The Texas Expo 1998 The Texas Expo (March 20-22) was well attended at the Maude Cobb Center in Longview, Texas this year. Faces in the crowd included many familiar hunters and dealers. Among the folks that I met at the Exposition was Troy Galloway, the creator of the new Shadow X2. I was impressed with the new lightweight detector and I did a quick air test with a penny and could pick it up to a foot away which was very impressive for the little 7 inch coil. There was Keith Wills, and the relic hunters(Larry and Ken Cissna) made somewhat famous in the February issue of Western and Eastern treasure magazine. There was Bobby Pierce selling his Texas history books, Mary Pension of Garrett, Jim Lewellen of Fisher, Jack Tipping, and many, many email friends that I finally had the opportunity to shake their hands and talk a while. Quite a few from our Pasadena club were there and I heard that it is likely that the Expo will be held at Pasadena, Texas next year. I enjoyed speaking with the representatives of the detector manufacturers and going to the Seminars. The largest hunt, the Extravaganza had an army of hunters. The field was about 2 1/2 acres according to my best guess and as everyone lined up I counted over a hundred hunters along one side of the field. There were old silver coins, silver rounds as well as tokens for many other prizes. One of the nicest prizes was won by Martin Hamilton who is shown in the photo holding the silver bar of 100 ounces of pure silver! Martin is the father of Leslie Hamilton and Leslie is the president of the Houston Archeology and Recovery Club and the father and son team are well known as relic hunters. I must say that I was impressed by the multitude of hunters and many who had some different ways of going about trying to win something there. There were a lot of swingers who performed the pendulum swing quite well, and some who were swinging about 8 inches off the ground(I think they may be onto something about looking for the larger coins!). There were all kinds of beepers represented there and many different kinds of diggers. I recall one fellow with a big bucket with holes in it strapped onto his ankle. I hope the holes were smaller than the dimes. It seems to me that hardy Texas individualism was alive and thriving there. I understand that the Expo gave away twelve metal detectors and a good time was had by all.