State-Journal.com - Frankfort Faces: A curious collector

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Photo By State Journal/Hilly SchifferOne of Charles Wright’s several display boxes is filled with colorful butterflies. Charles, 59, has been collecting insects since 1991. He neatly arranges butterflies, moths and beetles then pins and labels the insects before placing them in glass-covered wooden display drawers that slide into a steel cabinet.

Photo By State Journal/Hilly SchifferCharles Wright

Photo By State Journal/Hilly SchifferOne of Charles Wright’s several display boxes is filled with colorful beetles.

Charles searches for insects outside of his home on Springhill Road. He has about 9,000 specimens in his insect collection, and he has identified 1,200 species so far.

There’s more than music at the popular Downtown Frankfort summer concert series.

For some it’s the pizza, burgers, bratwurst, barbecue and beer.

But for long-bearded 59-year-old Charles Wright with gray hair flowing below his shoulders, it’s the insects, especially after the sun drops below the horizon.

While listening to the music on stage, he likes to see what’s dancing above the crowd around the sidewalk lamppost lights by the Old Capitol grounds.

Charles is an amateur entomologist. One room of his Capitol-view home on Springhill Road is a mausoleum for insects.

About 9,000 specimens are in his collection and he has identified 1,200 species so far. The neatly arranged insects - including colorful butterflies, moths and beetles - are pinned and labeled in glass-covered wooden display drawers that slide into a gray steel cabinet.

“I have probably another 500 species I haven’t identified yet,” he says.

A collector since 1991, Charles says he will continue collecting and studying insects until “I run out of room.” Then he will “probably donate stuff to museums.”

He never leaves home without plastic 35mm film canisters to store the insects he finds and keeps.

He says he enjoys being an “amateur” rather than a professional entomologist. If he got paid for his work, “then I would have to collect and identify and write papers,” instead of just doing it for enjoyment.

After going to Westport Road High School in Louisville, Charles majored in geology at the University of Kentucky.

He has lived in Frankfort since 1984 and worked 28 years in state government before retiring from the Department for Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement in 2007.

Working in the program to help small coal operators, he spent a lot of time in the eastern and western coalfield counties. While there, he also searched for insects to expand his collection.

“I’ve collected specimens in all 120 counties in the state,” he says. “And when I go on vacations or travel with Mary (Hamilton, his wife, a professional storyteller), I’ll collect. I’ve got specimens from about 20 states.

“Whatever area I’m in, if insects are out, I’ll be looking. In Kentucky I’ve collected in every month but February. You don’t get very much in December, January and March, but I do have a few specimens from then.”

He has spiders (not technically an insect), bees, flies, mosquitoes and you-name-it in his collection, but “beetles are what I primarily collect. Beetles are my favorite.” But he isn’t sure why.

When asked what insects are good for, Charles says, “Different insects are good for different things. Without insects we would not have a lot of the fruits that people enjoy because they’re pollinated by insects. That’s probably the most economical thing.”

Entomology is important, he says, “in the sense of knowing what the biodiversity of the state is. If you don’t know what’s out there to begin with, then it’s hard to know if things are disappearing or increasing.

“Collections give you a baseline for knowing at least what’s in the state and how plentiful it may be. I’ve had information from specimens in my collection used in several (academic research) papers by Dr. Charles Covell (a retired professor of biology at the University of Louisville) and Dr. Robert Barney at Kentucky State University.”

Charles says he’s found some insects in Kentucky considered southern species that aren’t in University of Kentucky or U of L’s collections.

“It could be because of a changing climate these are coming into the state, or it could be they’ve been here and just nobody has collected them, which is probable. I’ve made an effort to collect in parts of the state where other people have not collected.”

The three counties with the most insect species listed are Jefferson with U of L, Fayette with UK, and Franklin “because I’m here and I collect all the time,” he says.

Charles says he’s been stung by insects while collecting but has never been sick.

‘I’ve been chased and stung by yellow jackets when I was out in the woods, prying off bark with a geologist hammer, looking for stuff.”

Charles has been to Chicago’s Field Museum to see a traveling exhibit of Charles Darwin’s insect collection from the 1830s. He also respects the work of Thomas Say, a noted beetle collector who described a lot of species from Kentucky and southern Indiana in the 1820s.

He says he’s always had an interest in natural history, and as a teenager had small collections of rocks, fossils and insects. But those collections got destroyed while moving around in college, he says.

“I always had a curiosity about things and liked being out in nature. We went on family camping trips and vacations across the country several times when I was growing up.”

Insect collecting “is an easy hobby to do and it gets me out in nature. That’s the best part - getting outside, walking around, doing the collecting. If I’m finding something I know I haven’t collected before, it’s always exciting.”

He recently attended the Society of Kentucky Lepidopterists spring field trip in Laurel and Pulaski counties.

To attract insects the group ties a white bed sheet between two trees, and then uses a black light and a mercury vapor light.

“The white sheet serves two purposes,” he says. “It’s something for the light to shine on, giving a larger area to be seen by the insects. And it’s something the insects can land on.”

Now that he’s retired, Charles and his wife have created a traveling 45-minute educational program called “Buggy Kentucky” for libraries and schools.

“We combine Mary’s insect-related stories and my knowledge of Kentucky insects, and use large photographs of insects from my collection so people across the room can see them,” Charles says.

“We went to 22 libraries across the state last year and we’ve been to two schools and a museum so far this year. We’ve had numerous people come up and tell us they really liked the program.”

Mary says her husband is “intelligent, flexible, funny, witty, eccentric, open-minded and loving.”

When he isn’t collecting insects or traveling with the storyteller, one of his regular routines is to visit the Paul Sawyier Public Library daily. He goes there to read every available newspaper.

“I like to hold newspapers in my hands, and will figure out how to read them online only when I have to,” he says.