Museum receives grant, donation totaling $32,000

A gift from SBC totaling $32,000 will help assist the Southeast Missouri Regional Heritage Museum in purchasing interactive equipment for its new River Campus home.

University and political leaders, along with local and state SBC leadership, announced the award Thursday at a ceremony in the museum's current location on the Southeast Missouri State University campus.

The gift comes in the form of a $12,000 SBC Foundation Excelerator Grant and a $20,000 donation from the company.

The Excelerator grant program awards money to organizations to integrate technology into their operations and community outreach efforts.

SBC Missouri president Cynthia Brinkley and SBC regional director Marsha Haskell presented the gift to the university.

"If you look at economic development in the state, you would be remiss if you didn't include higher education in the discussion," Brinkley said.

Speakers at the ceremony included Southeast president Dr. Ken Dobbins, museum director Dr. Stanley Grand, Haskell, Brinkley, Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder and state Rep. Billy Pat Wright of the 159th District.

Dobbins said SBC has a long-standing relationship with the university, giving $200,000 for ITV networking at the home campus and the university's higher education centers and giving more than $500,000 to the university foundation.

The $32,000 will provide an interactive topographical map and audio for geology exhibits in the museum along with two alcove computer stations to provide additional information to accompany exhibit content.

Dobbins said interactive displays was important to the vision of the new museum in the River Campus.

"When the board many years ago started talking about the museum, one thing they said was let's not have a static display, let's have something interactive," Dobbins said.

Grand said the interactive equipment will allow those who want to seek out more information on the exhibits to do so.

"This will allow us to have informative but brief labeling coupled with access to more information," said Grand. "It will not be passive learning, but it will be active learning."

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182