We welcome you to the joint 2007 SWAAG/Mid-South ASPRS annual meeting. The deadline for registration is close of business, Monday October 1. Paper and poster sessions will start the afternoon of Thursday November 1 and run through noon Saturday November 3. We have scheduled plenary sessions for Thursday at 4 pm and Friday at noon. We shall have a formal opening reception Thursday 6-8 pm in the beautifully restored Astin House, an historic mansion only a short drive or a decent walk from the conference hotel. The banquet will be Friday night in the Cotton Exchange room of the Howell Building. Your registration fee covers the reception and the banquet.
This year we are escaping from the normal academic confines and holding our meeting in downtown Bryan. Bryan, like so many county seats in Texas, grew as an agricultural service center, served first by rail, which arrived in 1866, later by “cotton interurbans,” later still by road. When I came to Texas A&M University 29 years ago you could still clearly see this past. Bryan still had a functioning downtown, a bit down-at-heels, but full of people, cars, and traffic lights. Getting a parking place on a Saturday was a chore! But TAMU kept growing, roads improved, new shopping centers opened to the south, and downtown Bryan simply collapsed. In the past few years, however, downtown Bryan has undergone a renaissance. Old hotels have been refurbished and many interesting new bars and restaurants have opened. Our plan is to let you get the flavor of that renaissance by hosting the meeting entirely away from the TAMU campus in downtown Bryan. The Conference Hotel is the recently refurbished LaSalle www.lasalle-hotel.com. We shall use the Cotton Exchange in the Howell Building next door to the LaSalle as a hospitality room and as one of the meeting rooms. If you wish to stay in the LaSalle, book early! You must book before October 12 and you cannot book at the conference rate online—phone them at (979) 822-2000. There are as yet no other decent hotels near downtown, and the other hotels we identify are some six miles south in College Station. We think you will like the new restaurants that have gone in downtown, and you will certainly get a list. We shall offer photogrammetry and remote sensing workshops Thursday morning before the main conference starts up after lunch (we are still finalizing the workshops and you will receive information on this once you have registered). We shall have a self-guided walking tour of downtown for you. We look forward to hosting you.
Co-Chairs: Peter Hugill & Sorin Popescu |