Buffalo jump sees record number of visitors

The Wahkpa Chu’gn Buffalo Jump had a record number of visitors in 2016, manager Anna Brumley said Monday in a report to the H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum Board at their monthly meeting.

“We’re thrilled, we’re actually thrilled,” said Brumley, who manages the buffalo jump with her husband, archaeologist John Brumley. “We’ve never had this many people.”

The 2016 Wahkpa Chu’gn annual report says 3,352 people visited the bison kill site last year compared with 3,046 and 2,722 in 2014 and 2015 respectively. A total of 1,002 students and chaperons from 20 different schools and 35 classes visited the site in 2016, an increase of 286 from 2015, the report said.

Visitors to the jump peaked in September with 400, the report said.

Wahkpa Chu’gn took in a total of $14,648 from $9,880 in cash and check revenue and $4,768 in credit card revenue, the report said. Expenses paid included $12,325.20 to nine employees, $235.55 in credit card fees, $1,340.49 in site expenses that were not covered by an operating grant awarded to the museum last year and $467.24 in reimbursements to the H. Earl and Margaret Turner Clack Memorial Museum Foundation for advertisements, the report says.

The site had $279.52 left after payment of expenses, Brumley said, $209.64 of that going to Ethos, the Brumleys’ company that manages the site, and $69.88 going to the museum.

A $5,000 grant from an anonymous donor was made to the Wahkpa Chu'gn Buffalo Jump to be used for maintenance of the site. The report also said the buffalo jump received a second grant of $5,000 to construct a garage for both the golf cart and polarus used at the site.

In other business:

• Shawn Keeley has been appointed to the museum foundation board, said Elaine Morse, president of the foundation board.  

Keeley will fill the seat created on the board after his wife, Allison Keeley, died of cancer in December, Morse said.

She said Shawn Keeley had told her that he wanted to remain involved with the foundation and be kept abreast about the foundation’s activities.

Morse said she asked him about taking over the vacancy on the board. She said Shawn Keeley said he had to think about the offer and two days later agreed to join the foundation board as a member.

• Members of the board signed off on language of an addendum to existing bylaws that will allow a member to participate and be considered present if they call into a meeting either by phone or other technological means.

Board members present at January’s meeting voted for the change at last month’s meeting, but waited until member David Sageser crafted the exact language.

Sageser was not present at Monday’s meeting.

Museum Board Chair Judi Dritshulas said the change came after the board had a meeting this past fall where one of their members was out of town but was on the phone.

There was nothing in existing bylaws that said whether that member could be counted as present.

Bylaws dictate that no decisions will be made or actions taken without a quorum and that a majority of the board’s seven members constitute a quorum.