February 16 - Seeing Is Believing!

With less than 5 weeks to go before we open our doors - I have to say that for those of you that have doubted us - - Seeing is Believing!

The Gift Shop / Visitor Center painting phase will be finished in the next week, and Mike Sanders just finished priming the new wall at the end of the day:


We are currently contacting vendors and even have items for the gift shop starting to role in. We will have art of all kinds, and not necessarily Native Indian but just "good stuff." From jewelry, photography, and wood carvings, to minerals, kids items, and even candy. The first time you walk in the door, you will know there has been nothing like this around here before!

We are still looking for funding for the flooring but have had a carpet layer and crew donate their services if we buy the carpet and supplies!

Painting:
As we said - we planned to do A LOT of painting today and we did! Claire Borits painted ALL of the trim around the new walls that Tom and the gang put up where our museum will be:



and it came out beautifully!


Also - Anne Meikle and Inga Welles finished the green display pieces:


Donations - GOING UP! (Literally!)
We were gifted over 200 chairs from the Guthrie Clinic and about 1/3 of them are boxed (2 per box) - Come to find out, they move upstairs quite fast since we have a conveyor belt (thanks to engineer Dick Cowles!)

After today - I think it will be a hard sell to allow the conveyor belt to go to auction!

At about 4:30 today I shot this picture as I was walking around taking the last pictures for the day... There was Ted, Dick and Tom chatting away over the tables of artifacts Ted switches out every week - (and Dick even brought some new ones that he wanted Ted and the gang to see...)

Although our workshops supposedly run from 10 - 2pm, they never do, and while we had 13 people helping today - - I should point out that we have a handful of people like Tom Vallilee, Jack Rowe, Angelo Mazzarese, and the Sanders' EVERY day of the week... And I want to make it known that because of THEM, we will open our doors in less than 5 weeks.

Hats off to all who have given SO MUCH to make what we hope will be a place that the whole community will share and enjoy for generations to come!