Dedication Of Mayborn Museum Complex Set For Friday
The Sue and Frank Mayborn Natural Science & Cultural History Museum Complex.
After two years of construction and preparation, Baylor University will formally dedicate its much-anticipated Sue and Frank Mayborn Natural Science and Cultural History Museum Complex at 2 p.m. Friday, May 14.
Designed for the entire family, the Mayborn Museum Complex brings together a wealth of experiential learning opportunities for visitors of all ages. The complex will officially open to the public at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 22.
The dedication will be held in the Anding Traveling Exhibit Area inside the Harry and Anna Jeanes Discovery Center, the centerpiece of the Mayborn Museum Complex, located at 1300 S. University Parks Dr. on the Baylor campus. Among those participating in the ceremony will be Baylor President Robert B. Sloan Jr.; Dr. Ellie Caston, museum director; and Meggie Carter, a senior museum studies/journalism major from North Richland Hills.
A platform for TV cameras and a multbox providing a clean audio feed will be available opposite the stage at the back of the Anding room.
As the Mayborn Museum Complex prepares to open to the public, there will be several preview events leading up to the May 22 opening:
Sunday, May 16, 1 to 4 p.m. - Member preview
Monday, May 17, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. - Baylor faculty, staff and student preview
Tuesday, May 18, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. - Media preview
Wednesday, May 19, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. - Museum friends and travel industry preview
Thursday, May 20, 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. - Teachers, administrators and educators preview
The Strecker Museum's natural history collection, previously housed in the Sid Richardson Science Building, and the Ollie Mae Moen Children's Discovery Center, formerly located in downtown Waco, will now be under one roof in the Jeanes Discovery Center. The Gov. Bill and Vara Daniel Historic Village, remaining on its site along the Brazos River, is now an outdoor complement to the indoor Texas Lifeways exhibits.
Visitors also can enjoy the "Waco at the Crossroads of Texas" natural history exhibits. From their first step into "Cretaceous Sea," with its 28-foot-long model of a Pliosaur, to "Texas Lifeways," which includes a Waco Indian grass hut, a Norwegian rock house, a Comanche tipi and an early log cabin, visitors will come to understand what makes Waco the "Crossroads of Texas."
The interactive "Crossroads" journey, which will include traditional and walk-in dioramas as well as exploration stations, will guide visitors through the natural science and cultural history of Central Texas. Walk-in dioramas include a limestone cave, a Texas forest and the Waco Mammoth Experience. At the Waco mammoth exhibit, guests will walk on a see-through floor where they will see casts of the Columbian mammoth bones displayed exactly as they were unearthed at the Waco Mammoth Site, just five miles from the Baylor campus.
Seventeen themed Discovery Rooms will occupy two floors of one wing of the Jeanes Discovery Center. Providing visitors with hands-on activities, the rooms are designed to invigorate young imaginations and introduce them to the worlds of vertebrates, invertebrates, communication, health, water and bubbles, energy, optics, and sound, among others. Parents as well as children will enjoy walking through a model of the human heart, "communicating" in hieroglyphics, playing a tune on the walk-on piano and trying their hand at reporting the TV news and weather.
In addition, the Museum Complex is the new home of the Baylor department of museum studies, one of the few that offers both undergraduate and advanced degrees.
Other aspects of the magnificent 143,000-square-foot building include the Museum Store, Anding Traveling Exhibit Area, AT&T Orientation Station and multiple-use SBC Theater with 185 tiered seats.
For more information, contact Sarah Levine, director of marketing for the Mayborn Museum Complex, at (254) 710-2517 or Sarah_Levine@baylor.edu, or visit Mayborn Museum.