CLS Journal of Museum Studies, Volume 4, Number 1 CLS Journal of Museum Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1. (2010) URL: http://www.ou.edu/cls/jms/ CLS Journal of Museum Studies is currently published online by the College of Liberal Studies, MALS Museum Studies Program, the University of Oklahoma. Your use of the CLS Journal of Museum Studies archives indicates your acceptance of the Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.ou.edu/cls/jms/. Museum professionals, students, and other readers are encouraged to distribute the articles published in this journal as widely as possible, to use them in classes, and to reprint them as needed. For commercial use of any of these articles (e.g., charging for articles, republishing figures, tables, text, etc.), permission must be obtained from the Editor. All questions relating to the journal should be directed to the Editor. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.ou.edu/cls/jms/board.html. Each copy of any part of a CLS Journal of Museum Studies transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or PDF file of such transmission. CLS Journal of Museum Studies is an independent not-for-profit publication dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly articles in the field of museum studies. For more information regarding CLS Journal of Museum studies, please contact Dr. Michael A. Mares at [email protected] http://www.ou.edu/cls/jms/index.html Publication date: October 2010 i CLS Journal of Museum Studies, Volume 4, Number 1 CLS JOURNAL OF MUSEUM STUDIES Volume 4, Number 1/2010 The CLS Journal of Museum Studies is issued annually (with individual numbers appearing as they are completed) by the College of Liberal Studies, MALS Museum Studies Program of the University of Oklahoma. The CLS Journal of Museum Studies is designed to provide a worldwide e-journal as a publication outlet for students enrolled in the Museum Studies Program of the College of Liberal Studies of the University of Oklahoma. The journal is also designed for use by faculty in the CLS MALS program. Any topic of relevance to the field of museum studies is considered suitable for publication in the journal. Contributions may be solicited by the Editor from museum professionals not affiliated with the MALS Museum Studies Program. All submissions are reviewed by one or more members of the Editorial Board or by outside reviewers. COVER ILLUSTRATION: Montage of the main building and exhibits of the Sternberg Museum, Fort Hays Kansas State University, Hays, Kansas. ii CLS Journal of Museum Studies, Volume 4, Number 1 Journal Editor Dr. Michael A. Mares, Director, Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, and Joseph Brandt Professor, Department of Zoology, University of Oklahoma Editorial Board Gail Kana Anderson, Assistant Director/Curator of Collections, Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, University of Oklahoma Marcia Britton, Executive Director, Wyoming Council for the Humanities, Laramie, Wyoming Byron Price, Director, University of Oklahoma Press and Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West, University of Oklahoma Peter Tirrell, Associate Director, Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, University of Oklahoma Dr. Mary Jo Watson, Director and Regents’ Professor, School of Art and Art History, University of Oklahoma iii CLS Journal of Museum Studies, Volume 4, Number 1 CLS Journal of Museum Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1. (2010) The CLS Journal of Museum Studies is published annually by the College of Liberal Studies, MALS Museum Studies Program, the University of Oklahoma Dr. Michael A. Mares, Journal Editor Manuscripts submitted for the Journal and all correspondence concerning them should be addressed to Dr. Michael A Mares. Guidelines for contributors are given on the last page of this volume. Copyright © 2010 by the College of Liberal Studies, University of Oklahoma Laid out by Catherine Kerley, on a format established by Dr. Michael A. Mares. iv CLS Journal of Museum Studies, Volume 4, Number 1 CLS Journal of Museum Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1. (2010) Contents Foreword by Michael A. Mares 1 Dome on the Range: The Improbable Dream 7 by Jerry R Choate v Dr. Jerry R. Choate, Director, Sternberg Museum, Fort Hays State University, Hays, Kansas (2005) Foreword Michael A. Mares Director, Sam Noble Museum, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019 [email protected] 1 Foreword hen Dr. Jerry Choate presented his Grinnell lecture at the American Society of Mammalogists meeting in WAlbuquerque, New Mexico in June 2007, perhaps more than most of those present, I found it delightful. Jerry and I were in that small group of museum directors who have built a major natural history museum and I know we shared many of the triumphs and travails that are part of every significant museum construction project. I approached Jerry at the conclusion of the lecture and asked him to submit a paper on the history of the Sternberg Museum project to the CLS Journal of Museum Studies so that his story could be shared with other museum professionals and students throughout the world. He agreed, but said he had some other pressing matters and would have it to me shortly. At the time he was trying to complete and staff an annex to the Sternberg, a wildlife museum at Cheyenne Bottoms, near Great Bend, Kansas. Over the next two years, I would regularly remind him that I was still waiting for the manuscript and he would promise to get it to me soon. Jerry planned to retire as director of the Sternberg Museum in June 2009 and wanted to complete fieldwork and the many unfinished manuscripts that back up over a long career and await attention. He was looking forward to a busy life wrapping up his years of work in mammalogy. Tomorrow, as they say, is promised to no one. Jerry was diagnosed with melanoma in early 2003. By April 2009 the melanoma had returned as brain lesions. He did, indeed, retire in June 2009, but his life was far different from what he had planned. He underwent brain surgery and chemotherapy, then follow-up experimental treatments. I gently and almost guiltily reminded him of the promised story of the Sternberg so that he could share his accomplishments and challenges with the people who care about these types of things, even though I was aware that he was undergoing very difficult treatment by specialists. He finally sent me the “talk.” It was, literally, a talk, not a manuscript suitable for publication. It was folksy and entertaining, but not really journal material. I edited it heavily and sent it back to him for revision, reminding him that I needed photographic material to illustrate the finished article. “I’ll get it done,” he said, and “I’ll get the figures sent to you shortly.” Jerry died in December 2009: the revised manuscript and figures never arrived. In winter of 2010, I contacted Jerry’s wife, Fi, and his son, Judd, and asked them if they could look through Jerry’s computer and 2 CLS Journal of Museum Studies, Volume 4, Number 1 office to search for the revised manuscript and figures. They enlisted the help of Mark Kellerman, Director of Public Relations at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History, who was able to locate the compact discs that Jerry had prepared for me, but that somehow had never been sent. The discs contained his PowerPoint presentation, many photographs, and two videos that are important to understanding the history of the Sternberg Museum. There had not been time to revise the manuscript, but I am sure Jerry trusted me to do that for him. The story of the Sternberg Museum, like any museum, involves keystone personalities who must struggle because they are the first person to dedicate their lives to developing a museum where none exists. Certainly the person who played the pivotal role in the museum’s earliest days was George F. Sternberg, whose passion for collecting fossils led to the development of the original museum. Vertebrate fossils are large, showy, and fascinating. They bring a lost world to the attention of the general public and are dug from the very soil tilled by farmers, grazed by cattle, and trod upon by hunters. They may even lie buried, unseen and unknown, below towns and cities. It seems incredible that such remarkable animals not only once lived, but also had remained hidden for thousands or even millions of years under our feet. Each specimen is not only a mystery, but also a miracle. People love fossils, those denizens of lost worlds that are resurrected to inspire and awe us humans, who by comparison have been on earth for a short span of time. It is thus not surprising that Sternberg was given a small space to carry on his work and that the collection would form the nucleus of a future museum. The self-taught Sternberg became a prodigious fossil collector whose fame extended far beyond the little town of Hays in western Kansas. He earned his living selling fossils to great museums, but his most famous fossil, the “fish within a fish,” was not sold. That one he kept for “his” museum at the tiny college that would eventually become Fort Hays State University. Absent the happenstance move of the Sternbergs to Hays in the 1860s as part of a military posting, there would be no Sternberg Museum today. Coming from a family for whom fossil collecting had been a passion, the young fossil collector, George F. Sternberg, would become the keystone personality of the first museum at Hays. In 1967, I entered Fort Hays Kansas State College to work toward a Master’s degree in mammal ecology under the direction of Dr.