The USU Prehistoric Museum is excited to be offering free admission to Carbon and Emery County middle and high school students this year. Castle Country Radio was able to sit down with Museum Director, Dr. Tim Riley to get all the details.

Any middle and high school Students will be required to show their student I.D. in order to receive the free admission. “The goal in doing this is as you mentioned in your opening is to reduce some of the financial barriers. We want the museum to be a resource for students to come in and have fun and also learn about the landscape around us including the people, the animals that lived here in the past, and also be exposed to the scientific method,” explained Dr. Riley. The museum hopes that by offering free admission to students that it will spark their interest. This new initiative expands on the free admission the museum currently grants to Utah State University students, faculty and staff. You can also gain free admittance through the Museums4All program if your household qualifies for assistance or by becoming a museum member with rates starting at $25.00.

Another great thing the museum has been working on is developing a community newsletter. This is going to be a bit different than the quarterly updates the museum currently shares with its members. “This is a little bit different, its going to be a free community newsletter, its going to be a 2-pager that has a calendar of events, a main article about what is happening in the museum during that quarter, and then generally a featured item from our collections, and maybe another quick little sort of listicle type of article on the back. It will have all the important information for what’s going on, as well as, some QR codes for people to scan,” said Dr. Riley. The new community newsletters will shared be at the museum, as well as at the downtown businesses.

Lastly, the museum is also hosting a survey for community members to complete. “We’re launching a community survey, we’re going to start doing this once a year, sort of the late Summer, early Fall period, we’re going to access how we’re doing. We want the community to tell us what they like, what they don’t like, things they would like to see in the future. It doesn’t mean we’re going to be able to always accommodate everybody’s wishes, course not. But the goal is to basically have a better gauge of what the local community wants from the Prehistoric Museum,” said Dr. Riley. The survey QR code can be found on the Prehistoric Museum’s social media pages or in the new community newsletter.

For more information about the Prehistoric Museum please visit their website at https://eastern.usu.edu/prehistoric-museum/ or call the museum at (435) 637-5060