Last year Kim Baumann, a truck driver for Belger Cartage in Kansas City, Mo., received an unusual assignment: transport a full-scale fiberglass replica of Sue, the world's largest and most expensive Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton, from the Sternberg Museum of Natural History, to Indianapolis for its next display.

Sue isn't just any dinosaur. She's the largest T-Rex ever discovered and was named for Sue Hendrickson, who discovered the fossil buried in South Dakota in 1990. Buried again for a time in a lawsuit after the discovery, the skeleton was finally sold. The original fossil fetched almost $9 million at auction from a joint venture by Walt Disney Co. and McDonald's. The consortium now has two replicas touring the nation's museums.

As for the reptile's name, no one knows if "Sue" is female. It's impossible to tell a dinosaur's sex from a fossil.

"She's a mighty big lizard," grinned the six-foot Baumann, who has driven for Belger for 24 years. The company was started in 1919 in Kansas City and is still there. It takes care of most of Sternberg Museum's heavy shipping.

Imagine transporting a 67-million-year-old jigsaw puzzle that assembles to form a fossilized giant lizard that came from the earth in often-crumbly pieces, and was literally glued together to make a complete skeleton.

Numerous massive wooden crates were brought by truck, and various skeletal segments were removed and reassembled in the 67-foot-high museum showroom. The showroom also has one of the finest dioramas in existence, which includes a robotic T-Rex.

"It was a great coup when we heard we'd get Sue," said Greg Liggett, assistant museum manager. "But it also posed unusual problems. Although our state-of-the-art museum opened in 1999, even with a super-high ceiling, unloading was difficult. One crate is 7 feet by 7 feet by 13 feet, and weighs over 2,000 pounds!"

The problem was solved by using a hefty 5-ton forklift to hoist the crates through the 10-foot-wide door, and by using plenty of brawn to scoot them into the display area. In the end, everything worked to perfection - and exhibition visitors left a whopping $13 million in Hays.

Crew chief Scott Moses and his eight-man team were in charge of assembling the huge reptile. Scaffolds were bolted together and an aluminum girder was laid across the top as a crane. A chain hoist lifted the heavy sections via nylon belts secured to steel eyehooks imbedded in the skeleton. The crew bolted each section together with hand wrenches.

Six weeks later, while Baumann waited with his truck, the procedure was reversed and the fossil T-Rex boxed and loaded. Baumann's job - or another driver's if he were unable to - was to see the dinosaur safely to Indianapolis, its next big showing. But until actual shipping day, Sue would reside in a local warehouse.

That's a Lotta Lizard!

According to a spokesman at the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History where Sue resides, she is "the largest, most complete, and best preserved Tyrannosaurus Rex ever found." (See www.fmnh.org/sue/whosue.html for more about the discovery.)

Alive, the enormous beast stood 15 feet at the hip, measured 45 feet long from teeth to tail, and weighed 14,000 pounds. Upright, her tooth-studded jaws would loom 25 feet over her terrified prey - and be the last thing they ever saw. Sue's diet was meat. She could easily have eaten a 2,000-pound buffalo a day if they had been available in the Cretaceous period of the earth's history (not Jurassic, as the movies lead you to think). And like a shark's, her teeth were constantly being renewed. Indeed, when Sue died, a new tooth was just forming.

For trucking, each T-Rex replica breaks into six sections: head, small tail, large tail, pelvis, rib cage, hip bone and leg (a 3-piece unit). All are built around a 2-inch steel "spine" and bolted together. Balance is essential lest the massive structure topple over.

The largest segment is the rib cage. The ribs are braced with a steel device similar to a 1960s TV antenna. Inside the crate, 6-inch foam rubber cushions the bones.

Baumann's co-worker, forklift operator Monte Crozier, eases the big crates out the door and into the trailer, where Baumann wrestles them snugly into place. "OK, who's got the barbecue sauce?" asks a worker. Everyone bursts out laughing. Funny now, but back when Sue was alive, the worker would have been just a shrimp on her barbie.

Because many fossils exist in the world's museums, most people think they're common. The truth is, fossils are rare. Given the convulsions of the earth over 67 million years, plus the complexities of fossilization, it's almost a miracle that any exist.

Fossils are rarely discovered in one place. They are often scattered, in bits and pieces, and excavated with great care to be assembled over several months. The assembly and mounting of dinosaurs is a specialized business that requires many experts.

Sue has attracted huge crowds wherever she has been displayed. Honolulu announced its first "blockbuster" attraction was Sue. And male or female, the huge Tyrannosaurus attracted record crowds to the Sternberg Museum, an adjunct of Fort Hays State University, with 106,000 visiting the display during its six-week run.

But the Sternberg is by no means a one-show museum. One of the world's most incredible a fossil, the Fish-Within-A-Fish, is on permanent display here - and it was George Sternberg who found it in 1954.

Sternberg is gone, but one of his helpers - Standlee Dalton - recently celebrated his 100th birthday. This amazing man is agile, tireless, and still drives his own car.

"The fish-within-a-fish is Gillicus in Xiphactinus," Dalton explained. "The 21-footer apparently thought it could swallow a 10-footer, but its prey's thrashing cut its insides to ribbons. It's very rare, and the best specimen of three that are known in the world."

Dalton's contribution to the Fish-Within-A-Fish was - ice water. "Before we could truck the fossil from the dig," he explained, "we had to have a plaster cast strong enough for the journey. I kept the plaster cold in super-hot weather by soaking burlap in ice water. It worked. It kept the plaster from cracking in the intense heat." The cast still supports the fish in the museum.

With the world's biggest T-Rex trucking down the highway to its next show, what will Sternberg Museum feature next? Something even more enormous? Perhaps a blue whale?

"Butterflies," said Gregg Liggett. "Monarch butterflies." *