JUST FOR KIDS: BOOTHEEL YOUTH MUSEUM UNVEILS NEW EXHIBITS

Trevor Joplin, 5, pretended to drive a 1927 fire truck parked inside the Bootheel Youth Museum.

MALDEN, Mo. -- An artist's version of a large light bulb hangs over the entryway to the Bootheel Youth Museum. The idea is clear: Bring your imagination.

Up to 25,000 children per year have been doing that since the museum opened in 1996, financed with donations and $160,000 raised through a program offered by the state Department of economic Development. Now the bricks in the walk leading to the museum are etched with the names of community members who have adopted the museum as their own.

More than 600 people attended the museum's recent open house held to show off a raft of new exhibits. Among them are a fire house, an obstacle course officially called Experiencing Objects of the Surreal -- that's one big pencil inside -- a farm store, dinosaur exhibits and a real tractor.

You don't have to be a kid to have a good time at the Bootheel Youth Museum, but kids have certain advantages when the task is sliding through a narrow chute or walking backwards up stairs built for Munchkins in the obstacle course.

Grandin Headstart brought 57 children between the ages and 3 and 5 to the BYM March 9. drove 45 minutes. The organization had been there two years ago and wanted to see the new exhibits.

"There are a lot more activities now," said parent Donna Head.

The obstacle course, which includes a tunnel-like bridge that connects to the two sides, was a favorite. The grocery story also was well liked.

Grandin Headstart spent about two hours at the museum and plans to return before the school year ends. Grandin is about 45 miles from Malden.

"We enjoyed it a lot," Head said.

The BYM bank has a working pneumatic tube and checks that can be filled out to get BYM dollars good for buying goods in the grocery story. There's a $5 limit on the checks but Christy Hicks, the museum's gallery supervisor, occasionally finds one written by someone who wants to be a millionaire.

The market has pretend food and real scanners that read prices. "It's surprising how many vegetables they buy," says Patsy Reublin, the museum's executive director.

The farm store contains bales of cotton and a scale. There children can work out math problems farmers encounter.

At the post office, the pizza restaurant and the mechanic's garage, children get to see what goes on behind the counters at these businesses.

"Kids never get a chance to do that," Reublin says. "We give them an opportunity to experience commerce."

There's a recycling center, a music store with a floor piano similar to the one in the movie "Big," and a health center where children can examine real X-rays,

In the Shadow Room, a strobe light flashes as children stand against a phosphorescent wall. When they move away, their shadow remains on the wall.

In another popular exhibit, a tractor tire dipped bubble-making liquid forms a giant bubble around the children who stand inside.

The play is a bit more traditional in the Victorian playhouse and on the 1927 fire truck.

Most of the smaller children are afraid of Ivana, the museum's live iguana.

As the only children's museum between St. Louis and Memphis, the BYM draws children from Southeast Missouri, Tennessee and Arkansas. It was the brainchild of three women who just wanted to start a museum for children in a garage. The non-profit museum corporation rents space from the Bootheel Education Center for $10 a year. Both are located in a former Pepsi plant.

The museum has a staff of six paid employees and 109 volunteers. It is financed through a one-eighth cent sales tax. The museum is open from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from 1-4 p.m. Sundays and is closed on holidays.

Children's museums are very popular right now. "People love to support projects linked to kids," Reublin says.

The BYM is planning a $250,000 expansion project that will include an exhibit on Crowley's Ridge, the topographical phenomenon that runs through Southeast Missouri and northern Arkansas, and another exhibit on the physics of motion. Construction is due to begin in June.

Reublin says work also will begin on making the exhibits more sophisticated so they will appeal to older children and teen-agers as well. "We want to serve people here at another level," she says.

Plans are to make the museum's exterior reflect some of the activities inside. A back entrance will be renovated so that buses can unload at the rear. The museum sometimes receives eight or nine busloads of children per day.

The museum's theater presents about 12 programs a year. The most recent featured Brazilian classical guitarist Paolo Bellinati. Sally Taylor, daughter of folk-rock stars James Taylor and Carly Simon, performed at the museum last year.

The museum also has its own acting troupe. A Smithsonian Institute traveling exhibit titled "Yesterday's Tomorrows" is scheduled for the fall.

Reublin came to the museum from the University of Northern Colorado, where she was a member of the adjunct faculty and ran a gallery. She applied for an opening at the Margaret Harwell Museum in Poplar Bluff, Mo. When that didn't work out, Harwell officials told her about the BYM.

People often ask her why she'd move from the mountains of Colorado to direct a museum in the flatlands of Malden. Reublin has an answer. "You'd never find a place like this in Colorado where the community came together and gave thousands of dollars," she says.

For information, phone (573)276-3600.