Museum board prepares for Summer Speaker Series finale

Jim Magera, local historian and former Havre High School history teacher, will speak on “Havre at the Turn of the Century” at the H. Earl Clack Museum’s final Summer Speaker Series event in September.

H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum Board discussed during its meeting Monday Magera’s talk, which will be Friday, Sept. 21, at 7 p.m. in the conference room of Havre Inn and Suites.

The event will probably include cookies and refreshments, the board members added.

About a half-hour before the event, the museum board said, it will hold a public dedication of Mural Park, which is next to the Havre Inn and Suites.

The dedication will include a Native American smudging ceremony, board chair Lela Patera said.

The ceremony is a spiritual cleansing or blessing, member David Sageser added.

Future events and speakers

The board discussed its Digging Up History event, where kids and adults can excavate bones, as a fundraiser for the H. Earl and Margaret Turner Clack Memorial Museum Foundation’s renovations. The foundation is renovating the future home of the museum, the Havre History Center, that now houses Grigg’s Printing on the 10 Block of Fifth Avenue.

Digging Up History will fall on the Saturday afternoon of Festival Days, Sept. 22, Foundation President Elaine Morse said, and added that the foundation is hoping to get more advertising and sponsorship for this year’s event.

In December, the Clack Museum will celebrate Dinosaur Christmas, where kids can do craft projects including making dinosaur cookies, Morse said.

“We are the baby dinosaur museum of the Dinosaur Trail,” she added.

Next year’s Summer Speaker Series already has one volunteer speaker, Patera said.

David Evans, a paleontologist with the Royal Ontario Museum, will speak to the public in 2019 about recent findings in the Havre area, she said.

Morse added that he may also address the Clack Foundation at their annual meeting.

The museum board said it is interested in one-room schooling’s local history and is seeking speakers for 2019 who can recount their teaching experiences in such schools.

The chairman of the USS Montana commissioning committee, Bill Whitsitt, may also give a historical presentation, the board said.

“A Virginia Class nuclear attack submarine, SSN 794 is under construction,” the USS Montana website says. “She is expected to be commissioned sometime in 2020.”

Whitsitt’s talk would include the history of the former USS Montana, which was a BB-67 battleship, the board said.

“USS Montana was to have been the most powerful battleship ever devised for the (U.S. Navy),” Militaryfactory.com says, “but the emergence of the aircraft carrier during World War II sealed her fate.”

Havre History Center renovations

Morse said members of the Clack family will visit in early September to look at progress of renovations at the future Havre History Center.

The space features a baby grand piano donated by the family, which board members said looks very nice.

Recent renovation progress includes cleaning out the main floor and taking down a staircase. Morse said the area looks much bigger now and added that they also put up blueprints on the walls to help workers see the future of the center.

“We still have a long ways to go,” Morse said.

‘High-quality visitors’

Emily Mayer, manager of the Clack Museum, said volunteer guides do a really good job.

“We’re well-taken care of,” Mayer said.

She added that she was impressed by the “high-quality visitors” the museum had received lately.

“They come with excellent questions and good discussions,” she said.

Mayer told the board she had received lots of nice comments about the museum.

“We’re gonna need a new guestbook for the museum ’cause we’re almost out,” she added.

Donations

The Clack Museum received significant donations recently, Patera said.

Shannon Heggem donated solid oak wooden panels, which are at the future Havre History Center now.

“It took us three pick-ups and a trailer to get ’em all down there,” Patera said.

Sandy Anderson donated several historic military uniforms in good condition, including her husband’s father’s World War II uniform and his grandfather’s uniform from World War I.

The World War I uniform has “cool short pants” and a very heavy overcoat, board member Kathy Shrauger said.

“Man, those poor guys that had to wear those,” she added.

The H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum Board will meet Sept. 10 at 6 p.m. in the conference room of Havre Inn and Suites.