Newsletter October 2004

Center Opens on Saturdays at Keelboat Barn

The Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center is open for business! The Board voted in August to use the Keelboat Barn at Darden Towe Park as a temporary site for activities and viewing of our keelboat from 10 to 4 each Saturday , September 4 to November 13.

In September Board Member Bill Speiden and his team of oxen provided covered wagon rides to the public, with a history lesson thrown in about the role of oxen drawn wagons in the East and the West during the 18th and 19th centuries. Note the schedule for the rest of the fall and spread the word to your friends to come and bring their children and grandchildren.

Saturday, October 16 th
Keelboat Workday, 9 – 1 pm. Master historic boat builder Butch Bouvier will be at the Keelboat Barn as the cabin is added and the boat prepares for the water!

Saturday, October 23rd
Keelboat Launch and Celebration
Join us as the Keelboat hits the water for the first time! Discovery Virginia will launch into the Rivanna River with the help of a crew of volunteers. The event begins at 1:30, with the christening and launch at 2 pm. Refreshments and music will be offered. Oxen demonstrations, covered wagon rides, blacksmithing –and more, including distribution of keelboat nickels by the Director of the U.S. Mint.

Saturday, October 30 th
Compass Workshop for Children, 10:30-12. Children will learn how to navigate while they do a scavenger hunt. For reservations, call 979-2425.

Saturdays, November 6 and November 13
Plants and Animals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition Display

We will reopen in the spring with new and interesting activities!

Celebration of Keelboat’s Launch into Rivanna on October 23

Mark your calendars now for Saturday, October 23, 2 PM to 4 PM, when the 55-foot, 10 ton keelboat will be launched into the Rivanna River and will travel several hundred yards to a mooring right off our property at Darden Towe Park. Butch Bouvier, of Onawa, Iowa, will be present to help us put the boat into the water. We will have a Boat Christening ceremony. Congressman Goode has been invited to officially crack the bottle over the hull, and we are inviting other officials on both the local, state, and federal levels. Musicians will be present playing period music, oxen-pulled wagon rides will be available, as well as a blacksmith demonstration, refreshments, and other festivities. Come be part of the celebration!

Speaker at Annual Meeting Links Our Keelboat to Mint

It was a perfect day and a perfect setting for the Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center’s Annual Meeting on June 27, at Buena Vista, attended by members of the Board, Advisory Board, and Founders. Noted historian and Curator Emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution Dr. Herman Viola was the guest speaker. He was also treated to a visit to the keelboat, and was amazed at our accomplishment. He returned home to Washington, DC, and contacted the Mint about our boat suggesting they connect with us regarding the new Keelboat nickel, released this summer. The Mint has consequently expressed interested in our keelboat and hopes to use it to promote the nickel. Thank you, Dr. Viola.

President Henley Applauds Year’s Accomplishments

The following remarks are excerpted from Jane Henley’s Annual report on June 27, 2004

"It was not an easy decision to take on the presidency of the Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center", said Jane Henley in her opening remarks at the Center’s 2004 Annual Meeting. "I was aware of how many hours Kay Slaughter and early board members had spent putting together the pieces to get the Center to the point where a site was almost in hand, one that adjoined the historic property where the Clark family had lived and William’s older brother and Revolutionary War hero George Rogers Clark was born." She described the 18 acre property as "on the wild side, so like the Lewis and Clark experience." The challenge ahead is to "keep the site natural, and work into it a 15,000 square foot building with a sod roof and prairie plants, a tower, trails, a fort, Indian interpretation, the keelboat, a boat yard, a parking area, and connect it with the Clark cabin at Buena Vista."

Jane then described the year’s accomplishments:

* Secured a 40-year Lease by the Darden Towe Park Board to 18 acres along the Rivanna River and signed over to the L and C Center by City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County at $10.00 per year.

* Completed a Business Plan by a board appointed Task Force, with Jack Weil chair and Kay Slaughter the person who put it to paper.

* Awarded a $198,000 grant from federal Economic Development Initiative Funds administered by the Housing and Urban Development Administration, thanks to Congressman Virgil Goode.

* Completed conceptual architectural drawings of the site, by Nelson-Byrd Landscape Architectural Firm and of the building/ Interpretive Center by William McDonough and Partners.

* Held a free event on October 26 to introduce the public to plans for development of our site and to experience the turning the viewing of the 55 foot keelboat "Discovery Virginia" when it was pulled from the Keelboat barn by 75 young boat builders of varying ages. Still to be completed were the finishing of the deck, the storage compartments, and the cabin. (These tasks should be built by the October 23, 2004 public event.)

* 42 Founders contributed or pledged $3,000 and over to financially support the Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center of Virginia as now envisioned by the officers and Board members.

* Hired Michael Gleason as Fund Raising Consultant for a six month tenure.Development team was chaired by Clara Belle Wheeler. Consultant developed plan, list of potential donors, fundraising materials, and assigned target donors to development committee members. This fund raising effort is now in progress and will continue through remainder of 2004 and into 2005.

* Secured strong partnership relationships with Monticello, Virginia Museum of Natural History, The Monacan Indian Nation, the Discovery Museum of Virginia, and the University of Virginia. Also joined the Virginia Museum Association and attended its three day seminar for developing museums in Virginia.

* Passed a resolution in support of federal recognition of six Virginia tribes and circulated to all Virginia tribes, the Congressional delegation in D.C.

* Invited neighbors of the leased site adjoining Darden Towe Park to a community meeting at Broaddus Baptist Church to encourage support and exchange ideas and concerns regarding the plans for the L and C Exploratory Center.

* Co-sponsored with the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County the 4th Lewis and Clark Festival, a one-day affair held at Lee Park in Charlottesville on May 1st. The 2004 Festival featured the role of York, William Clark’s slave, as a major contributor to the success of the Expedition. Hasan Davis, an accomplished reenactor portrayed York in continuous presentations through the day.

* Held a community outreach for adults at an evening fund raiser in conjunction with the Festival, featuring a dramatic presentation by Hasan Davis, reenacting York.

* Through Committee involvement and Board Member Sally Thomas’s chairmanship, the Center has been a major supporter of an educational program in the schools initiated by festival director Malou Stark. This program and our keelboat building program, both primarily staffed by volunteers, are key ingredients of the Center’s ongoing educational program. Begun in the spring, the popular school program will continue this fall, featuring native American involvement in the Expedition, and funded by the National Park Service’s Cost Share Program.

Currently the Center is seeking a special permit to develop the property leased to us by the County and City. The Planning Commission and Zoning Board are reviewing our plans and amending the Zoning Code Definitions to include our Center. This process will be resolved in late Fall. We are cooperating totally with all of these government entities.

For the rest of 2004, and into 2005, the Center‘s Board will expand our publicity program so more people embrace our vision. We will also enlist more partners, and enthusiastically and rigorously raise funds so we can hire an executive director and go forward with our educational program and our site development plans. Next spring we will again open a temporary Center at the Boat Barn or on our property. A large Indian celebration, involving tribes from the East as well as the West, is also planned for the fall of 2005.

Jane closed her report by reminding her audience that the Monacan Nation were the first inhabitants of Albemarle County. But in 1730, new settlers, came, including Peter Jefferson, Nicholas Meriwether, Robert Lewis, and John

Clark, whose descendants Thomas Jefferson, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark became the key players in the Lewis and Clark Expedition which opened the West and doubled the size of our country. The Trip West truly began in Albemarle County, and the lessons of this incredible journey must be celebrated through our own Exploratory Center, here in Albemarle.

Lewis and Clark National Exhibition In Philadelphia

If you want to see real Lewis and Clark artifacts, then take a trip to Philadelphia after November 7 and go to the Academy of Natural Sciences to see the National Lewis and clark Exhibition, produced by the Missouri Historical Society and scheduled to travel around the country through 2006. Several Lewis and Clark artifacts date back to Albemarle County where they were tucked away in drawers or trunks, or hung on walls, until donated to Museums or shared with family members. The Indian Tribes’ roles are featured as well. You will make your own personal journey, reliving the adventure, when traveling through this exhibit.