Now, the ITS bankruptcy and closing has been known for awhile now on the net but I've not posted anything about it yet, so the following is courtesy of Patrick Padrak, president of the Institute for New Energy.

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From - Sat Feb 20 00:53:57 1999
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 15:32:30 -0800
To: pgb@padrak.com (BCC: Energy_Send_,List)
From: pgb@padrak.com (Patrick Bailey)

A FWD: 24 Jan. issue of the Denver Post:

GROUP HONORING 19TH CENTURY SCIENTIST GOING INTO BANKRUPTCY

Colorado Springs - The International Tesla Society, a breeding ground for weird science, has closed and is headed for liquidation.

Bankruptcy may bring an end to the avant-garde organization that formed in 1984 to operate a museum on East Bijou Street and to sponsor an annual simposium of idealistic and eccentric inventors honoring the king of weird science: Nikola Tesla.

[Following this into they explained quite a lot about Tesla's life. Then to go on with the article:]

To quote a Roy Stewart, the owner of Tesseract Design & Instrument in Boulder, and a former society member, there were a lot of mainstream scientists interested in his work.

Stewart is now concerned the society's museum collection may get lost in the bankruptcy shuffle.

The rooms in the green office building on Bijou once held notes on Tesla's experiments, articles about his research, signed photos and letters. The museum also included reproductions of the inventor's creations, such as a working Tesla coil.

Today the rooms are empty.

The owner of the office bldg has locked the museum's doors last month. Workers packed and removed everything inside shortly afterwards, but no one is sure where the collection is being kept, except lawyer Robert Mason said that it hasn't been sold.

(this comment is apparently NOT part of the newspaper article but was added by someone else - take it with a grain of salt...>>> Jerry @ KeelyNet -board members report the JW McGinnis trashed the entire collection)

Roy Stewart has asked the city of Colorado Springs to acquire and preserve the collection, hoping that everything is still intact.

In its Chapter 7 bankruptcy December 9 the group listed $71,452 in debts and no assets. The case is to be heard in a meeting of creditors on Friday (not sure of the date).

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KeelyNet comments by Jerry W. Decker - I am very saddened to see the ITS fail in such a manner. Toby Grotz, Steven Elsewicke, J.W. McGinnis and many others put in so much time and effort to create it, then sustain it for so many years.

I haven't communicated with J.W., Steve or Toby recently and have only read the reports and watched the various attempts to lay blame or capture the interest (and financial support) of the Tesla audience. To my view, the saddest thing is the loss of the yearly conferences. Those are where the fun and excitement occurred.

This excitement also occurs at most conferences dealing with alternative science, some more than others. I particularly favor the more technically oriented INE conferences because there was always a good feeling and I always went away with tons of new and useful information and contacts.

Dean Stonier's twice yearly Global Science Congresses also have a very good, extended family feel to them and Dean always had interesting speakers and presentations.

I've not been to one of Steve Elsewickes Exotic Research conferences yet, but I've known Steve for many years and he is one of the most capable businessmen I've ever met, on a par of course, with the ineffable Dean Stonier.

Steve also has a good grasp on the alternative science activities though I think there is too much focus on the conspiracy/patriot subjects, though there is an audience for that kind of thing, its not mine. I'm basing that on copies I've seen of Extraordinary Science and just knowing Steve, but not having attended one of his conferences, I'll reserve an opinion on the quality until it is experienced.......>>> Jerry