Big Horn Basin museum officials gather in Lovell

Community museum officials from the Big Horn Basin gathered in Lovell Monday for the semiannual Big Horn Basin Museum Summit, hosted by the Lovell-Kane Area Museum and the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area.
The summit, a meeting of the Big Horn Basin Association of Museums, was held at the Cal S. Taggart Bighorn Canyon Visitor Center. The Association meets twice a year in the spring and fall.
Representatives of any museum in the Basin are welcome to attend the meetings, Lovell-Kane Museum board president Karen Spragg said.
“We’re trying to work together to talk about what we’re all going through: challenges, how we each manage collections, educational programs, how we can collaborate on our exhibits and our programs and financing,” Spragg said.
According to the summit agenda, draft goals of the Association are:
• Continue to build relationships among museums
• Share summer 2024 program plans and opportunities for cross promotion
• Share excess gift shop inventory, especially books
• Assess the museum passport program and identify next steps
• Share ideas on professional development through museum associations
• Share best practices for administration, programming and collection management
• Inspire collaboration on exhibits or programs
• Tour other museums
The passport program, Spragg said, is designed to incentivize people to visit all of the museums. Visitors get their passport stamped at each site, and once they have completed the circuit, they receive a water bottle.
Monday’s meeting was attended by representatives from Lovell, Greybull, Powell, Cody, Meeteetse, Ten Sleep and Worland. Attending from Lovell were Spragg, Greg and Bee May, Angie Hutzenbiler, Amanda Bennion, Linda Mangus, Sami Poulson, Bighorn Canyon Chief of Interpretation Christy Fleming and archaeologist Richard Olsen.
The hosts put together welcome bags that included a mug sponsored by the Bank of Lovell and other goodies.
“They went over like gangbusters,” Spragg said.
Following the meeting, Spragg showed a slideshow about Kane, and the attending museum representatives toured the Bighorn Canyon collections room and the Lovell-Kane Museum. Cold weather did not allow the planned visit to the Kane townsite and the Kane interpretive trail.
The next museum summit is scheduled for September in Ten Sleep, Spragg said.