B08_Solicitation_(Attachment_1_-_SOW).docx

S C O P E O F W O R K

ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

WIND CAVE NATIONAL PARK

SOUTH DAKOTA

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR – NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

PMIS PROJECT NUMBER # 244898

I. Introduction The National Park Service (NPS), through the Midwest Regional Office (MWRO), requires the performance of an Oral History Project for Wind Cave National Park (Wind Cave). The project will help complete basic historical documentation of the park’s ongoing history of exploration of the cave and cave resources. The living memory information generated from the Oral History Project is essential for present and future interpretation and resource management.

The Oral History Project shall conform to professional standards regarding methodology of oral history interviewing and transcription as established by the Oral History Association (OHA). OHA sets professional standards for oral history practitioners in the United States and may be found at http://www.oralhistory.org/about/principles-and-practices (October 2009, Principles for Oral History and Best Practices for Oral History). The Oral History Project for Wind Cave will involve 10 individuals to be interviewed in person and X individuals to be interviewed via telephone and/or Skype. Interviews will be digitally recorded, release forms signed, and transcriptions prepared.

The Oral History Project shall be completed within twelve months from the date of contract award.

II. DESCRIPTION OF THE RESOURCES

The park was originally established on January 9, 1903, to protect Wind Cave. In 1935, the purpose of the park was expanded to include the adjacent game preserve that had been managed by the USDA since 1912 as a range for bison and North American game animals.

Wind Cave National Park (hereafter referred to as the park) is in Custer County on the southeastern flank of the Black Hills, in southwestern South Dakota. The park is located 11 miles north of the town of Hot Springs. The park is bounded by Custer State Park to the north, Black Hills National Forest to the west, and private property to the east and south. The park consists of 28,295 acres of mixed-grass prairie, ponderosa pine forest, and shrublands. The park's mixed-grass prairie is one of the few remaining and is home to native wildlife such as bison, elk, pronghorn, mule and whitetail deer, coyotes, black-footed ferrets, and prairie dogs. Pre-Cambrian through Tertiary rocks are exposed in the park. Wind Cave is found in the Mississippian-aged Madison Limestone, locally called the Pahasapa Limestone. The cave is located below a 1.1 by 1.3-mile rectangle and directly under 600 acres in the south-central portion of the park. A total of 42 other caves are scattered throughout the park.

The park is known for having one of the most outstanding caves in the world as well as a mixed grass prairie ecosystem, home to a variety of native wildlife species. Wind Cave was formed within the Madison Limestone (Locally called the Pahasapa) of the Black Hills, probably during Paleocene-Eocene times (40-50 million years ago), definitely after Laramide uplift of the Black Hills (60-70 million years ago). The cave developed along gypsum deposits and paleokarst zones and is one of the oldest caves in the world. The cave intersects one of the world’s best examples of paleofill, ancient sediment that filled caves and sinkholes that existed before Wind Cave formed. The cave has two natural entrances, one of which was modified, and the cave is associated with six natural blowholes. More than 160 miles of passages have been explored and mapped making Wind Cave one of the longest caves in the world.

Studies of the airflow for which the cave is named suggest that only a tiny fraction of the cave's potential extent has been discovered. Wind Cave is the world’s best known example of a complex rectilinear maze cave. At any given point, from three to five interconnecting levels can occur within 250-vertical feet of rock, creating one of the world's premier maze caves.

Wind Cave's length and passage density are enough to put it into the ranks of world-class caves, but the cave is significant for many other reasons. The best known of these is boxwork. Boxwork is rarely found in other caves but is found in Wind Cave in quantities and qualities that are unparalleled in all of the world's known caves. The cave is known for its rare and unusual variety of minerals and speleothems. These include helictite bushes, quartz formations, large clusters of frostwork, and fragile growths of gypsum. Ongoing survey projects continually make new discoveries of unusual features in the cave. The cave has a simple, but highly specialized ecosystem that operates independently of photosynthesis. Finally, the lakes in Wind Cave are the only direct access point to the Madison Aquifer.

The cave resources of the park are also valuable for the clues to human history of the area. Significant historical cultural resources, from signatures and drawings to artifacts from previous mineral collecting, are found throughout the Historic Section of Wind Cave. Paleontological sites have been discovered in Wind Cave and other backcountry caves in the park, ranging from 250,000 years Before Present (BP) to recent. Flood debris found in several parts of Wind Cave have been radiocarbon dated to more than 4,000 years BP. This range of dates may provide valuable insights into past climates in the Black Hills Region.

Scholarship on the history Wind Cave National Park:

Passages Through Many Worlds: A Historic Resource Study of Wind Cave National Park http://npshistory.com/publications/wica/hrs.pdf 75 Years at Wind Cave: A History of the National Park http://npshistory.com/publications/wica/75-years.pdf

A Brief History of Wind Cave National Park https://www.nps.gov/wica/learn/historyculture/learning-about-the-park.htm

Caving Narratives Caving Narratives - Wind Cave National Park (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)

Research Project – Continue Oral History Project of Cave Explorers for Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota

Oral histories have been completed for some of the earlier cave explorers, but more recent explorers were not included. This project will continue to collect oral histories about the past as well as present cave exploration. Ten of the most influential cave explorers from the last 25 years have been selected for this project.

Participants will receive copies of their interview to review and correct and the completed transcript will be sent to each interviewee. Original transcripts, tapes, and CDs will be cataloged into the museum collections with working copies in the park library. They will also be available on the park’s expanded web page for use by scholars and other interested parties.

The Oral History Project is an urgent necessity for current management as it will examine events while they are still in the recent past and while the individuals who participated in these events are able to provide primary source material from living memory. A historian(s) with demonstrated past performance in conducting oral history interviews will be contracted to perform the interviews and transcriptions.

The completed Oral History Project will include the following elements:

A. Oral history interviews with recent cave explorers. Because exploration is ongoing and technology and preservation have changed over the years, oral history interviews will be especially useful in providing living memory to the Wind Cave’s history and extant resources. Seven (7) formal oral history interviews will be conducted in person and three (3) will be conducted by telephone and/or Skype according to professional standards. A list of alternate candidates is included in the event that any candidate on either list is unable or unwilling to participate. In that instance, someone from the alternate list will be selected and an interview via telephone and/or Skype will be conducted. The list of interviewees is as follows (full names and contact information will be provided following contract award):

Interviewees for Oral History Project (Regular bold type (7) = in-person interviews; bold/italic type (3) = telephone and/or Skype interviews)

Top Candidate to interview from 2000-2024 In-Person Interviews grouped geographically:

M.O., Custer SD R.O., Custer SD A.W., Rapid City SD

D.W., CO

D.L., Denver CO

C.B., CO

R.M., Fort Collins CO

Telephone or Skype interviews H. B., Tuscaloosa AL R.H., St. George, UT J.W., Cave Junction, OR

Alternate Interviewees (to be substituted should any of the above not participate)

1. J.G., Denver area, CO

2. D.B., Denver area, CO

3. C.P., Black Hills, SD

In each case on the above priority listing of interview candidates, consent/release forms are to be signed by the interviewees and transcriptions of the interviews will be prepared.

For the 7 in-person interviews, some of candidates live in the Rapid City, South Dakota area, but the remainder are in the Denver, Colorado metropolitan area.

Should any of the interview candidates not participate for whatever reason, candidates from the Alternate Interviewees list will be substituted upon discussion with and concurrence by the Contracting Officer’s Representative. All of the Alternate Interviewees who are selected due to a priority interviewee’s non-participation will have interviews conducted by telephone and/or Skype (with consent forms signed and transcripts prepared). Additional candidates may be added to the Alternate Interviewees list.

Oral history interviews will be digitally recorded, transcripts produced, a digital photograph of each in-person interviewee taken, and assignment of interview rights forms signed. All interviewees will be given an opportunity to review and edit his/her interview transcript over a one-month period. Following correction of the draft transcript, interviewees will be sent a final version of their interview transcript (electronic transmittal is preferred).

Payment will be made upon receipt and acceptance by NPS of final interview transcripts and signed interview release forms up to 80% of contract award total. This can be on a transcript-by-transcript basis, lumped together in groups, or at the end of the Oral History Project. Within one year of contract award, contractor will provide transcriptions of all oral history interviews for NPS inspection and approval and payment of the final 20%.

B. Submission of final interview transcripts shall be printed on archival-stable paper along with original signed interview release forms. Release forms are to be printed on Wind Cave letterhead.

III. Additional Contract Requirements

A. General provisions

1. Prospective contractors should note that the research design submitted by the contractor becomes a binding element of the contract and is expected to be carried out. The work performed and reported must meet the minimum requirements.

2. Within 30 days of award of contract, the contractor shall attend a post-award scoping meeting at Wind Cave National Park, Hot Springs, South Dakota, to discuss technical aspects of the contract, provide full names and contact information for interview candidates, and to confirm the planning schedule for the submission of the deliverables.

3. The production of the Oral History Project shall be completed within 12 months of contract award.

B. Report standards/format and submission schedule

The final oral history interview transcripts will be in the latest version of Microsoft Word and include the information required in the specifications listed in Section II, above. It must be typed on 8-1/2 by 11-inch white archival paper. All pages must be numbered. Copies of any photographs (screened for reproduction clarity), maps, drawings, and text must be clean, clear, and legible. The format must comply with the latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. In addition, all transcripts must contain the following:

1. Title/Cover page listing the name of the Principal Investigator. If the report is also authored by Project Historians, the title page must identify the author(s) and bear the inscription, "Prepared under the supervision of (name), Principal Investigator."

2. Following review and correction by interviewees as well as signing the interview release form, transcripts printed on archival paper, photographs of each in-person interviewee, and the signed release forms shall be submitted to NPS.

C. Disposition of data

Before expiration of the twelve-month contract period of performance, the contractor will furnish final interview transcripts printed on archival paper, digital recordings of the interviews, and a compact computer disk or disks containing the final products in latest version of Microsoft Word. All notes, records, maps, drawings, photographs, negatives, slides, digital images, tapes, digital recordings transcripts, and other data acquired during the course of this study will be professionally organized for archival purposes and submitted to the Contracting Officers Representative, to be deposited in the archives of the Wind Cave National Park.

D. Progress reports

Quarterly progress reports during the performance of the Oral History Projects are required. The initial due date will be 40 days after contract award. All quarterly reports will be submitted to Byrony Forbes, Contracting Officer Representative, National Park Service, Midwest Regional Office, 601 Riverfront Drive, Omaha, Nebraska 68102-4226. V. Payment

Partial payments may be made up to 80% of the contract award amount. Payments must be based on deliverables accepted by the government (see FAR 52.212-4(a), Contract Terms and Conditions – Commercial Items, Inspection/Acceptance & FAR 52.211-1, Time of Delivery). Payment requests must be in accordance with the clause titled, Electronic Invoicing and Payment Requirements - Invoice Processing Platform (IPP).