Mark Joel Meckes died peacefully of cardio vascular failure on Tuesday, October 16, 2007. He was 55 years old.

Mark had many interests and was a gifted writer, artisan, craftsman, photographer, landscaper and a lover of all plants. He went out of his way to help others and few could stand up to his desire to gain knowledge and at the expense of his own time, share the knowledge to help others. Most of his recent research studies revolved around the 1200 different species of bamboo.

Mark Meckes' tinkering with bamboo began as a child living in the remote interior highlands of Papua New Guinea, a region of extensive bamboo utilization and one of the last remaining vestiges of the Stone Age (non metal) culture. Mark received his first pocket knife around this time and repaired and learned how to play a worn out bamboo jaw harp which he found while living in a bamboo house. He treasured a special jaw harp in the collection of jaw harps that later made.

Bamboo appeared in his life again when he lived in Australia, and again in the US. It was only natural that he incorporated bamboo into his arts and craft work. Since the mid 1980's, he established a bamboo nursery in Pennsylvania, distributed bamboo plants from the USDA Germ-plasm Repository to other nurseries and zoological organizations, and continued to explore the diversified species and versatile uses of bamboo.

In the year 2000, Mark Meckes began to share his bamboo experiences on the internet and implemented a dream - beginning the Bamboo Arts and Craft Network, a free informational website for people to learn about living, growing and working with bamboo. Currently the website has grown to include nearly 2800 subscribers from around the globe. The photo galleries and discussion forum is located at http://www.bamboocraft.net. Memorial contributions can be made to the Bamboo Arts and Craft Network to help perpetuate the free informational site.