Changes . . . .

Time for my yearly post, I guess.  I really must be better about posting, but I've been busy, busy, busy!!

I have been working at the Museum of the Grand Prairie in Mahomet for more than a year, first as an Education Program Specialist, and more recently as Curator.  I am so excited about this move - I love museums, I love *this* museum in particular, and it is an exciting career move, as well.  I still love archaeology and hope to contribute to archaeological programming at the museum in the future, but I am very excited to be in this role as the Museum moves forward with building several new exhibits.

First of all, we are working on creating a mini-exhibit of a glacier to interpret the most recent period of glaciation in our region of Illinois.  Glaciers helped sculpt the landscape throughout Illinois, including changing the course of the ancient Mississippi (!), and we will be interpreting these changes as a prologue to our main gallery exhibit.

And speaking of changes, we will be completely redoing the mail gallery Prairie Stories exhibit.  This, along with our name change from "Early American Museum" to "Museum of the Grand Prairie," is in an effort to more effectively interpret the museum's mission of collecting, preserving, and interpreting the natural and cultural history of Champaign County and East Central Illinois. This will be a HUGE project over the next year, but I am hoping that when we finish it will be every bit as immersive and interactive as our "Champaign County's Lincoln" exhibit downstairs.

We are also working on a gardening exhibit for the temporary exhibit space which will run March through December of next year.  There will be several other updates and changes throughout the museum as well, as we work to make interpretive signage consistent and evaluating how all the aspects of various galleries will fit together with the updated areas upstairs. 

It is an exciting - but BUSY! - time for us all!