By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News
Seeking to drive engagement within the community, the Helper Museum is preparing to host a ‘Time Hop’, giving residents of the Castle Country the opportunity to explore a living history tour of Helper’s rich heritage on Saturday, July 19.
Ruth Lee, a Helper Museum Board Member, joined the KOAL newsroom to discuss the inspiration behind the event and preview what attendees can expect.
“All of the museum board members have decided that we want to bring something new to the community,” explained Lee. “We’re all going to dress up as influential members of the community or just community builders from the past who have made Helper what it is today. We want to get involved and interact with the guests that come through to make it more exciting.”
Lee added,” We have such a colorful background that has made Helper the way that it is. And we want to get involved in the members who built it to be that way.”
Providing a behind-the-scenes perspective, Lee shared what the planning process has been like for the ‘Time Hop,'” A lot of people on the museum board were going for the same things. And we had to say, ‘No, we have to spread it out. Everybody picks a different thing.’ So, we’re going to have actors on each floor, including the basement, the first, second and third floors, going through not just important people, but also rocks and minerals, and maybe even sharing ghost stories, just a whole wide variety of things. We hit on each subject and try to get the people who come through something they didn’t even know about.”
Although the event is free and open to the public, the Museum encourages donations to support the facility. Both cash and card donations are accepted.
“We want to keep going with future events like this. I think it’s going to be a fun turnout. But it’s all free. We will be serving drinks and ice cream as well,” said Lee.
Speaking on a personal level, Lee shared what she is most excited about with the event: “I’ve been doing a lot of research on what I’m going to say and what I’m going to present to people. I’ve been doing a lot of research on Helper’s history. There are quite a few things that I didn’t know about, even growing up in Helper. I think that’s the most exciting part, just gaining more knowledge.”
As with any event, the planning process involved challenges that the Museum board had to overcome. Lee discussed some of the biggest hurdles the group leaped,” getting the correct outfits together and getting the proper information was a challenge. We want to make sure that we’re not going off topic on something that doesn’t really make too much sense or doesn’t matter as much as the knowledge that we want to put into people’s brains, the inspiration we want to bring out of people so that Helper can keep going in the same direction that it started from.” She continued,” it’s been a process. We’ve been planning it for months now, so we’re super excited for next weekend.”
Encouraging people to visit the exhibit, Lee stated,” Please come out and check out this exhibit. You’re going to learn something new. You’re going to make so many great memories. It’s going to be something that you’re going to want to keep coming back to year after year. You’ll also have the opportunity to meet all the museum board members. And those people play such a crucial role in helping keep Helper’s history alive.”
The Helper Museum’s ‘Time Hop’ will begin at 10 a.m. on Saturday, July 19, and run until 2 p.m. For more information on this and other upcoming events at the Museum, please visit the Museum’s Facebook page.
