By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News

 A glistening cornerstone of the Castle Country, the Utah State University Eastern Prehistoric Museum invites citizens to attend its third annual Don L. Burge Day on Thursday, June 26. To explain the occasion for celebration, Dr. Tim Riley from the museum joined the KOAL newsroom for a preview of the event.

Opening our conversation, Riley explained Burge’s role with the museum.” Don Burge was the founder and director of our museum, which was founded in 1961. So, just over 60 years ago, he had moved here to Price as a geology professor for the college. And a couple of years into his tenure here, he decided there should be a museum that celebrates this landscape around us. People come from all over the world, as we know, to visit places like arches, but scientists also come from around the world to study this area’s archaeology, paleontology and geology. And there was no museum here for them to explore and for our locals to take pride in this landscape. So, Don spent his lifetime celebrating this landscape and helping our community celebrate the landscapes in which we’re embedded. He passed away about three years ago. And we decided at that time to create a founder’s day on his birthday.”

Riley continued,” And we decided to create a founder’s day on his birthday. So June 26 is his birthday. And so every year, we have a free day at the museum to celebrate his legacy and some of the things he did.” He added,” He was a very engaging and outgoing man. He did a lot of stuff throughout the community. But he was a lifelong learner. Not only was he a teacher, but he was a learner. And so the point of the day is to celebrate the founding of the museum and his legacy.”

With the free museum admission included, visitors can view Burge’s very Gastonia burgei, an ankylosaur species named for Don. This species was recently featured in the PBS series ‘Walking with Dinosaurs.’

“We mostly want people to come down and explore the museum and think about if they were a student of Don, maybe leave us a note about the impact he had in their life because he did impact lots of students through his tenure at the college,” said Riley. “But we’re also going to have an open jam, a music jam in the Don Burge classroom starting around 3 p.m. Don was a lover of folk music. And in fact, he played a good banjo and guitar. And I believe he played piano, too. And he had a group called the Nine Mile Players.”

The celebration will also feature the debut of a new exhibit chronicling the life of Burge. “It’s going to have a bunch of the sort of items of his life and focus on the three main themes that we identified, which are his role as a sort of community pillar, his role as a lifelong learner and teacher, and then an enthusiast of the American West. He was really into rendezvous, these fur trapper reenactment events. And so that was a big part of his life as well. And so we’re trying to celebrate the cross diversity of his interests.”

In closing, Riley shared,” We’re happy to have you guys come down this summer and celebrate. We will be participating in a pin event with the State Historical Society, and you’ll be able to get pins from venues all across the state. And so that will be coming out starting in July, which is Utah Museums Month. So stay tuned for that on our social media or other places.”

The USUE Prehistoric Museum’s third annual Don L. Burge Day will be held on Thursday, June 26, starting at 3 p.m.