Tag Archive for: oklahoma history center

Kudos Affiliates! Spring 2025 Edition

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Kudos to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments! Do you have kudos to share? Please send potential entries to Aaron Glavas, GlavasC@si.edu.

FUNDING 

The Denver Museum of Nature & Science (Denver, CO) received a $20 million gift from the Sturm Family Foundation to launch a new East Wing Project to rejuvenate their historic theater, lobby and plaza. 

Nebraska Tourism awarded a $10,710 grant to the Durham Museum (Omaha, NE) as part of the application cycle of the Community Impact and Visit Nebraska Marketing Grant programs. The funding will be used for the Image Library, Website & Advertising Expansion project. 

Union Station, Kansas City, Inc. (Kansas City, MO) received a grant of $20,000 from Bayer Fund. The grant will be used towards building a better future by helping provide scholarships for local students to visit both Science City and the Arvin Gottlieb Planetarium. The program is for students in grades K-12 at public or charter schools in the Kansas City metro area, including Jackson, Johnson, Wyandotte, and Clay counties as well as non-profit community groups that serve individuals from historically underrepresented communities. 

Conner Prairie (Fishers, IN) received a $2.5 million grant through Lilly Endowment’s Religion and Cultural Institutions Initiative. The grant will support the Lenape Connection & Kinship on the White River project, which aims to amplify the voices of the Lenape people, honoring their cultural heritage, history and traditions. 

The National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (Dubuque, IA) was awarded an Inspire Iowa Cultural Tourism Grant award of $50,000 in support of the summer 2025 traveling exhibit, Ice Dinosaurs: The Lost World of the Alaskan Arctic. Funding will support this new traveling exhibit, in addition to educational programming and a correlated regional marketing campaign designed to attract significant tourism to the River Museum and the region. 

AWARDS & RECOGNITION 

Newsweek USA Today’s Readers’ Choice Awards were recently announced and featured Affiliates in the following categories: 

Best Free Museum 

  • California Science Center (Los Angeles, CA) 

Best History Museum 

Best Museum Ship 

Best Music Museum 

  • Musical Instrument Museum (Phoenix, AZ) 

Best Open-Air Museum 

Best Planetarium 

Best Science Museum 

Booth Western Art Museum (Cartersville, GA) and Tellus Science Museum (Cartersville, GA), were recognized for their contributions to the museum industry at the annual Georgia Association of Museums conference. The awards highlight both museums’ dedication to innovation, accessibility, and education. 

  • Booth Western Art Museum received a multimedia award for its bilingual digital tour. The museum developed a low-cost, web-based tour that delivers an engaging, bilingual experience and provides greater accessibility for the region’s Spanish-speaking community, which makes up over 13% of the local population. 
  • Tellus Science Museum’s annual summer internship program was honored with Georgia Association of Museums’ Student Project Award for developing a new Solar System Traveling Trunk program. The portable educational resource aligns with Georgia’s state science curriculum and provides interactive lessons for students suitable for a wide range of grade levels. 

The travel magazine Condé Nast Traveler recently published a list of the 51 best museums in the United States, which included the following Affiliates: 

  • Musical Instrument Museum (Phoenix, AZ) 

LEADERSHIP 

Michelle Larson, CEO of the Adler Planetarium (Chicago, IL), announced she is stepping down to become president of Clarkson University in upstate New York.  The planetarium’s chief financial officer, Audris Wong, has been tapped as interim CEO while the board of trustees undertakes the process of hiring a permanent replacement for Larson. 

Nicole Harvey, a longtime employee of the Oklahoma Historical Society, has been named the next director of the Oklahoma History Center Museum (Oklahoma City, OK) after serving as interim director. 

Plimoth Patuxet Museums (Plymouth, MA) announced Executive Director, Ellie Donovan, is retiring from the Museum this year. Donovan has held several positions at the Museum, serving as Executive Director for the last 16 years. The trustees of the museum added Deputy Director of Research and Public Engagement, Tom Begley, will assume the role of Executive Director following Donovan’s departure. 

Kudos Affiliates!! Year End 2024

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Kudos to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments! Do you have kudos to share? Please send potential entries to Aaron Glavas, GlavasC@si.edu.

FUNDING

National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (Dubuque, IA) has received a $20,000 Cultural Leadership Partners Program Operating Support Grant. This grant will support the River Museum’s ongoing efforts to advance inclusion for visitors and staff. With support from the Cultural Leadership Partners program, the River Museum is now a KultureCity Sensory Inclusive Certified Facility. Features include sensory bags, free to check out at the box office, filled with tools to reduce stimuli and help navigate the museum for those with sensory-processing needs. Funding will also support sensory days programming that provides a sensory-friendly environment including dimmed lighting, limited ambient sounds, and no distracting exhibit motions during these public events.

Kenosha Public Museums Foundation (Kenosha, WI) received an annual grant from The Green Bay Packers Foundation to support the Weaving Cultural and Environmental Narratives: Honoring Native Women and Protecting Our Waters exhibition.

The Indiana Youth Institute awarded $20,000 to Conner Prairie (Fishers, IN) to focus on gaps/needs in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging and/or trauma-informed workplaces and are working to improve workplace conditions for youth workers.

History Colorado (Denver, CO) received a $164,000 grant from the Historic Preservation Fund. This funding will be matched by History Colorado to update geothermal heating systems and make various buildings at Fort Garland Museum and Cultural Center more energy efficient.

The Indiana Historical Society (Indianapolis, IN) is the recipient of a $48,653 grant from Lilly Endowment Inc., which will directly fund a planning framework for the United States’ 250th anniversary in Indiana. The grant will help Indiana’s commemoration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence by enabling the IHS to develop an interpretive framework and resource list that connects Indiana history to the nation’s founding principles. The framework will be made available to interested historical, cultural and community organizations to aid in local planning and programming efforts related to the United States’ semi-quincentennial in 2026.

The Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission approved 28 Historical & Archival Records Care grants totaling $152,571 to support crucial efforts to preserve Pennsylvania’s invaluable historical records and make them accessible to residents across the Commonwealth, including Senator John Heinz History Center (Pittsburgh, PA) – $4,994, and Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor – $4,500 (Easton, PA)

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Dr. Takashi Hoshizaki, a founding member of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation (Powell, WY), received the Japanese Foreign Minister’s Commendation during a ceremony at the Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, CA). Dr. Hoshizaki was recognized for his contributions to U.S.-Japanese relations, his leadership in creating the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation and for his career in the space program.

The American Alliance of Museums announced 25 reaccreditation awards made at the October 2024 meeting of the Accreditation Commission. The following Affiliates received re-accreditation:

The Association of Science and Technology Centers honored eight member organizations, including two Affiliates, with the Roy L. Shafer Leading Edge Organizational Award:

  • Denver Museum of Nature and Science (Denver, CO) was honored for The Institute for Science & Policy, which is part community engagement and part think tank. The Institute enables the museum to tackle “wicked problems”—those which can be difficult to define, complex, and with no clear solutions—in a way that centers community perspectives. Tackling such issues as water scarcity, energy transition, climate change, and misinformation, the Institute has leveraged the museum’s strong reputation as a trusted convener to engage a broad group of stakeholders includes journalists and policymakers.
  • The Wild Center (Tupper Lake, NY) for the development of their Youth Climate Program into a replicable program that is having a real impact on global climate discussions and on the youth who participate. The Wild Center has helped facilitate over 200 climate summits in nine countries and in much of the United States. These conference-style events kickstart youth-led projects by focusing on the knowledge and skills needed for effective climate change leadership. They have helped youth from around the world to build confidence and competence as climate leaders, empowered them to develop Climate Action Plans for their schools, and connected them with local government to create more climate-resilient communities—all while centering and involving the youth in all aspects of planning and implementation.

LEADERSHIP

Whatcom Museum (Bellingham, WA) Executive Director Patricia Leach announced she will retire March 31, 2025. She has been at the helm of the museum for the past 17 years and has enjoyed a 42-year career at the executive director level.

The Board of Trustees of The Rockwell Museum (Corning, NY) announced the appointment of Erin M. Coe as the new executive director, effective January 1, 2025. With decades of experience as a museum leader, curator, educator and arts advocate, Coe brings a wealth of expertise and vision to The Rockwell as it advances its position as a destination and community resource for American art and culture.

Kudos Affiliates!! November 2023

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Kudos to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments! Do you have kudos to share? Please send potential entries to Aaron Glavas, GlavasC@si.edu.

FUNDING

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded $76.4 million for the inaugural Global Centers Competition including University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Urbana-Champaign, IL) and partner institutions: University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (Boulder, CO) and Arizona State University. These collaborative research centers will apply best practices of broadening participation and community engagement to develop use-inspired research on climate change and clean energy. The centers will also create and promote opportunities for students and early-career researchers to gain education and training in world-class research while enhancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. Researchers will be supported by NSF up to $5 million over four to five years.

The Glen and Polly Barton Educational Endowment Fund donated $1 million to the Peoria Riverfront Museum (Peoria, IL) for the museum’s Every Student Initiative. The program brings Peoria Public School students to the museum to expand on topics outside of their classrooms.

Science Museum Oklahoma (Oklahoma City, OK) received a $1.5 million gift from the Chickasaw Nation to support a state-of-the art planetarium scheduled to open in 2024. The multimillion-dollar Love’s Planetarium will provide Oklahoma with an educational venue that will include an optical projector with a digital system that produces 9,500 bright stars and 56 nebulae and clusters for viewing as well as approximately 8 million detailed stars to recreate the Milky Way, all with high-intensity LEDs and fiber-optics. When it’s complete, the planetarium will be the only one of its kind with this combination of projection systems in the Western Hemisphere.

The National Park Service (NPS), in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), announced $25.7 million in Save America’s Treasures grants from the Historic Preservation Fund to preserve nationally significant sites and collections. Preservation projects receiving a Save America’s Treasures grant from NPS include:

Collections projects receiving a Save America’s Treasures grant from IMLS include:

  • Plimoth Patuxet Museums (Plymouth, MA) ($163,680) to support Preserving Mayflower II: A Project to Ensure the Longevity of a National Icon
  • YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (New York, NY) ($224,007) for the preservation and access of unique historical documents and photographs of the Jewish Labor and Political Archives.
  • Buffalo Bill Center of the West (Cody, WY) ($750,000) to improve and remodel collections storage spaces at the center.

International Museum of Art & Science (McAllen, TX) received three grant awards from the Texas Commission on the Arts for the 2023-24 fiscal year in the following categories:

  • $3,500 – Arts Respond – Public Safety and Criminal Justice– to support Screen It: Youth Identity Through Art which brings at-risk teens and working artists together to learn about the process of screen printing, culminating in a public exhibition.
  • $11,000 – A two-year Arts Create award to advance the creative economy of Texas by investing in the operations of the museum.
  • $74,924 – Cultural District Project award to support Destination McAllen: Art, Culture, IMAS which will attract tourists with public art and high-quality artistic videos featuring McAllen’s Cultural District.

The National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (Dubuque, IA) received $8,000 in funding from the City of Dubuque’s Arts and Cultural Affairs grant program to support a special 20th-Anniversary exhibit at the museum.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

UNESCO World Heritage Committee added Ohio’s Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks as the United States’ 25th addition to the World Heritage List. The Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, which includes five locations managed by the National Park Service and three managed by the Ohio History Connection (Columbus, OH), were built by Native Americans between 1,600 and 2,000 years ago.

The Dubuque County Historical Society, which operates the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium and the Mathias Ham Historic Site, has been awarded a Top Workplaces 2023 honor by Iowa Top Workplaces.

Jose Santamaria, former executive director of Tellus Science Museum (Cartersville, GA), was recognized with the Entwisle Award for Lifetime Service in Tourism by Only in Cartersville Bartow Tourism.

Mr. William D. “Bill” Welge, Archivist, Historian, and Author, and former Research Division Director of the Oklahoma Historical Society (Oklahoma City, OK) was inducted into the Oklahoma Historian’s Hall of Fame in March 2023.  His service spanned nearly 44 years beginning in 1977. The OHS archives were renamed the “William D. Welge Archival Collections,” in his honor.

LEADERSHIP

Jose Santamaria announced he will be moving from his executive director position of the Tellus Science Museum to part-time director emeritus. Tellus’ director of development, Adam Wade assumed the executive director role, effective October 1.

Putnam Museum and Science Center (Davenport, IA) President/CEO Rachael Mullins will retire in June 2024. She plans to relocate to the Atlanta area to be closer to family and assist in caring for her mother. A search committee will conduct a professional search to place a new president/CEO by June 1, 2024.

Kudos Affiliates!!! Summer 2023

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Kudos to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments! Do you have kudos to share? Please send potential entries to Aaron Glavas, GlavasC@si.edu.

FUNDING

Nissan Foundation awarded $1.2 million to 39 nonprofits, including four Affiliates, that share and celebrate diverse cultural perspectives, experiences, and voices to communities across the country. The grant recipients are based in communities surrounding Nissan facilities in Southern California, Middle Tennessee, Central Mississippi, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Southeast Michigan, New York City, and Atlanta including:

  • The Museum of Us (San Diego, CA) ($15,000) – to offer Race: Are We So Different workshops.

University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (Boulder, CO) wwill receive $91.8 million in funding spread out over the next five years from the National Science Foundation, all of which will go towards designing and building the first Airborne Phase Array Radar (APAR) system for meteorology use. APAR will be looking at the atmosphere at higher resolutions and looking more deeply into clouds and thunderstorms with dual polarization capabilities, which means APAR will be able to differentiate between snowflakes, rain and ice crystals whereas other radars implemented in the past could not, providing a clearer understanding of a storm’s microphysical properties.

Putnam Museum and Science Center (Davenport, IA) received $50,000 from Scott County Regional Authority as part of the spring 2023 grant cycle. The funding will support the Putnam Reimagined strategic initiative.

The National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (Dubuque, IA) has been awarded $20,000 in operational support as part of the Cultural Leadership Partners (CLP) from the Iowa Arts Council. Funding for fiscal year 2024 will support the Museum’s Interpretive Planning Pre-Work Assessment to gain an increased understanding of visitor knowledge, behaviors, and attitudes, reflect community need and connectivity, inform evaluation practices to best serve community, and creatively integrate the goals of both historic and living collections in exhibits and programs. Funding will also support the Museum’s diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion (DEAI) initiatives and service trainings to provide DEAI-forward solutions to ensure an inclusive visitor experience.

Plimoth Patuxet Museums (Plymouth, MA) announced a $10,000 donation from the Rotary Club of Plymouth in support of its Indigenous Program Building Project that will enable staff to better tell the compelling story of profound change and cultural persistence in the Indigenous homeland in this region.

Dubuque City Council approved a recommendation from the city’s Arts and Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission to allocate a $21,846 operating support grant fund to the Dubuque Museum of Art (Dubuque, IA). In addition, the Commission approved an $8,000 special projects grant to expand the 20-year celebration of the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (Dubuque, IA) by helping fund a new initiative that will bring in experts to add perspective on the impacts of immigration and systemic racism, as well as environmental impacts, in the community.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Made By Us, an alliance of more than 150 historic sites and museums joining forces to share history, announced the appointment of three distinguished history leaders to its Board of Directors including Norman Burns, President and CEO of Conner Prairie (Fishers, IN) and Natalia Crujeiras, CEO and Executive Director of HistoryMiami Museum (Miami, FL).

Senator John Heinz History Center (Pittsburgh, PA) was voted Pittsburgh Magazine 2023 Readers’ Entertainment & Leisure Museum Poll winner.

The American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) announced History Colorado (Denver, CO), as one of three winners of the History in Progress Award. History Colorado was recognized for the exhibition The Sand Creek Massacre: The Betrayal that Changed Cheyenne and Arapaho People Forever. This exhibit explores the deadliest day in Colorado history, when an 1864 assault by U.S. troops killed more than 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho people, wiped out their tribal leadership, and resulted in them being forcefully expelled from their homelands forever. This project worked to repair relationships and trust between the museum and tribes, foregrounded the voices of Native people in this tragedy, and shared the experiences and enduring cultures of the state’s original landkeepers.

AASLH also presented the Award of Excellence to recognize excellence for projects (including civic engagement, special projects, educational programs, exhibits, publications, etc.), and individual lifetime achievement:

  • History Colorado (Denver, CO) – The Sand Creek Massacre: The Betrayal That Changed Cheyenne and Arapaho People Forever

The East Tennessee Historical Society’s recently presented their Awards of Excellence program recognizing individuals and organizations for significant contributions to the preservation, promotion, and interpretation of the region’s history:

Community History Leadership Awards

Teaching Excellence Awards

Project Excellence Awards

Lifetime Achievement Awards

LEADERSHIP

The National Museum of Nuclear Science & History (Albuquerque, NM) Board of Trustees announced Jennifer J. Hayden has been named president and chief executive officer. Hayden succeeds Jim Walther, who was executive director of the Nuclear Museum for 26 years. Walther retired in March of 2023.

Leon Natker has been named the next director of the Oklahoma History Center (Oklahoma City, OK). He previously worked as the director for institutional advancement at the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City.

Kudos Affiliates!! February 2023

/0 Comments/in , /by

Kudos to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments! Do you have kudos to share? Please send potential entries to Aaron Glavas, GlavasC@si.edu.

FUNDING

New Hanover County leaders announced Cape Fear Museum (Wilmington, NC) was one of the first round of grant recipients from a $1.25 billion community endowment. The museum was awarded $17,000 to support STEM programs.

Philadelphia City Council approved a midyear budget transfer of $3 million to African American Museum in Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA) to support museum operations.

New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science (Albuquerque, NM) has partnered with Meta. The museum board voted unanimously to approve Meta’s proposal to grant the company the naming rights for the Space Sciences wing of the museum, including the planetarium, for a period of five years. In return, Meta will provide the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science Foundation with a $300,000 grant, which will go toward expanding educational programming.

History Colorado (Denver, CO) was awarded $74,998 from the National Park Service as part of their Underrepresented Community Grants. History Colorado will fund a statewide survey of Green Book sites in Colorado, as well as to nominating one such location to both the National and State Registers of Historic Places. In addition, History Colorado recieved $40,000 from the Colorado Tourism Office to support the growth of the motor tour coach market through the promotion of diverse experiences and cultures in the American West.

Duke Energy has donated $20,000 to the White River Alliance to boost the nonprofit’s efforts to improve and protect water resources throughout central Indiana. Duke Energy’s support will fund the installation of two new White River Art Canoes, one near Duke Energy’s substation and the other at Conner Prairie (Fishers, IN) to raise awareness of the importance of the White River to the local economy and the quality of life for area residents. The donation is also supporting the planting of trees at Conner Prairie near the 3.3 miles of river that run through its property.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Association of African American Museums announced the particpants and advisors for their Mellon Funded Working Group. Samuel W. Black, Director, African American Program, Senator John Heinz History Center (Pittsburgh, PA) and Dr. Jacqueline Hudson, Exhibitions Content Developer, National Underground Railroad Freedom Center (Cincinnati, OH) were named participants. Dr. Dina Bennett, Director of Collections and Curatorial Affairs, American Jazz Museum (Kansas City, MO) was appointed advisor.

Antonio J. Busalacchi, President, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) (Boulder, CO), has been named an honorary member and fellow of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG).

LEADERSHIP

Dan Provo, Director of Oklahoma History Center (Oklahoma City, OK) announced he is retiring from his position effective January 30, 2023. Jeff Briley has been named interim director.

Bishop Museum of Science and Nature (Bradenton, FL) announced that Mr. Andrew M. Sandall has been appointed the new CEO of the Museum. Most recently, Sandall has been the executive director of the Morris Museum (Morristown, NJ). Mr. Sandall will succeed interim CEO Charles Zajaczkowski and assume his new responsibilities on March 6, 2023.

The Long Island Museum (Stony Brook, NY) announced that Sarah Abruzzi and Joshua Ruff have been appointed to the joint role of co-executive directors of the museum. Neil Watson, former executive director of the LIM, retired on October 7 after nine years of leadership.

Kudos Affiliates!! March 2021

/in /by

Congratulations to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments! Do you have kudos to share? Please send potential entries to Aaron Glavas, GlavasC@si.edu.

FUNDING

The Friends of the Oklahoma History Center (Oklahoma City, OK) received a $35,000 grant from Inasmuch Foundation for the digitization of its scholarly journal, The Chronicles of Oklahoma. The funding will pay staff to process digitized issues of The Chronicles of Oklahoma to give patrons the ability to download or print individual articles, book reviews, meeting minutes, or other specific content from each issue. 

Dubuque Museum of Art (Dubuque, IA) will receive a percentage of more than $18,000 raised by the Home+FloorShow 2020 Community Holiday Event. The funds will support general operating expenses.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation named Florida International University (Miami, FL) and Mystic Seaport Museum (Mystic, CT) among the winners of its Just Futures Initiative. The Initiative supports teams of scholars who are studying past periods of crisis and disruption in order to lead us to cultural and social transformation.

  • Florida International University was awarded a $4.6 million grant for the project-Race, Risk, and Resilience: Building a Local-to-Global “Commons for Justice.” South Florida residents are vulnerable to extreme weather, but because of deep inequities in pre- and post-event resources, minority neighborhoods are particularly disaster prone. The Commons for Justice will identify the most urgent exposure problems for communities of color and provide resilience options as well as collect and preserve coping stories from those who live in at-risk neighborhoods.
  • With the $4.9 million grant, Brown University’s Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice will partner with Mystic Seaport Museum and Williams College for the project Reimaging New England Histories: Historical Injustice, Sovereignty and Freedom. The collaborators will use maritime history as a basis for studying historical injustices and generating new insights on the relationship between European colonization in North America, the dispossession of Native American land, and racial slavery in New England. 

Facebook will sponsor the new Current Science Studio at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History (Fort Worth, TX) with a $255,000 grant. The exhibit will link science with current events like the upcoming Mars rover landing, tracking hurricanes, or marking Covid-19 cases worldwide. 

Western Reserve Historical Society (Cleveland, OH) received $750,000 from the state of Ohio to continue capital improvements to the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum’s lower gallery and collection storage areas.

The Rhode Island Historical Society (Providence, RI) received a $25,000 grant as part of Rhode Island Commerce state’s hospitality, arts, and tourism (HArT) relief program.  Staff will upgrade technology to produce virtual tours, events, educational programs, and other public programs.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Marsha MacDowell, Curator of Folk Arts and Quilt Studies at the Michigan State University Museum (East Lansing, MI), was named the 2020 recipient of the American Folklore Society’s Benjamin A. Botkin Prize for significant lifetime achievement in the field of public folklore.

LEADERSHIP

Peter Seibert, Executive Director and CEO of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West (Cody, WY), announced his resignation to become the new Director of the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia.