Congrats to these Affiliates making news! Each month we highlight Affiliate-Smithsonian and Affiliate-Affiliate collaborations making headlines.  If you have a clipping highlighting a collaboration with the Smithsonian or with a fellow Affiliate you’d like to have considered for the Affiliate blog, please contact Elizabeth Bugbee.

Multiple Affiliates
CNN, Smithsonian Affiliates Announce in New York’s Grand Central Terminal
11 Smithsonian Affiliates, additional world-class institutions, and private collections, including the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, bring the 1960s to life with artifacts from the Cold War, Civil Rights Movement, Woodstock, and more.

Polk Museum of Art (Lakeland, Fla.)
Ollie up for All Decked Out at Polk Museum of Art: Skateboarding art and more celebrate the sport in Lakeland this summer.
This summer, the city of Lakeland kicks off a local version of the event, Innoskate Lakeland, which will feature a similar lineup of attractions – from a skateboard obstacle course to panel discussions – at the newly constructed Lakeland SkatePark on Lake Bonny. The Polk Museum of Art, an affiliate of the Smithsonian, also anchors the celebration with an exhibition of skateboard inspired art, already on view, called All Decked Out!

Skateboarding As Art at New ‘All Decked Out’ Exhibit at Polk Museum
The museum’s show is part of Innoskate 2014, a festival sponsored by the Smithsonian Institute to share skateboard culture’s creative spirit with public audiences. Innoskate Lakeland, the local, affiliated event sponsored by the city of Lakeland, will be celebrated June 21, Go Skateboarding Day.

Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Japanese American National Museum offers free, family-fun day themed around baseball
May 10 is also photo and video capture day for “A Day in the Life of Asian Pacific America,” a crowd-sourced online exhibition organized by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center and Flickr. The museum encourages people to upload their photos and videos to the #LifeAPA Flickr group.

The Museum of Flight (Seattle, Wash.)
Alaska Airlines Announces $2.5 Million Gift to Build Aerospace Education Center at The Museum of Flight
The Alaska Airlines Aerospace Education Center, to be located in the Museum’s T.A. Wilson Great Gallery, will be a resource center where teachers, parents, and students will be able to explore the many K-12 education programs offered at the Museum.

New Mexico Museum of Space History (Alamogordo, NM)
New Exhibit At Alamogordo Space Museum
Andrew Johnston, geographer and curator at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum’s Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, collaborated with other organizations to create the travelling exhibit Earth from Space, featuring 40 beautifully detailed satellite images of the planet…Now on temporary display inside the Clyde W. Tombaugh Theater at the New Mexico Museum of Space History, Earth from Space explains in stunning detail how satellite imagery is gathered, explores the remote sensing technology used to gather the images, and discusses the individual satellites whose images are on display.

Museum of the Rockies (Bozeman, MT)
Freight and Logistics Operation Treats a National Treasure as Carefully as if it Were Alive
Sometimes however something comes along that is truly deserving of a rapturous round applause when a subsidiary of an international logistics behemoth, FedEx Custom Critical, safely transported the remains of a rare Tyrannosaurus Rex from the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana way east to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

Virginia Museum of Natural History (Martinsville, VA)
VMNH gets antsy with newest exhibit
Farmers, Builders, Warriors: The Hidden Life of Ants” debuted Thursday at the museum on Starling Avenue in Martinsville during a reception for invited guests. The exhibit includes close-up photos taken by Dr. Mark Moffett, a research associate in the entomology department at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, of ants in their natural habitats.

South Dakota State Historical Society (Pierre, SD)
Object lesson: Smithsonian tells nation’s history in 101 ways
Kurin will be in Pierre on Monday, May 5, to talk about his latest book, “The Smithsonian’s History of America in 101 Objects.” His list includes everything from fossils and archaeological objects from 500 million years ago to a fragment of Plymouth Rock and Kermit the Frog.

Smithsonian brings presentation of 101 pieces of Americana to Pierre
The stop in South Dakota’s capital, arranged by the South Dakota State Historical Society Museum, which is a Smithsonian associate, is part of a series of presentations Kurin is giving across the country about select items from the institute’s collection.

Mystic Seaport Museum (Mystic, Connecticut)
For the First Time in 93 Years, a 19th-Century Whaling Ship Sets Sail
And now, the Charles W. Morgan–the last remaining wooden whaling ship in existence, and the most treasured possession of the Mystic Seaport Museum, a Smithsonian Affiliate–will set out on her 38th voyage.

Museum Center at 5ive Points (Cleveland, Tennessee)
Center of Growing Change
Najjar said the first museum that made an impact on him was the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. “Being able to walk in there and see Apollo 11. I remember my jaw just dropped, and I’ve had a love for museums ever since,” he said. The Smithsonian has now made the Museum Center at Five Points an affiliate member which means in the near future the center will have access to artifacts from what is known as “the nation’s attic.”

American Textile History Museum (Lowell, Massachusetts)
American Textile museum out ‘to make noise’
The textile museum will be one of only six museums across the country, all Smithsonian affiliates, to contribute to an exhibit next year called “Places of Invention,” which will range from today’s Silicon Valley to yesterday’s Lowell, which was at the heart of the Industrial Revolution. Unger has been working on assembling three videos of about five minutes each to tell Lowell’s story, and is basing that portion of the Smithsonian exhibit on the textile museum’s former “Inventing Lowell” exhibit.