THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 19, 1997 TAG: 9702190003
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 37 lines
The Virginia Marine Science Museum at Virginia Beach, an educational, entertaining attraction poised to surpass Jamestown-Yorktown in annual attendance, has received $2,450,000 in state money for construction over the years. Now it is in line for $100,000 for its 4-year-old Outreach Lab.
VMSM completed a $36.7 million expansion last year, bringing total capital investment in the facility to $45 million, including $5 million in private-sector donations. The museum's operating budget of $5.5 million is underwritten primarily by fees for admission to exhibits and IMAX 3D films, contributions and municipal approproations.
City Hall rightly counts the museum as an increasingly valuable asset. Attendance is expected to reach 650,000 visits and could well exceed it by the end of this fiscal year. A million visitors a year seems possible in the near future.
Now the General Assembly, which will end its 1997 session this weekend, is on the verge of granting $100,000 for the museum's Outreach Lab.
The Outreach Lab has made 837 trips to Virginia schools, taking marine specimens to show-and-tell classes.
Youngsters respond enthusiastically to sea turtles, puffer fish, crab and dolphin skeletons, sand dollars, sea horses, hermit crabs, sea horses, pipe snails and other aquatic creatures.
The $100,000 moving the museum's way is small change within the context of the operating budget, but the museum has earned every penny of it by generating excitement in classrooms from the Oceanfront to Northern Virginia and Abingdon.
When the legislature puts the finishing touches on its appropriations document, the $100,000 for the Outreach Lab should be included.