BELLE FOURCHE—There is something really weird happening at the Tri-State Museum right now. Have you seen it? It is the latest temporary exhibit, and it is called Weird! It opened to the public on October 11 with a reception that included treats by the Red Onion Marketplace. The exhibit runs through December 2.
This collection was put together with all of the leftover items that had no category or group in which to be included. “I was finding all these strange things, and they didn’t have a rhyme or a reason, and I told Kristi (museum director), and she said, ‘Hey, we should do a temporary exhibit on weird things found in the collections!’ So that’s how we came up with it,” explained Jada Udager, Collections Archivist.
There are so many fun exhibits with stories to go along with them in this display. Udager shared, “There’s a little pill box over there that says on the inside something about taking 10 tablets—‘Take 10 tablets as directed, for personal use’—from Brown Drug, written by Dr. Lindgrens. But who is he, and what is it for? We have all kinds of stuff like that!”
Some of the items have no known history and, so far, no way to do any research on them to figure out their background. But the museum staff is eager to hear your thoughts and knowledge if you happen to know what something in this Weird collection is. “What is it? Who knows! We had a lot of fun with this one,” exclaimed Udager.
The museum staff works hard to put together each exhibit. Jada Udager collects the artifacts for display, while Kristi Thielen conducts the research and writes the storyboards, touchscreen quiz, and children’s workbook. Jean Maher mounts the exhibit photo collations, and Kim Reausaw creates the PowerPoint presentation and children’s table craft. Finally, the entire team works together to install the exhibit. All artifacts in this display come from the museum’s own collections.
There is always an area set up dedicated to children, with books they can read and activities they can do. The Weird Exhibit activities include a “Weird Things People Collect” word find, a page of weird facts, jokes, and coloring sheets, plus many more activities. The books for this exhibit are Professor Poppy’s Weird and Wacky History for Curious Kids by Professor Poppy and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. There is also a craft activity for kids to put together.
This Weird Exhibit won’t be around for long—it ends December 2. Watch for the new mini-exhibit called Greetings!, opening December 13, where you can explore the history of greeting cards and peruse vintage cards from the museum’s collection.
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