Popularity of new Sternberg
Museum meets expectations
Their main goal a year ago
was to get the museum up and running.
Nearly a year and a half after
its opening, officials and staff of Fort Hays State University´s
Sternberg Museum of Natural History are still on the run.
“I think the theme for
the second year should be building on the success of the first
year,” said Greg Liggett, assistant director of the museum.
The 100,000 square foot museum
at 3000 Sternberg Drive near 27th and Canterbury in northeast
Hays had a successful year in every aspect from tourism
to research to education, he said.
“The first year is getting
the system working,” Liggett said. “The second year
is refining those systems. We´re constantly doing that
here. In every operation, we´re learning what works best
and what doesn´t.”
What has worked for Sternberg
is a mixture of permanent and traveling exhibits and a Discovery
Room, especially attractive to school groups.
The Discovery Room, located
on the third floor, features hands-on projects and live animals
that attract old and young alike.
The third floor, referred
to as the “education floor,” also includes classrooms.
The museum is just one aspect
of the complex, named Beach Hall after Ross and Marianna Beach
primary donors for the project.
Also located in Beach Hall
is a restaurant, “Expeditions,” and a giftstore that
includes books and a large variety of gift items.
According to the Hays Convention
and Visitors Bureau, Sternberg Museum is one of the biggest tourist
attractions in Hays and the surrounding area.
“Sternberg has definitely
added a lot, given us a whole new angle to market,” said
Jana Jordan, executive director of the Hays CVB. “We feel
like that´s the hook right now to get (visitors) to Hays,
then they´ll visit other things.”
Jordan said the attraction
to Sternberg has a snowball effect that can only mean good things
for Hays.
“The nice spinoff is
that not only are we marketing Sternberg, but it´s helping
everybody,” she said.
Besides the novelty of the
museum itself, another project brought notoriety to Sternberg
in its first year at its new location.
In the fall of 1999, Liggett
and other museum staff took part in a dig in Pratt that revealed
skeleton parts from a Columbian mammoth that lived more than
10,000 years ago. They returned in the summer of 2000 to continue
the excavation.
“That really opened my
eyes to how hungry people are to know about how all this happens,”
Liggett said in reference to the big number of visitors to the
dig site.
“It´s important
that people recognize (research) is what the museum is all about.
That´s something I´d like to get out more to the
public, that a museum is more than just a house full of exhibits.
“What you see here on
exhibit is just the tip of the iceberg of all the work that´s
gone on to get them here.”
Sternberg officials also have
been working hard on getting premier traveling exhibits.
“A lot of our tourism
is transient, off the highway,” Liggett explained. “And
we´re in a very rural area, and we have less people to
market to in this area than somewhere like Denver. So we want
to have something for them to want to keep coming back to see.”
The three main summer traveling
exhibits are Antarctica, Hunters of the Sky and Fossil Art.
Featured in the exhibits are
anything from their history to interactive displays, dioramas
and photgraphs.
The museum is gearing up for
its best exhibit to date, “A T. rex Named Sue,” a full-scale
replica of the largest and most complete T. rex skeleton ever
recovered.
The exhibit, which explores
both the science and the controversy surrounding the specimen,
will be on display at Sternberg from Feb. 24 to April 29 of 2001.
On display this spring and
summer has been an exhibit of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill
and some art from recycled materials.
“We are trying to appeal
to lots of different types of people,” Liggett said, “and
we are definitely not standing still. We are moving ahead in
many areas.”
Reservations for a group tour
of the museum are available by calling (785) 628-5298. However,
the museum is open to the public during regular business hours,
and a reservation is not necessary.
Regular museum hours are 1
to 9 p.m. Sunday and Monday and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through
Saturday.
The gift store is operated
by the Barnes and Noble college bookstore division. It also manages
the campus bookstore at the Memorial Union.
The gift store hours are 1
to 6 p.m. Monday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.
Restaurant hours are 10 a.m.
to 2 p.m. Monday and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
Expeditions is closed on Sundays.
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