POCATELLO — As a child, John Tyner II received a gift that spurred a lifelong fascination with science fiction pioneer Edgar Rice Burroughs. His mother gave him a first-edition copy of “Tarzan of the Apes,” which she’d received from her godmother in 1919.

    At auction, first editions of that book have fetched upwards of $35,000, but Tyner, of Washington, D.C., would never dream of selling it — not even if someone offered him $1 million.

    This week, Tyner and 32 other like-minded individuals from throughout the U.S. and Canada are celebrating their favorite author — any member of the group can rattle off Burroughs’ contributions to literature ad-infinitum — in his old stomping grounds of Southeast Idaho.

    The National Capital Panthans, a mid-Atlantic chapter of the Burroughs Bibliophiles, chose Pocatello to host their convention, the 2011 Annual Dum-Dum. For those unfamiliar with Burroughs terminology, Dum-Dum refers to the ceremonial earthen drums the apes played in the famous Tarzan novels, and Panthan was a mercenary character in his Martian novels.

    The convention, hosted at the Clarion Inn, started Saturday and ends today. It included a bus tour of places in the region with ties to Burroughs, a banquet, speakers, an auction of Burroughs memorabilia and Burroughs collections for sale. The assortment of Burroughs buys included original scripts, comics, vintage pulp magazines from the 1920s, videos, novels, buttons and a host of other collectibles.

    Tyner, who organized the event along with Panthan chapter member Joan Bledig, offered a brief history of the roughly three years Burroughs spent in Southeast Idaho to explain the choice of setting for the event.

    Before he was an author, Burroughs bought a stationary store on Center Street in Pocatello in 1898. That building, located adjacent to the Whitman Hotel, has since been torn down. Burroughs dredged for gold with his brothers in the Snake River, and he punched cattle at a family ranch in the Raft River area. He picked up his mail in American Falls. The title of his first book, which was never published, should also sound familiar to residents of Southeast Idaho — “Minidoka.”

    Tyner explained his group made a brief stop in Minidoka and met the small town’s mayor, who asked them if their bus had made a wrong turn.

    Burroughs also made failed attempts at being a battery salesman and a Sears accountant before he finally started in science fiction, where he innovated concepts such as teleportation, time travel and rockets.

    Simply put, Burroughs is the grandfather of science fiction, argued J.G. Huckenpohler, of Washington, D.C. Huckenpohler noted Burroughs wrote about organ transplants before they’d ever been performed, aircraft with autopilot before there were airplanes and tissue cultures before they were commonplace in laboratories.

    “I don’t think there’s ever been anybody who could describe action as well as him,” added Nels Myrhoj, of Aldergrove, British Columbia

    To Tyner, however, the true value of Burroughs’ works — his Tarzan stories in particular — lies in the moral lessons.

    “When you look at the Tarzan written adventures, it’s absolutely crystal clear the difference of being good and bad. ... It really sets for people what they should be doing with their lives,” Tyner said.

    Bill Hillman, a retired university professor from Manitoba, British Columbia, claims to operate the world’s most extensive website managed by one source for a single author. Any Dum-Dum could guess the common thread of the nearly 10,000 web pages linked to www.erbzine.com.

    Hillman recalls listening to the old Tarzan radio shows in the early 1950s and reading the comic books. He and any other club member are quick to proclaim that the movies — even the old ones with Johnny Weissmuller — are nothing like the books.

    For a while, Hillman recalled having a “real life” with Tarzan on the back burner.

    “Then the Internet came out, and I met all of these other weirdos,” Hillman joked.