Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 11, 1994 TAG: 9409140047
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: D-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
As a nonprofit foundation, it would have to raise its own money and compete for state funds with other nonprofits. With a mere 18,000 visitors a year, the Martinsville museum isn't likely to be high on that list - not for the almost $2 million annually it now gets, anyway. "The bells are tolling," laments the chairman of the museum's board of trustees.
It should not be.
It is more than proper that the state should have a museum to exhibit objects that explain its natural history. Such an institution's popularity as a tourist destination is but one measure of its importance. The natural history museum also provides a means for gathering, studying and preserving material that broadens knowledge about the land.
On both counts, the much maligned and quickly squashed proposal to expand the museum to Explore Park, just off the Blue Ridge Parkway in Roanoke County, remains a sensible one.
The fledgling Explore would be enhanced by the addition of the museum, and the park would surely do as much for natural-history collection. Explore would guarantee visitors, for one thing. The handful of exhibits completed at Explore have drawn more than 10,000 visitors since the park opened July 1 - and it is open only three days a week.
The natural setting, in the midst of woodlands and alongside living-history exhibits, has the potential to bring the collection to life.
With the institution's favored budget status held at knifepoint, it might be time to rethink a merger of Explore and Virginia's Museum of Natural History - before the latter is history.
by CNB