September 2nd, 2009
Beginning Tuesday, the Burpee Museum of Natural History, 737 N. Main St., will change its hours open to the public to noon to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.
The day the museum accepts donations instead of charging admission also will change to Mondays instead of Wednesdays.
Admission for Rockford Park District residents is $6 for adults, $5 for ages 3 to 17, and $1 more for non-residents.
The hours used to be 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and noon to 5 weekends. Reasons for the changes include parents wanting to bring kids after school, the museum wanting to allow more time weekday mornings for reserved group tours and simplifying hours for visitors to remember.
For more information, go here or call 815-965-3433.
July 20th, 2009
A few musings about the Bone Soiree fundraiser at and for the Burpee Museum of Natural History in Rockford Saturday night:
1. Ouch. Rockford alderman Joe Sosnowski can bend backwards pretty-back-achingly far. Congrats to him and Laura Gibbs, WREX anchor, who won the Dancing with the TV Divas contest via audience applause, as well as the online vote on my blog. (Yeah, that’s me in the middle in the background, pointing with amused delight. I was a judge with Judge Rosemary Collins and Rep. Dave Winters.)
(Katy Mull/Register Star photo)
2. Ouch 2: The crowd of 185 or so was maybe half the size as last year’s. Blame the economy, publicity, overcast skies.
3. Darn. Wish I would have won the two-night stay in a condo overlooking Millennium Park in Chicago that was donated by the Kalchbrenners for an auction item. It went for way more than double my paltry $325 bid.
4. What a nice kid. Near the end of the night, the pre-teen son of Joe Bruscato, Winnebago County State’s Attorney who competed with Alice Barr of WIFR in the contest, said he wanted to have his photo taken in a photo booth with me. He’d inquired about what the booth was for. I told him and asked if he wanted to have his picture taken with me. Then I thought better of it. “Why don’t you go get your sister or ask one of those pretty diva dancers if they want to have their picture taken with you?” I asked him. “No, I want to take a picture with you,” he said. He probably didn’t want to have to go find someone else. We were standing five feet from the photo booth. But it made my night. If he ever runs for political office, he’s got my vote.
June 26th, 2009
Don’t worry about those little critters who were housed in the third-floor Children’s Gallery at Burpee Museum of Natural History in Rockford.
They, including Mr. T., a 70-year-old Gulf Coast box turtle, are being cared for by the education staff of the museum while the Burpee is undergoing a renovation expected to be completed next summer. The Children’s Gallery, where kids not only viewed little live animals but put on animal costumes and did other activities, is closed to the public and has been turned into an office for education staff.
After renovation, the gallery will be in a different space. Burpee hopes to have space for a living exhibit similar to that in the gallery, but it’s not sure yet if that’ll happen.
