Tag Archive for: the air zoo

Affiliates in the news!

Congrats to these Affiliates making news!  We were on a hiatus during our Conference season, but we’re back in action highlighting 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.

Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum (Clewiston, FL)
Florida Fontiers: Seminole museum offers a place to remember
“We want this to be the source for tribal history and culture for people,” said director Anne McCudden. “We want this to be the place where people can come to get the correct information, to meet tribal members, and to really experience tribal culture one-on-one.”

South Dakota State Historical Society (Pierre, SD)
State Historical Society’s Sioux Horse Effigy Returned
We are designing a new display for the effigy that will include loaned effigies from the State Historical Society of North Dakota and the National Museum of the American Indian.

Las Cruces Museum of Nature & Science (Las Cruces, NM)
Kids ‘Capture the Colorful Cosmos’ in new exhibit
It’s a workshop fusing the worlds of art and science. Using software provided by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, students will learn about astronomy, remotely control a telescope to take an image of a celestial object, and process the image for visual impact. Students will then use the image as the basis of an art project,” explained Kimberly Hanson, education curator for the Las Cruces Museum of Nature & Science, which is hosting the project.

National Inventors Hall of Fame (North Canton, Ohio)
Smithsonian Innovation Wing Opens at National Museum of American History
The experience begins in the Johnson-Louis Gateway to Innovation where “Inventing in America,” in collaboration with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, displays early patent models, trademarks and inventions of National Inventors Hall of Fame members.

Daniel "Chappie" James, became a flight leader for a fighter squadron at Clark Field in the Philippines in the late 1940s. James flew 101 combat sorties in Korea in P-51 Mustangs and F-80 jets. He also flew in Vietnam and later became a four-star general. Photo courtesy Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.

Daniel “Chappie” James, became a flight leader for a fighter squadron at Clark Field in the Philippines in the late 1940s. James flew 101 combat sorties in Korea in P-51 Mustangs and F-80 jets. He also flew in Vietnam and later became a four-star general. Photo courtesy Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

The Air Zoo (Portage, Michigan)
Air Zoo exhibition ‘Black Wings,’ looks at history of blacks in U.S. aviation
“The Smithsonian’s ‘Black Wings’ exhibit so poignantly tells the stories of the trials and triumphs of some of our country’s most heroic aviators and space pioneers.  The Air Zoo is honored to bring these extraordinary heroes to life for all our guests from Southwest Michigan and beyond,” said Troy Thrash, president and CEO of the Air Zoo.

New traveling Smithsonian exhibit opens at the Air Zoo
“This is really the perfect tie-in that really shapes what we’re trying to do at the Air Zoo; really tell these stories about famous aviators and astronauts as well, but also not-so-famous aviators and astronauts, who have done some amazing, remarkable, heroic things that many people don’t know about,” said Air Zoo President and CEO Troy Thrash.

National Museum of Industrial History (Bethlehem, PA)
New director Amy Hollander brings fresh start to embattled industrial history museum
“If I were to design a dream job, it would be to be the executive director of the National Museum of Industrial History, a Smithsonian affiliate in a local, engaged community that is passionate about saving the vanishing landscape, which is how this appears to me,” Hollander said. “This is the classic historic preservation success story.”

Chuck Liddy-NEWS & OBSERVER FILE PHOTO

Chuck Liddy-NEWS & OBSERVER FILE PHOTO

North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (Raleigh, NC)
NC State study finds coyotes help limit carnage from cats
This study describes some of the first results to come out of the “e-mammal” citizen science project led by the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences and the Smithsonian Institution. Volunteers set up cameras in their backyards, along trails, in urban forests, and in parks and nature preserves. They also helped identify the animals captured in photographs.

History Colorado (Denver, CO)
Roots run deep for Latinos in Colorado
Eduardo Diaz, the director of the Smithsonian Latino Center, said he could not emphasize enough the importance of this exhibit and its message about the impact the Chicano movement has had on civil rights and justice issues across the nation.

Irving Arts Center (Irving, TX)
New Executive Director at Irving Arts Center in Texas
Todd Eric Hawkins has been named the Irving Arts Center’s executive director

Mennello Museum of American Art (Orlando, FL)
Reports: Mennello Museum names new director
Shannon Fitzgerald will be the new director of Orlando’s Mennello Museum of American Art, according to several media reports.

kudos Affiliates! february 2013

2013 begins with success for our Affiliates!

Funding

Science Museum Oklahoma (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) announced the museum has been awarded a $12 million grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation and plans to open a new exhibit area for young children. The new 21,000-square-foot exhibit space will be devoted to children between 3 and 6 years old. The museum also plans a new main entrance and lobby along with improved parking and updated landscaping.

Mystic Seaport (Mystic, Connecticut) was awarded a $100,000 grant by the Beagary Charitable Trust which the museum will use to create activities and learning tools for use in school, at the museum and online.  The funding will be used to develop educational programs to coincide with the completed restoration and 38th voyage of the museum’s 1841 whale ship, Charles W. Morgan. The designation will afford students across the state an opportunity to learn about Connecticut maritime history, the significance of the whaling industry and the importance of the state’s maritime heritage.

The Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, Michigan) received $750,000 as part of the investment in Detroit arts and culture from the Knight Foundation. The grant will enhance the annual Concert of Colors free global music festival, of which the museum is lead producer. In particular, the Knight funding will restore the summer festival’s annual Forum on Community, Culture & Race and help rebuild the Cultural Exchange Network of 50 arts groups that originally facilitated the Concert of Colors.

Pennsylvania Humanities Council recently funded a film and art series to complement “Beyond Swastika and Jim Crow: Jewish Refugee Scholars at Black Colleges,” at the National Museum of American Jewish History (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). The exhibit focuses on the story of Jewish professors who fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s and found positions at historically black colleges and universities in the Jim Crow South.

The Museum of Latin American Art (Long Beach, California) received a $25,000 donation from Hyundai Motor America that will go toward the purchase of a bus to be used to provide free tours and art workshops to students from the Los Angeles area.

AAM Accreditation

The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) announced that 10 museums have been newly accredited and 13 museums earned re-accreditation at the November 2012 meeting of the Accreditation Commission. Accredited status from the Alliance is the highest national recognition achievable by an American museum. The following Affiliate museums were awarded accreditation.  Congratulations!

Executive Transitions

  • Smithsonian Affiliations would like to extend our best wishes to Robert Ellis, who served 35 years at The Air Zoo (Portage, Michigan).  Former Da Vinci Science Center executive director and CEO, Troy Thrash has been named new chief executive at The Air Zoo.
  • We bid a fond farewell to Paul Knappenberger  who served 22 years at the Adler Planetarium (Chicago, Illinois). Astrophysicist Michelle Larson has been named as the next president of the Adler.
  • Affiliations welcomes Mark Lizewskie, new executive director at the Antique Automobile Club of America Museum (Hershey, Pennsylvania).

affiliates in the news

Congratulations to these Affiliates making headlines this week!

Plimoth Plantation (Plymouth, Massachusetts)
The real Thanksgiving unveiled at Plimoth Plantation. READ MORE
History Channel airs show on Thanksgiving produced by local native. READ MORE  
Plimoth Plantation helps reveal “The Real Story of Thanksgiving”. READ MORE

 

The Air Zoo (Portage, Michigan)
Air Zoo expanding. READ MORE
Air Zoo expansion to consolidate exhibits. READ MORE

Arizona State Museum (Tucson, Arizona)
Southwest’s roots on exhibit at Arizona State Museum. READ MORE

National Museum of American Jewish History (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Refined Jewish Museum Shows Up Drab Philadelphia Mall: Review. READ MORE
National Museum of American Jewish History, designed by James Polshek, opens. READ MORE
National Museum of American Jewish History’s new home unveiled. READ MORE
National Museum of American Jewish History comprised of multiple interlocking volumes. READ MORE 

Museum of the Rockies (Bozeman, Montana)
MSU Paleontologist Receives International Award. READ MORE

affiliates in the news: week of jan 4

Congratulations to these Affiliates making headlines this week! (Cartersville, GA)
World Premiere Museum Art Exhibition in Atlanta Area

Booth Western Art Museum

The Air Zoo (Portage, MI)
Air Zoo continues offering free admission in 2010
Air Zoo to continue offering free admission in 2010

North Carolina Transportation Museum
(Spencer, NC)
N.C. Transportation Museum ready for next chapter

New York State Museum
(Albany, NY)
Eastern coyotes have a touch of wolf in them

Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, CA)
Japanese American National Museum to Celebrate 25th Anniversary in 2010

National Civil War Museum
(Harrisburg, PA)
One-man Union army to guard museum

affiliates in the news: week of dec. 28

Congratulations to these Affiliates in the news!

San Diego Natural History Museum (San Diego, CA)
Natural History Museum now LEED certified

Morris Museum of Art (Augusta, GA)
The Morris Museum of Art Embarks Upon Reinstallation of Its Permanent Collection
Museum making changes to showcase art

Virginia Museum of Natural History (Martinsville, VA)
Cleveland Museum of Natural History’s “bug guy” to leave for Virginia post

 North Carolina Transportation Museum (Spencer, NC)
Museum display: The World Aloft 1908

Chabot Space and Science Center (Oakland, CA)
Allen: Chabot explores “Tales of Maya Skies” in new exhibit

Frost Art Museum at Florida International University (Miami, FL)
Cintas Foundation Program at FIU Frost Art Museum Announces 2010 Competition for Coveted Visual Arts Fellowship

Orange County Regional History Center (Orlando, FL)
Orange County Exhibit Depicts 12,000 Years of Fla. History

The Air Zoo (Portage, MI)
Air Zoo’s free-admission promotion nearly doubles attendance for 2009

Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary Art (Elmhurst, IL)
Golden chessboard one of exhibit’s gems
Lizzadro gem of a museum

Frontiers of Flight Museum (Dallas, TX)
The Dallas Morning News Robert Miller column: New executives taking over at Frontiers of Flight Museum