AROUND TOWN: New excitement at Pioneers Museum

It’s not just your kids’ — or your childhood’s — school field trip museum anymore.

The Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum has become so much more. To tell a bit of the historical building’s history and fill everyone in on how it has evolved, Museum Director Matt Mayberry, new Development Director Cari Karns, the board and museum volunteers invited the community to breakfast on Aug. 25.

What a delightful surprise when 350 people from all parts of the area got up early and headed for the Antlers Hilton to hear the story. Another surprise: Almost $56,000 was donated to help the museum continue for, in City Councilwoman Jan Martin’s words, “another 100 years.”

(The county observes the museum's 150th anniversary commemoration this Saturday, Sept. 24, from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. It's free. Official program,. 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.)

 Martin, Mayberry, Bee Vradenburg Foundation Executive Director Susan Edmondson, PPCC Professor Katherine Scott Sturdevant and history buff Navy Lt. Commander Chris England, along with actors from the Colorado Springs Conservatory, kept the audience enthralled with the museum’s tales.

For a recent bicycling exhibit, the museum showed possibly the first bicycle owned by a person in Colorado Springs. There are interactive exhibits, an early-day downtown home, intimate diaries and journals, first-person war mementos, a shark’s tooth from Red Rock Canyon and an elevator straight from the past. It’s all part of 65,000 items seen by more than 50,000 people annually.

Next up: crime and punishment.

“We have to know our history, our heritage” to know our present and our future, said Mayberry. To that end, “we use history as a dialogue,” said Mayberry.

Having staved off potential closings, budget cuts, shortened hours and more, Mayberry, the staff and volunteers and the El Paso County Pioneers are now seeing funding for exterior repairs and increased interest.

“We have tightened our belts and are doing things differently,” Mayberry said. In turn, “there’s an excitement inside the museum.”

There is excitement from the community as well, evidenced by those enjoying the breakfast.
Among those serving as table captains for this inaugural fundraiser were Marge Westbay, Lisa Amend, Shirley Biemesderfer, Judith Casey, Harry and Marcia Gautsche, Robert and Sarah Howsam, Judith Rice-Jones, Dwight and Sue Brothers, Nolan and Sharon Schriner and Kelley Vivian.

MORE PHOTOS: http://tinyurl.com/42vsqlr