Quilt Exhibition & Construction Update

"Celebrating Oregon's Heritage" is the theme of our 2009 Quilt County exhibition! The quilt show will be open August 28-October 17, 2009.

The exhibition includes both contemporary quilts by Benton County quilters and quilts from the museum collection that date from 1824 through 1985. Six of the museum’s quilts were made in the 19th century. All of the quilts will be represented in an online museum exhibition at www.bentoncountymuseum.org.

Contemporary quilters represented in the show include Nancy Bryant, Diana Cleland-Boyle, Carol Davis, Pam Duren, Debbie Garvin, Marcia Gilson, Marcy Gregg, Babette Grunwald, Liz Hoffman, Dianne Jackson, Susan Johnson, Judy Juntunen, Kerry McFall, Sidney Snell, Shirley Strub, Ann Smith, Sandra Thiesen, Jan Tallis, Yvonne Thomas, and Lisa Ullmer.



The many contractors and sub-contractors working with Greenberry Construction are making rapid progress on our new hardscape. Although one side of the driveway is closed, the museum is open, with parking in the rear of the building. Thank you for visiting the museum.

Board of Trustees Honors John Croy

At the meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Benton County Historical Society on Thursday, August 20, 2009 John Croy was recognized for his generous sponsorship of this year's Chautauqua program.

In its 13th year, the summer Chautauqua lecture series was co-sponsored by the Museum, Corvallis/Benton County Public Library, and Linn Benton Community College Benton Center, with support from the Oregon Council for the Humanities. But, Humanities funding was awarded for only two lectures in the series. John Croy's generous sponsorship of four lectures made the program possible.

Four hundred twenty people attended the six lunch-time talks at the Corvallis Library, hearing scholars presentations ranging from "Stitched Patches: Quilts of Celebration" to "Changing Perspectives on Oregon's Geology".

Many thanks to John Croy, an Edward Jones financial advisor, for his generous support.

New Online Museum Exhibitions

This is the last week to visit our decorative arts exhibition "Home Is Where The Art Is" in the Moreland Auditorium. Admittedly, low resolution photos are a poor substitute for seeing the real thing, but if you can’t visit the museum this week you might enjoy seeing the online exhibition at http://www.bentoncountymuseum.org/exhibitions/Decorative_Arts. Researchers in Michigan and Lincolnshire, England were pleased to find examples of O.H. Copson’s paintings on our web site, so it is satisfying for us to fulfill our mission as "we explore with our visitors the dynamics of our region in relationship to the world".

This week we added a new online museum exhibition called “Tale of Two Colleges: Philomath College and College of Philomath”. Soon we will also have an online counterpart to the upcoming Quilt County exhibition in celebration of Oregon’s heritage.

Please keep checking back to our web site for more fun historical facts, anecdotes, featured artifacts, and online exhibitions. Thank you Susan Christie for assisting with our web work.

New Driveways, Sidewalks and Parking Lot at the Museum!

Demolition began this morning for the Museum's hardscape improvement project. Construction of new sidewalks, driveways and parking lot will take place over the next two months. Access to the Museum will be limited to one driveway, so please take care when turning off Hwy 20/34.

Thanks to Cody Timmins of Greenberry Construction for coordinating the project and soliciting many in-kind gifts from sub-contractors. This helped bring the cost of the project down and insured that the Museum could complete the project this year.