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STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK The year-old Wood River Museum of History and Culture is celebrating a big-time award with an Open House tonight. The open house will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. tonight—Tuesday, Oct. 8—at the museum at 4th and Walnut streets in Ketchum. The museum just won the Charles Redd Award from the Western Museums Association for its exhibit “How in the World Did You Get to Sun Valley?”
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This tag tells of Santiago’s wish to see the place where Ernest Hemingway wrote “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”
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The Tulsa, Okla.-based WMA was founded in 1935 to challenge and empower museums of the West to remain relevant in a dynamic world. Past recipients of the Charles Redd Award include the Whatcom Museum, High Desert Museum in Bend, J. Paul Getty Museum, San Diego Natural History Museum and even the Boise Art Museum for its exhibit “Minidoka: Artist as Witness.” The Wood River Museum of History and Culture’s exhibit features the arrival stories of 10 individuals over 150 years as it considers how a small remote community in America’s West has ties to the larger world from Kitzbuhel, Austria, to Huancayo, Peru. Mary Tyson, director of Regional History for The Community Library, said the exhibition is an important examination of the complexity of the Western United States. “We are trying to represent different people over time in different circumstances. Some didn’t come voluntarily; others very much wanted to come here,” she said.
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Mary Tyson inspects the buffalo hide coat and story of Albert Griffith who came to the Wood River Valley in the late 1800s in search of silver, worked at the Dollarhide Mine and eventually opened a grocery store in the building that now houses the Sun Valley Culinary Institute.
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The exhibition includes the story of a Chinese man who came to the Wood River Valley in the late 1800s. The most recent story is of Rosmery Serva, who came in 2016 to join her family, who owns several restaurants in the valley. “So, the exhibit represents an ongoing thing, said Tyson. Tyson said the stories of those who came to live in the Wood River Valley are designed in a way to be digestible. An interactive component asks museum visitors to tell their own story, whether they’ve lived in the Sun Valley area a long time or whether they’re passing through. Ellen Thompson wrote how she came for Sun Valley’s ice skating. Santiago told how he came from Spain to discover the place where Hemingway wrote “For Whom the Bell Tolls”—“that beautiful book about the Spanish Civil War.” Donley told how his aunt and uncle play in the pit orchestra accompanying the Geoffrey Ballet. “I love the towering mountains and the laid-back culture,” he added.
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This story tells of Jeanne Lane, one of 16 women who founded the Community Library, opening the gold Mine thrift store to fund it.
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“I came from traviling the world and my family was obsessed. I stayed for the adventcher and seeing new places (sic),” wrote India Conway. “My Mom has been coming up here her whole life so when my grandma bought a house up here I got too (sic) start coming too!” wrote Grace. “I came for the summer 1947 and I stayed for the community and skiing and fishing. I am now 95 and loving it!” wrote Jackie Minor. “Raised in SV, married my husband at Round House and can’t wait to move back,” said Abby. Tyson said library staff workshopped exhibit ideas early on to create something that had a lot of meat to it. “The exhibit helps us see that we’re a community of different perspectives,” she said.
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Museum visitors can expect the exhibits to be changed periodically.
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Twenty-five thousand visitors perused the museum in its first year after it opened in July 2023. Among them was Kristine Bretall, the Museum’s new community engagement manager. She previously worked for Sun Valley Museum of Art, where she curated The Museum’s musical programming, including its summer and winter concert series and musician school visits. Another Open House at the museum will be held Oct. 22.
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