BELLE FOURCHE—Cobwebs and creepy crawlers lurking in dark corners have long been a part of the imagery that makes Halloween just a little more frightening. This month, the eight-legged creatures have crawled into the Tri-State Museum just in time for spooky season.
A reception was held Saturday, September 19, to commemorate the opening of the latest mini-exhibit “I Spy a Spider.” Red Onion Marketplace provided cupcakes and the museum offered refreshments.
The newest mini-exhibit aims to take the fear out of spiders and educate the public on the important role they play in the world. “Everybody here loves spiders and wishes that we could educate people not to be afraid of them. They’re actually good insects,” explained Kristi Thielen, director. “They eat other bad insects. They eat the ones we don’t want to have around, and I just think that their lifestyle is fascinating—what they can do with their bodies, the making of the silk, is remarkable. This is the kind of exhibit that feels good as you move into the Halloween season.”
The exhibit also distinguishes helpful spiders from venomous spiders. “Educating people about what their lives are like, why they are important, why you need to know one from another—so you know what one might be dangerous to you and what ones are not at all,” said Thielen.
Spiders have played a role in cultures around the world for centuries. “The role that they’ve played in culture over the years—poems, plays, artworks have had spiders in them for centuries. So they’re a significant part of culture, whether it be European culture or Mesoamerican or Asian or whatever. Cultures all over the world have images of spiders and stories about spiders—they’re a fascinating topic,” explained Thielen.
Get into the museum and see if you can spy a spider before the mini-exhibit scurries back into the woodwork. This exhibit will run a bit shorter than usual as the next mini-exhibit, “Christmas Greetings,” will be taking over in November to celebrate the holiday season.
After you spend time learning all there is to know in the display about spiders, you can test your knowledge on a touchscreen quiz. Kids can take home an activity packet and read the book “I’m Trying to Love Spiders.”
Putting together the museum’s mini-exhibits takes a team effort. Jada Udager puts together the artifact collections, Thielen researches and writes the storyboards, Jean Maher takes care of the exhibit photo collation and mounting and Kim Reausaw puts together the kids’ activities.
If this subject seems familiar, you are not wrong. The Tri-State Museum ran this mini-exhibit about two years ago. They work to add new ideas and artifacts to returning displays, so while the topic may be familiar, the exhibit will still feel fresh. “We are trying to repeat a lot of exhibits that we’ve done before that are popular, because as you know, the city doesn’t have a lot of money this year… We’re trying to economize now, so next year there will also be exhibits that will come back, and we’ll just try to find new and different ways to interpret them, rather than what they look like the very first time around.”
The Tri-State Museum is hosting its annual fundraiser, Autumn Tea, on September 26. This year’s theme is “Fairytales and Nursery Rhymes.” Ten tables will be decorated in various ways to coincide with the theme. Tickets to the Tea are $20. Spectators can stop by the events center and vote on their favorite tablescape beginning at 1:30 p.m.
The budget shortfall makes this year’s fundraiser more important than ever. If you wish to donate to the Tri-State Museum and Visitors Center, you can be assured that the money stays with them. “If we can get more people to donate to us this year for things in 2027, that would be wonderful,” shared Thielen. “It goes into the memorial fund or, depending on what the donor has designated, it can go into the foundation account. Both of those are things that we can draw from for our own purposes.”
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