Group forms to raise money to reopen facility
PHIL WHITE Star-Tribune correspondent | Posted: Wednesday, July 1, 2009 12:00 am
LARAMIE - A volunteer group has formed to raise money in an attempt to reopen the University of Wyoming's S.H. Knight Geology Museum.
Beth Southwell, an 18-year volunteer at the museum, said she was "devastated" by the thought that the museum was being closed to the public after 122 years as a fixture on campus. She spoke on Tuesday, the last day the museum was open to the public.
The group called Friends of the S.H. Knight Geological Museum will attempt to raise the money necessary to reopen the museum, Southwell said.
"People can contact us through our blog at www.keeplaramiedinos.blogspot.com, and we have opened an account at First Interstate Bank in Laramie," she said.
Closing the museum effective today and eliminating the jobs of the curator and two part-time workers is expected to save UW about $80,000 as a part of a 10 percent budget cut required by Gov. Dave Freudenthal that will reduce the UW budget by $18.3 million. UW is also meeting the budget directive by cutting spending in support budgets across the university, a hiring squeeze, staff layoffs and elimination or deferrals of some initiatives, including the elimination of some UW noncredit programs.
The museum closure has generated petition drives and numerous letters to the editor in opposition. UW officials have responded to the criticism by promising not to sell or dispose of the museum's collection.
Southwell, a geology graduate of the University of New Mexico, said she has guided numerous groups of school children through the museum.
"I do the little ones, and to see the look of awe and joy on their faces when they walk in the door is priceless," she said. "It's heartbreaking they won't be exposed to this fun way of learning science, loving science and following science in their careers."
Southwell said she has also participated in state-of-the-art research with Brett Breithaupt, curator for nearly 30 years, including work on the dinosaur track sites discovered on federal land near Shell.
UW trustees directed the establishment of the museum in Old Main in 1887, and in 1902 it was moved to the second building on campus, the Science Building, Southwell said. Wilbur Clinton Knight was curator there and after his death was replaced by William Harlow Reed, a railroad worker who, with another employee, discovered the first dinosaur bones at Como Bluff near Medicine Bow in 1877.
When Sam Knight graduated from college and returned to Wyoming, he served as curator from 1916 into the 1960s, moving the museum into the present facility, Southwell said.
"Sam Knight was almost single-handedly responsible for building this addition to the geology building," Southwell said. "After he retired, his work went into welding and mounting the large apatosaurus inside and sculpting the copper T-Rex out front."