Parades are always fun

The Williamson County Sheriffs Posse hosted a parade today to kick off Rodeo festivities. Not quite as big a crowd attended as at the Red Poppy parade in April, but we had fun nonetheless.

Celina, Mickie, Dana, and Chelsea left the Museum in my hands while they rode in Dale's truck. Rebecca and her friend rounded out the float participants. We used the parade as an opportunity to plug Up the Chisholm Trail Cattle Drive and Chuckwagon Cook-off, which we're actively planning. (Two chuckwagons confirmed, four more verbally confirmed.)

At the beginning of the parade, the Sheriffs Posse had a riderless horse. That was in honor of our good friend Coop Smith who passed away earlier this year. It was really a very nice tribute to Coop!

Even though it's our down time, it's hoppin'

Really, we're getting to where this is the quiet time of the year. It's that time between events and exhibits.

We've installed two exhibits this year...and have taken one of them down. Our next exhibit is slated to open in November. I'll be working on making our Swedish Texans exhibit a traveling exhibit (which I've not done before, so it's an all-around learning experience).

We held Pioneer Day, which saw double last year's attendance. We had way more school tours through the museum and courthouse than last year. But, school's over. Mickie's working on Summer History Explorers' Camp. This will be the first year we're expanding that program to a week (well, really, four days). Mickie's going to a storytellers' workshop on Friday.

Celina's catching us up on paperwork. All of the old attendance and volunteer records that were handwritten, she's entering it ALL into our database. Plus, she's going to a training workshop in Waco next week to get a better handle on our membership/contacts database.

I was recently appointed to the Collections Managers Committee (an affinity group of the Texas Association of Museum) as the Newsletter Editor. I sent out my first quarterly newsletter today. I'm also the Secretary for the Austin Museum Partnership. We don't have a lot of meetings for that organization, but we do have networking happy hours, which everyone enjoys. That group will take up more time as Austin Museum Day gets closer.

This is the perfect time for me to have some quiet time to concentrate on the unsexy elements of museum work...working on the collections (Dana's making great progress on the photography project), designing the traveling exhibit, updating the labels in some of the older exhibits, and working with the webmaster to design and get our NEW webpage up and running.

Next month, the intense planning for Up the Chisholm Trail will be in full swing...

A quite June

We just uninstalled the quilt exhibit. It had been up since mid-March and was quite a draw. People loved looking at the quilts that dated from 1871 to 1998. Dana, Chris and I took the quilts down this morning. They're already back in acid-free boxes with tissue paper and on the shelves in the collections area.

What's next? Well. We've received TWO entries for the chuckwagon cook-off. One of the wagons attended our event last year, Goode Ranch Chuckwagon, and were first place winners in the Bread category. We're so excited they'll be joining us again this year. The second wagon is Rodgers Ranch Chuck Wagon from Bertram. I've heard they placed well at the chuckwagon cook-off in Blanco last year (their event was the same day as ours). But, Rodgers Ranch Chuckwagon has decided to join us this year. Ya-hoo!

New elements at this year's Up the Chisholm Trail Event include a consolidated location at San Gabriel Park, Western demonstrators and exhibitors, a trick riding show, a Ranch Rodeo, and a very special live performance after the cattle drive. As soon as we get the details, we'll let y'all know.