of Chicago and an M.A. degree from the University of Montana and had studied at several museums. She was widely published in scientific journals, and her biography appeared in “American Men of Science”.
She was married to W. Lyon Healy in 1968 in Pocatello where they resided. He preceded her in death by weeks in October 1983.