GILLETTE, Wyo. — At their meeting Tuesday, Campbell County Rockpile Museum board members and staff renewed their call for community members to make an investment of participation in the museum.
Tomorrow, the museum will host Pro Rodeo Hall of Famer and four-time world bareback champion Marvin Garrett as a guest speaker. They will also have the Rockpile Museum Association’s annual membership meeting. Both are open to the public.
Garrett, who’s also the rough stock coach for the Gillette College Rodeo Team, will meet museum guests and discuss his rodeo life from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. The event is included with regular museum admission. Association members will get free admission.
In that night’s free edition special for the public, the museum’s having a 5:30 p.m. carry-in potluck dinner with a 6 p.m. presentation from Garrett. A members business meeting will follow. Anyone who is interested in learning about the association or becoming a member is welcome to participate in the potluck, listen to Garrett’s evening talk and stay for the meeting.
Then, museum guests are invited to get further involved.
The museum is planning for the International Pathfinder Camporee, which will be Aug. 5 to 11, 2024, which will be a few weeks after the museum’s 50th anniversary celebrations.
While Rockpile Museum Director Robert Henning said Tuesday that he doesn’t know whether the Camporee has signed a contract, he said that the museum needs to prepare for the arrival of the group, which will amount to tens of thousands of people coming to Gillette. Assuming they come, Camporee buses will continuously drop youths off at the museum, and the museum needs to be consistently able to offer activities across its campus for the boys and girls who get off the buses, Henning said.
Volunteers now can start informing Rockpile Museum staff if they would be interested in helping with that programming.
Henning and Museum Educator Stephan Zacharias on Tuesday said they are concerned that they, ultimately, will be the only ones providing the activities since the museum’s budget for special guests is limited.
Zacharias and Henning are asking community members to come up with group-based activities they could lead any time those days that would reflect the Gillette region and the museum’s mission of education. These activities could relate to mining, leatherwork, pioneer crafts or other aspects of the local economy, culture and history. Maggie, the museum’s fiberglass cow, will also likely get involved.
“If six [volunteers] come on one day, I will be overjoyed,” Zacharias said. “The goal is that this is dependent on the stakeholders of this place. If nobody wants to invest in providing programming, it comes down to Robert and I providing programming for 60,000 people, and it’s just not going to happen.”
Henning said that while he does not anticipate that his vision of what the museum could showcase to Camporee would be feasible, they will do the best they can.
“We need your help,” he said. “We can’t do it alone.”
In addition to the 2024 needs, the museum’s association is seeking a part-time manager and board members. While the association board currently meets at 2:30 p.m. the third Thursday of the month, Henning said that schedule can be changed with the association board’s consent.
The museum did not receive approval on its request for a third part-time staff worker, though they are considering requesting seasonal help in the future.
Henning said after the meeting that he’s also hoping that every Gillette resident can come visit the museum, as he realizes there are many people who haven’t made it in despite living here for years.
Summer intern Alexis Steiner’s last day is in August, Henning said. Before she leaves, she will present her geology exhibit Aug. 4.
Upcoming events also include an archaeology fair in September. The museum’s next free day is Sept. 17, which is the date of Smithsonian magazine’s Museum Day celebration. The “Re-Visioning Seth Eastman: Officer Artist Among the Dakotas” exhibit will be open through November.
The board plans to hold a public workshop in August or September to formally review its strategic goals, which were last adopted in April 2019. The workshop date will be announced publicly.
