![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/DAVID-FINFROCK-ANTARTICA.png\")
<\/p>\nA lifelong fascination with Antarctica and maps has helped create a new exhibit at the University of Texas at Arlington that traces 500 years of exploration of the remote continent.<\/p>\n
Longtime NBC 5 meteorologist David Finfrock began donating his Antarctic map collection to UTA Special Collections in 2023. More than 300 maps, games and pieces of historic memorabilia now make up the exhibit, \u201cFrozen Frontiers: 500 Years of Mapping Antarctica.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis tells the whole story of mapping Antarctica so we can actually trace developments over time and see how cultural and scientific discoveries impacted the way we depict Antarctica on a page,\u201d UTA cartographic archivist Madeline Lowry said.<\/p>\n
Finfrock\u2019s fascination with Antarctica began long before his more than 50-year career at NBC 5.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been fascinated by Antarctica since I was a kid,\u201d Finfrock said.<\/p>\n
As a young letter writer, stamps offered Finfrock a connection to places he had never visited. Collecting stamps eventually led to collecting maps \u2014 another interest that would help shape his future.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have long been interested in maps; that’s one of the things that led me to become a meteorologist. I got to work with weather maps every day,\u201d Finfrock said.<\/p>\n
Some of Finfrock\u2019s earliest maps were his own creations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are actually maps that I drew at the age of 16,\u201d Finfrock said.<\/p>\n
Finfrock was born in 1953, at a time when portions of Antarctica remained unexplored.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was born in 1953 and at that time parts of Antarctica still had not been explored,\u201d Finfrock said.<\/p>\n
In 2002, Finfrock fulfilled his lifelong dream of experiencing Antarctica in person. One encounter with a chinstrap penguin became a particularly memorable part of the trip.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tDavid FinfrockDavid Finfrock<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I was sitting on a rock, and this chinstrap penguin waddled up about arm’s length from me,\u201d Finfrock said. \u201cAnd the first day back on the air I wore that beard; some of the viewers said I should keep it, but the news director said no.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, Finfrock\u2019s collection is helping others explore Antarctica without making the expensive journey to the remote continent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted the collection to be used for future knowledge,\u201d Finfrock said.<\/p>\n
Finfrock\u2019s donated maps, including some that are more than 500 years old, have all been digitized, allowing people around the world to view the collection.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC DFW. AI tools helped convert the story into a digital article, and an NBC DFW journalist edited it again before publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lifelong fascination with Antarctica and maps has helped create a new exhibit at the University of Texas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117,4428],"class_list":["post-453797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news","tag-ut-arlington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}