I was able to sit down for an interview with the curator, Susie Richter, about the new developments as well as the idea specialists for children events at the museum, volunteers Jennifer Skiba and Greg Fruth.
Many exciting things are happening at the La Porte County Historical Society Museum, located down Indiana Avenue in La Porte!
The current main exhibit at the La Porte County Historical Society Museum is featuring the Maple City Four, a famous musical comedy group from La Porte. Susie Richter said of featuring this group, “We were inspired by the bicentennial when we researched prominent people of Indiana during Christmas. We worked on a timeline from scrapbooks and renewed recordings. We found two boxes of recordings and song books.”
Some of the information was also thanks to the Maple City Four’s own fan club. On May 23rd, there will be a Variety Show on the Maple City Four which will be done like a radio show.
Family events that are coming up next will be a “Painting Party” on April 25th, the annual Civil War Re-enactment on June 13th and 14th, July 25th’s Car Show, August 8th’s Fourth Annual Memorial Gardens, and August 22nd’s Family Fun Day.
The new exhibit coming to La Porte County Historical Society Museum is the "Finishing Touch", also known as the "Ladies Accessories Exhibit". This exhibit is dedicated to women’s accessories like jewelry and hats throughout the ages. It starts in June and will run until the end of August. A fashion show dedicated to these accessories will occur July 11th at 1 PM.
Museum volunteers, Jennifer Skiba and Greg Fruth, have been working on creating an ongoing event at the museum called “Curate Your Own Museum.” This event is dedicated to pre schoolers to high schoolers who want to learn more about curating at a museum and to show off their own things in their own little exhibit.
Jennifer Skiba “Not a lot of people know why we sustain and display in a museum. We want to help kids showcase their ideas and stories," explained Jennifer Skiba. "We want to help kids learn language arts skills and how to research. We want to connect with the school system in a way to be the extracurricular in a child’s experience–a way to put classroom learning into the real world.”
This event idea would help children understand more about museums and to help by putting that knowledge into action by making their own exhibit. It would help reach out to a younger audience about museums. Nothing is set in stone yet but they hope this event will take off soon.
For more information, visit the museum's website at www.laportecountyhistory.org/.