 |
|
July 8, 2005 Click here for June, 2005 newsletter The 38th annual meeting of the Deaf Smith County Historical Society met on Tuesday, May 10th at the Hereford Country Club. The Society thanks the 128 guests who attended the April luncheons! Your interest in our activities and participation helps make the county museum and E.B. Black House the successes that they are. Amy Gililland, Tonya Kleuskens, and helpers gave an excellent program featuring the vintage wedding gowns from the museum's collection. Stories about wedding customs and traditions were most interesting! Judy Detten, Kitty Gault, and their helpers in the kitchen planned and provided another delicious meal. "Thank you!" to all these ladies on the board who give of their time to make these luncheons so very special. The garden committee continues its fine work maintaining the yard and garden of the E.B. Black House. It's one of the prettiest places in our community, and the ladies and gentlemen who volunteer their time every week are to be commended. They can be found each Tuesday morning beginning at 8:30, taking care of weeding, trimming, replacing plants, or whatever needs to be done. If you like gardening, you are welcome to join! We have had 2,200 visitors at the museum this past year, from 32 states and 8 foreign countries including Canada, China, India, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and South Africa! Guided tours were given to 472 students and 139 adults. A delegation from the Texas Historical Commission toured the museum and the E.B. Black House for evaluation purposes. We were pleased that they took the time to visit and make suggestions for possible improvements. We continue to have chapel weddings and some club meetings at the musem, which enlarges our community outreach. Weddings at the E.B. Black House continue to be popular, too. The new year begins for the museum in June, so dues are "due." At fifteen dollars for an individual membership, we think it's the best deal going! Hope to see you soon! July 1, 2005 This contest is for Real Hands opened on June 15th. This traveling exhibit from the Mid-America Arts Alliance came to the museum via the Texas HELP project for small museums. As we've mentioned in other news, it runs through August 3rd. We've really augmented the photo exhibit with some of our local artifacts. Two of our rodeo competitors, active and retired, brought their buckles and saddles, and we added some things from our collection. We put up some cowboy manikins with boots and suits and a cowgirl mannequin with a riding skirt. One of the cowboys, Monty Lewis, is currently a successful tie-down calf roper, and he loaned us several great items for the exhibit. He just won the 2004 world tie-down roping championship, so we're really pleased that he was willing to help us with this exhibit. He's a real gentleman! He brought in a high school saddle and some buckles, and his medal for the world title and a large photo of himself doing a tie down. On the 15th we had a reception with lemonade and refreshments from 2-4 p.m. This was our first weekday reception and we had several visitors as well as museum board members. Visitors really liked the exhibit and since then we’ve had several cowboys come in and look at the exhibit. The Hereford annual rodeo is in August and we’ll be marketing to those folks during that period. We’re also having our Town and Country Jubilee on July 30th, and will be marketing to out of town visitors. The E.B. Black House has been repainted, looks super nice, and is booked every weekend through the end of August with parties, weddings, family reunions, and other events. We've had great luck marketing this lovely historic home to a variety of community groups and residents. It really fills a need for people who want to hold an event in a beautiful, historic venue. We had a local painter repaint the house and it looks great. They repainted the gazebo as well, really sprucing up both places. June 23, 2005 The Deaf Smith County Museum in Hereford, Texas, currently is displaying the traveling exhibition This Contest is for Real Hands: Rodeo Photographs of the 1930s. 30 black & white photographs were taken in the 1930s by Otho Hartley; most of them being made inside the arena itself. The exhibition is enhanced with a display of local western rodeo history, including prize saddle, belt buckles, medals and awards from Monty Lewis who is the current 2004 World Champion Tie-down Roper and winner of the 2004 National Finals Rodeo. Also on display is a collection of Frankoma pottery in the wagon wheel pattern and collector's pieces This is a Texas HELP Exhibition, which is a program of Exhibits USA in partnership with the Texas Association of Museums and is made possible through the combined vision and generosity of Houston Endowment, Inc., The Meadows Foundation, the Don and Sybil Harrington Foundation and the Texas Commission on the Arts. Deaf Smith County Museum is located at 400 Sampson Street in Hereford, Texas, 806-363-7070. June 1, 2005 We're getting ready for a new exhibit, This Contest is for Real Hands, courtesy of the Mid-American Arts Alliance. June 15th is the first day of the exhibit, which runs through August 3rd. We're getting local artifacts to go along with the exhibit. We have a couple of rodeo champions from Hereford who we've asked to contribute photos, trophies, and saddles. Monty Lewis, the 2004 National Calf Roping Champion, is from Hereford, and will hopefully be able to assist. We're putting up artifacts from our saddle collection, and have created a chuckwagon scene, dressed the mannequins in western wear, put up boots, hats, and put some rawhide on the wall. One of our board members has a collection of Frankoma pottery. It was made in Oklahoma and used to be a common gift shop item, but now it's a collectible item. Because it's western-themed with wagon wheels and different designs, it's really going to help the exhibit. After spending several years and working with numerous supporters, we have raised enough funds to repaint the historic E.B. Black house. Many thanks to the board of directors of the museum, without whose support this wouldn't have been possible. We've had lots of weddings there this spring and summer, and the gazebo is quite popular. With a new coat of paint it should be even more so! March 2, 2004 March 1, 2004
Deaf Smith County Museum |