History's on a roll in Southeast mobile museum

A certain 38-foot-long Winnebago colored in orange, red, yellow, light green, blue and pink plastic is knowledge in motion. Don't believe it? This museum on wheels, Southeast Missouri State University's first mobile museum, will tell you itself.

The RV's design includes the logo: "Experience Knowledge in Motion." The words appear several places on the outside of the vehicle. They are even written backward on the front of the RV so that other motorists can read it in their rearview mirrors.

The vehicle's exterior also features a wide range of images: an artist's paint brush, a steamboat, the Mississippi River, the new Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge, Academic Hall, an orbiting satellite and a likeness of the planet Saturn.

A soaring hawk, representative of the university's new Redhawks nickname, is also displayed.

Dr. Stanley Grand, director of the university museum, views the bird of prey as a prehistoric hawk. He said that provides a fitting connection to the school's new nickname and the soaring modern-day hawk image.

"Everybody's excited," Grand said of his museum staff and the staff at the school's NASA Educator Resource Center. The museum and the NASA center will share the vehicle, which will take exhibits on the road to schools throughout Southeast Missouri.

"It's really about showing an excitement of learning," Grand said. The mobile museum will have changing exhibits, including American Indian artifacts, regional history, fine art and space science.

The $267,000 rolling museum, funded by federal grants and university money, includes 20 large glass exhibit cases, three computer stations and two television screens. A satellite dish atop the vehicle allows the Southeast Explorer to hook up to the Internet.

It features a slide-out wall that expands interior space to handle a class of 20 to 25 students at one time. "We're thinking you can get a full class in here," Grand said.

The vehicle also includes a lift so wheelchair-bound visitors can tour the mobile museum.

Grand said such a traveling museum is new to the region.

It will travel to schools, libraries and public events throughout the university's 26-county service area and, in the case of NASA exhibits, even statewide, he said.

The traveling museum will alternate six months of museum exhibits with six months of science exhibits provided by Southeast's NASA Educator Resource Center.

The vehicle will be introduced during a ribbon cutting ceremony at 11 a.m. today in front of Dempster Hall. The mobile museum will be open for tours following the ceremony.

School officials said the rolling museum also will be featured in the university's homecoming parade Saturday, which begins at 9:30 a.m. on Broadway.

Following the parade, the museum will be open for tours during festivities at Houck Stadium prior to the homecoming football game at 1 p.m.

The first exhibition will focus on American Indian artifacts, including examples of pottery from the Mississippian culture that once thrived in Southeast Missouri. Most of the clay pots are replicas.

"We decided not to send 1,000-year-old pots bouncing down the road," Grand said..

Jim Phillips, curator of collections at Southeast, made the reproductions using clay native to the area and pottery making practices that would have been common for American Indians.

Phillips also created a woven rope pattern from dried weeds, another example of the kind of handiwork that early Native Americans would have produced. "Start to finish it took about four days," he said as he helped set up the exhibits Tuesday.

Beginning next week, the museum will be on the road, visiting 31 elementary and middle schools within the next four weeks.

After that, the Southeast Explorer will continue to make regular visits throughout the region, said John Adamik, curator of education.

"We hope to keep it out three to four days a week," he said.

Besides all the exhibit space, the mobile museum has an abundance of florescent lighting as well as three skylights. Said Grand, "We didn't want it to be dark and gloomy."

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123