Longpoint Region October 2010 meeting

John Powers, the Butterfly man.

Bruce Essery introduces our guest speaker for the October Meeting, John Powers, The Butterfly Man. In over 49 years of studying and educating others about butterflies, Powers has had the honour of sharing his passion with over 300 world famous celebrities associated with butterflies. To name a few are Rita McNeil, Steve McQueen, Ronald Regan, Anne Murray, Roger Whittaker, Robert Bateman, Queen Elizabeth, and His Holiness, Pope John Paul II.

John G. Powers is a native of Cambridge, Ontario Canada. His business is called 'Flying Jewels Inc. He has worked with entomologists, research scientists, artists and museum personnel from around the world.

He called Roger Davis up to give him a gift of a poster of licence plates from the United States that John had collected with a butterfly on each plate. John was very generous this night as he gave us all a little gift of some sort of butterfly memorabilia.

His private collection, consists of thousands of specimens and a spectacular collection of unique butterfly memorabilia which has been shared with the public for over 30 years through John's lectures and travelling exhibits.

It was a very interesting evening listening to the Butterfly man. His mission statement for living is ‘to count your blessings, not your problems.’ John Powers, who operates the Wings of Paradise Butterfly Conservatory has collected butterflies from all over the world. His way of collecting has been the ‘sharing’ methods. John has passed his cards around all over the world and has had a huge and wonderful response from people who have sent him anything to do with butterflies. Some of his contacts have been President Ford, Johnny Cash, Jim Whittaker, the Queen, Red Skeleton, Robin Williams, and many other well known people. John talked to us on his collection, and how he came to own his treasurers. He also brought specimens of butterflies from his collection. He explained that the butterfly signifies freedom, and love.

Photos and write-up by Elspeth Smelser