Museum benefit projects planned

Museum advisory STAFF PHOTO BY MICHAEL CARY Betty Bundy and Rick Pratt, left and center, confer with Richard Stryker, the director of the Corpus Christi Museum of Science and History, who spent time with the Port Aransas Museum's committee on Saturday, Dec. 20 to give them some advice about exhibits and museum collections. Pratt is standing before the original Mercer logs that were kept by the Mercer pilots from 1866 to 1877. The Mercer logs, a boat that Barney Farley built and the bell from the train that delivered the jetty boulders are among the latest offerings to the collection of the newly opened Port Aransas Museum.

The Port Aransas Preservation and Historical Association met a week after the museum opened to the public on Wednesday and Thursday, Dec. 10-11, to assess the feedback from the public and the offers of artifacts and old family photos that poured in after people saw it.

"We got through the opening, now what will our next exhibit be?" said Sharon Stricker, president of the association.

"Our opening was a grand success. We received an awful lot of artifacts and lots of money," said Rick Pratt, chairman of the committee that worked to open the museum.

Currently the museum has the original Mercer logs that are sealed to preserve them. There's a videotape made by Gail Borden Munsell of fishing and life on Mustang Island.

There are also more than 6,000 old family photographs that volunteer Mark Creighton has scanned and saved in a computer.

The museum is also setting up a gift shop. Memberships are being sold and bricks that make up the outside sidewalks in front of the Mercer House/Museum and the Port Aransas Community Center are available for sale.

Betty Bundy, the grant committee chair for the museum, has sent out more than 370 letters to area merchants apprising them of the availability of merchant memberships that range from $50 annually to $10,000, which constitutes a life membership.

The museum will be opening after the holidays from Thursday through Sunday, with the hours to be announced.

Several programs to help raise money for the new museum are on the calendar, but anyone who wants to make a donation should visit the museum or call association members that are listed at www.portausa.com.

Association members will sponsor a coastal history program by photo archivist Creighton and Port Aransas historian Guthrie Ford after PAPHA's general meeting at 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 8, at the Community Center.

The Port Aransas High School band is sponsoring a concert at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 29 at the Port Aransas Civic Center.

For a suggested donation of $10 for adults and $5 for children, residents and visitors will be able to enjoy a PAHS band concert that's slated to benefit the Port Aransas Museum.

Bundy said several former band members have requested they be allowed to play with the band for the concert.

"Some people have asked to do it, and Jim Cole (band director) will be putting the music up on the high school band's Web page. There has been a lot of buzz about it, and a lot of people are planning to come," Bundy said.

Former band members will be able to rehearse with Cole at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 28, at the high school; at 8 a.m. Thursday, and at 6 p.m. at the Civic Center, 710 W. Avenue A.

PAPHA will launch an online auction from Saturday, Feb. 14, to Wednesday, March 4, to give everyone in Port Aransas and elsewhere to bid on items, trips, sports events and other items donated by local businesses and individuals.

The auction will pause for two days, then launch into a silent auction from 3 to 6 p.m. at the museum following the Old Town Festival Parade on Saturday, March 7.

The Community Center will be opened at 7 p.m. that day for a sitdown dinner, music, a live auction and dancing in the aisles.

Tickets for the event are $50 and are available at the museum, the Port Aransas Chamber of Commerce- Tourist Bureau and online at the museum's Web site, which currently is under development.

Bundy said PAPHA board members, volunteers and museum docents have put in a lot of work to get the museum open for business, but much more is needed, including the signing of a contract with a professional museum design company.

"Their efforts on our behalf will not come cheap, but will put us on tourism maps all over the country," Bundy said.

"We need your help, through annual membership and with participation in all of the upcoming fundraisers," she said.