Marina, Museums and more

Marina Museum and more!!!

Episode Transcript

(00:14):
Welcome to Ravenswood Renaissance Podcast, exploringthe past and building the future of Ravenswood,
West Virginia. Here's your host,Mayor Josh Miller. Welcome to the
Ravenswood Renaissance Podcast. I'm Mayor JoshMiller. I'm here with Superintendent of Parks

(00:35):
and Recreation for Ravenswood Katrina Ramsey,the director of the Great Ben Museum here
in Ravenswood as well, Faith Walker, and I've got our marina consultant and
are all around Guru Bob Nole herewith us as well. Today we're here
to talk a little bit about morethings going on at the marina, talk
about the opening of the Great BenMuseum and the accolades that's just achieved this

(00:58):
year, and just have a conversationon what's happening around Ravenswood. I like
to mix it up every other weekhere so folks can get an update on
what's happening. So obviously we havea lot going on in our parks.
I'm going to start off with talkingwith Superintendent of Recreation Katrina Ramsey. Again,
we're going to talk a lot aboutthe marina and the museum, but

(01:19):
we just had a dedication for aplayground. Do you want to speak a
little bitter on that. Yeah,we had our dedication for our playground yesterday,
the first day of spring, andthat was to thank Berkshire Hathaway Energy
Renewables for a generous donation to it, which was one hundred thousand dollars for
our inclusive playground where everyone plays togetherand that's our theme. And they appreciated

(01:44):
that it reflected their values as acompany and they appreciate that it's going to
create a community, a sense ofcommunity within the town with families and children.
Obviously, Yes, so be aSuperintendent of Recreation talked. I talked
with you early on as this TreasureIsland playground went down, you know,

(02:06):
because it exceeded its lifespan. What'sit feel like to you from taking it
from a vision and bringing it intoreality, because I know we talk about
that a lot, like the setbacks, the challenges. Just talk a little
bit about that from your perspective.Yeah, the playground that was there three
years ago, finally we had todemolish it. It was dangerous and it
was made out of wood and fullof splinters and couldn't be repaired any longer.

(02:30):
So what we wanted to do wasthink big and build a modern playground
that had attractive colors, was welcomingto everybody. And to see us go
from literally one extreme to the otheris so satisfying and unbelievable. Really to
sit there and watch all the kidsenjoy it. There's as many as one
hundred and twenty kids a day atthe same time, all playing together,

(02:53):
meeting their friends and making new friends, and parents meeting each other for the
first time. It feels like we'vejust sort of just come out all yeah,
what about the amount of support thatwe've received as we start on these
projects again Berkshire Hathaway the Fund forRavens would I mean, how does that
make you feel? From like Isaid ten years ago till now, when
you get these projects done as folksstart stepping up, I mean again,

(03:15):
that's that's got to be something thatyou're proud of, is Superintendent. Absolutely.
I think it proves that we're doingsomething right when everybody wants to join
on board and help in any waythey can. Maybe it's just planting flowers
one day, and maybe it's donatingand generous check. It will take help
and support on all levels. Yeah, so here in Ravens would we focus

(03:36):
a lot on recreation. We're goingto kind of bounce around today. Again,
we keep pretty informal here. That'sjust the way my brain works.
I bounce around. Brought Director ofthe Great Ben Museum, Faith Walker here
today. This is kind of likea feather in the cap. This was
an experiment, and Faith took tookthis museum and made it into the Institution

(03:59):
of the Year twenty twenty three.And again, Faith, this is a
very informal conversation. Just talk aboutwhat it's like being director of the Great
Ben Museum, the challenges you face, and also the excitement of being the
Institution of the Year and what allthat means to you building something from scratch
essentially. Yeah. So it hasbeen incredibly gratifying seeing how the museum has

(04:25):
grown in the time that I've beenhere. I started at the museum right
out of undergrad I went to MiamiUniversity, and when I started here,
I was an America Member and mymain project was to reopen this museum that
had closed with the passing of oneof its founding members in twenty twenty and

(04:47):
then it was founded in nineteen seventytwo by the Jackson County Historical Society,
and then the Historical Society gave itto the city in twenty twenty, and
the city brought me on to reopenit. And so a lot of my
early work was reorganizing the collection,was documenting everything, you know, trying
to recruit volunteers, trying to makeevents, trying to just generally tell Jackson

(05:14):
County history. And you know,since then, we we've done pretty well.
And last year, the West VirginiaAssociation of Museums gave us the twenty
twenty three Museum of the Year Awardfor all of the progress and potential that
we've shown. How many museums wereeligible for that, do you know?

(05:35):
I mean it was quite a bit, wasn't it. There are approximately two
hundred and fifty museums across the state. Yeah, so I think just to
put that in perspective, a museumjust starting up and becoming the institution of
the year, was it maybe ayear and a half later. I mean,
I think that that shows the workthat you guys have put into it,

(05:56):
and we definitely appreciate for that.I mean, interrupt you, but
I thought that that was an perspectivesso just talk about maybe some of the
plans that she have moving forward forthe museum. Yeah, so we don't
want to stop just at the WestVirginia Association of Museums award. We actually
have an exhibit planned for opening nextMay in twenty twenty five that we hope

(06:20):
will be award winning nationally with theAmerican Association for State and Local History.
They pay attention to these sorts ofexhibits, and we are telling the story
of Clara Weisheit, who was aresident of Ravenswood way back in the day
and between around nineteen eighteen and thenineteen forties, she took thousands of photos

(06:44):
of Ravenswood and of all of hertravels. She traveled very extensively all over
the United States and even abroad,and she didn't go anywhere without her trusty
camera. And so we're telling herstory as a woman photographer in Ravenswood,
as the daughter of German immigrants,as someone who who traveled all over the

(07:08):
US, all over even the world, and what her experience was, you
know, a hundred years ago.And so that's that's an exhibit that we've
planned for opening about a year fromnow in the meantime, we're continuing to
work on developing and improving all ofour permanent exhibits at the museum. We're
also putting on monthly events upcoming.We at the end of the month,

(07:30):
we have a photo scanning day wherepeople who have you know, family photos
or you know, photos of JacksonCounty back in the day, can bring
their stuff. They can they canbring their photos to the museum and we
will archivally scan them for them forfree, and then they'll get their photos
back as well as the scans,and then we'll put the scans up on

(07:54):
our website for everybody to view andto learn from. So, just for
the folks listening, can you givethem the dates at the dates and times
or days of the week and timesthat the museum's open. Yeah, we
are up in Tuesday through Saturday fromtwelve to four. Okay, what about
email, website, anything, I'mjust putting you out there. Yeah.

(08:16):
Our website is www dot cityof Ravenswooddot com slash museum. Our Facebook is
Facebook dot com slash Great Bend Museum, and our email is Museum at cityof
Ravenswood dot com. And we absolutelyinvite you to follow us on Facebook because
this is where we post all ofour events, all of our updates.

(08:39):
We have on this day historical posts, but most importantly right now we are
running a series of diary posts fromthe Civil War diary of Henriette Henrietta fitzhughbar
She was the daughter of the townfounders and she kept a very a very
well detail diary during eighteen sixty twoin eighteen sixty three where she talked about

(09:05):
her experience in town during the war. And every day that we post,
or sorry, every day that shewrote in the diary, we post that
diary entry one hundred and sixty twoyears later. And so if you want
to know what life was like notonly back in ravens would you know,
over a century and a half ago, but also specifically the Civil War experience

(09:28):
in town, we absolutely invite youto follow us for that. Okay,
thank you. Before we shift gearsto the marina, I like to always
put Bob on the spot. Beinga former executive, a former mayor,
what's your perception of these folks likethis and the things going on in Ravenswood

(09:48):
and the exciting things happen, youknow, being a former mayor in this
region. I know I've got tobe biased. I sing their praises all
the time. But as you beinga former former mayor and executive, what's
it like outside looking in as you'vebecome a part of this Honestly, well,
I think everything going on in ravenswas exciting. But you know,
I've set in on a few meetingswith site selection companies where companies are looking

(10:13):
for a place to land, andone of the things they always bring up
is quality of life. They're goingto be moving employees in from other locations
sometimes and they want employees to behappy, so they look at all these
things, you know, uh,the cultural aspect of the city, events,
just any anything to do and youknow Ravenswood has a lot of that,

(10:35):
and anything you can do in thataspect is as you know, the
number one thing they look for isflat land and past that they really do
look for, you know, whatkind of life is in Ravenswood or wherever
they're trying to locate. It's it'sextremely important. People don't realize that,
but until they sit in one ofthose meetings they do find out. And
how important is it finding folks liketooth thir horns there like Faith and Katrina

(11:00):
because you've you've had staff, you'vemanaged and things, you know, managing
the doers and the folks that getthings done. You know, what do
you got to say about that?Well, you have a great staff overall.
Actually, I've sat in on severalstaff meetings as you well know,
and you know, as far asall the links you have in this chain,
they all step up. And certainlyI've worked with Katrina a lot on
the Marina aspect of it. Don'thave a lot in the museum obviously.

(11:24):
Other my only connection is in nineteenfifty eight I got hit by a car
and it was a it was aHenry j made by Kaiser. So if
you need a picture of my foreheadin your museum, I mean that's do
have a Kaiser selection in our mI think we could put a picture of
your forehead in there. I sawit. I but that's that's my only

(11:46):
connection to Ravens. Well, that'swhy I said outside looking in, I
mean, it's it's great, it'severything's going very very well. And you
know this is this is as importantas the larger scale and more expensive of
programs going on with the sewer andwater and all the things are that are
well underway for sure. We've hadso much happening with the marina and getting

(12:11):
our website ready so folks can canrent these slips. We've got the campsites
ready to go. We've got abathhouse again. I know Katrina has in
the parks and wreck and has workedon this extensively. We've got a few
minutes left here. I'm gonna letKatrina kind of talk about what the plans
are there where you go to reserveyour spots, if she's got the rates

(12:35):
off the top of her head,just to give us a quick spiel of
the marina and what people should expectwhen they when they arrive. Well,
when you come to the Great BendCampground and that's www dot Great Bendcampground dot
com, you're going to find acampground that's brand new. All of the
sites are level and all of thesites are paved, and that's a big
deal to a lot of campers.All of the sites have fifty amp service,

(12:58):
which I think we're the only onein the area that can make that
claim. We have a nice modernbathhouse which you know, showers and it'll
be ada compliant as well. Youhave docks right there. You can fish
from your campsite. You can renta dock if you want to. It's
ten dollars a day. The campsites are forty dollars a day and you
can pay and see those online aswell. You are in easy access to

(13:24):
walk to all kinds of parks,walk downtown, check out our trail system
which is about two miles away.So there's a lot of things to do.
What we've had people doing so faris really coming home to visit relatives
and it gives them a place tostay. And we had one camper that
stayed for a whole month to visither grandparents, which was gratifying that they

(13:46):
had that facility right there. Weexpect to have a lot of campers this
summer. We're on the river.We have so many amenities to offer.
Yeah, kayaking again during the festivaltimes, Harvest and Higher River Festival.
I'm confident those will be utilized completely. I've already had folks asking to reserves

(14:07):
plus during those times, and againwe have daily rates. You can find
that on Great Ben the www.Great Bencampground dot com. Is that right?
That's great? Okay? Make sureI said that right, and you
can order all this, reserve allthis online and you can pay our credit
card. I mean, it's again, this is a modern area. We've
put a lot of time and effortinto it. I think it's going to

(14:28):
be exciting as the word spreads.But we've got a couple of minutes left
here. I'm going to give eachperson a minute to say a few things
again about their respective things they've beenworking on. Do you want to add
anything else about the museum, faith, anything else coming up, anything you'd
like to say to the public that'slistening. Well, I did want to

(14:48):
add we do have a very excitingevent coming up in May that is a
Mother's Day tea, So if youwould like to treat your mother to a
lovely tea in the park in May. Will also be joined by a costume
historian named Jeanette Watts, who willtell us all about Victorian fashion in the

(15:11):
eighteen eighties. She herself will bein Victorian dress and will be breaking down
the different components of her outfit.And then we'll also have a behind the
scenes tour of the Great ben Museum'sclothing collection and the tea will be will
be catered by the Ravenswood's Bakery andCafe. Tickets are twenty five dollars.

(15:33):
If you check us out on Facebook, you can find the event and the
link to the event bright ticketing websiteand other than that, I just really
like to emphasize that, you know, we are we aren't just a museum
for Jackson Countians. We like tothink of ourselves as a museum where you
can find yourself there. I meanso many times people come to the museum

(15:56):
and they find some connection one wherethe other. They find a way that
you know, they're from Michigan,they're from Wisconsin, you know they're from
they're from far away, and yetsomething in the museum they're like, I
know this or somehow it relates totheir family history and that is just so
exciting. All the time's history isabout connecting the dots, and that's that's

(16:19):
what you do when you're in amuseum. So It'strina, We've got a
couple of minutes. Well, ifI were from the outside looking in,
I think Ravenswood has an outstanding parksystem. We have just about anything you
want to do in Ravenswood. Ifyou want to play tennis, it's there.
Swim, hike, mountain, bike, boat, kayak. You can

(16:41):
jump out of a plane five minutesaway at the airport. We have a
golf course. Golf course five minutesaway. So what's there to do in
Ravenswood. I think there's everything todo in Ravenswood. You can find something
to do if you want to,if you want to do it. And
we're reaching out to start to connectour school system with events at the park,

(17:02):
our libraries having events at the park, with our new Veterans Park,
so we're all sort of connecting thedots and forming a pretty strong recreational community.
Bob, you want to add anything, end of Yeah, just to
tag in a little bit on thehistory again, and you know all the
work we do in Ravens with everythingwe build, of course we have to
have archaeological studies done, which wedo. And it's interesting because we also

(17:27):
have to work in concert with theoce Age Indian Nation because apparently they occupied
those grounds back in the day.So for those who are fans of Killers
or yeah Killers of the Flower Moonmovie about the Osage Nation, they were
back east as well. Saw thaton Amazon Prime. I haven't watched it

(17:47):
yet. Yeah, it's a goodmovie actually. But you know, just
yesterday received word from the Corps ofEngineers that they're almost finished with the approval
process for the second set of dogsfor saying Craik that are playing this summer,
and we get that in and thelaunch ramp and it'll be good to

(18:08):
go. The thing that I tryto encourage here is, you know,
we're talking about all these events goingon and the things that we're doing.
Uh, you know, we didn'thave a lot of this before. And
I'm a big encourager of I knowit sounds terrible when you hear it like
this, but I'm an encourager ofmaking mistakes and taking chances. And I
think that that's what we've allowed thesegroups to do. And when you when

(18:32):
you go out to the unknown,you know, you find out what works
and you find out what doesn't.And that's why I'm so proud of all
these folks. Sometimes, yeah,we fight, we growl with each other,
but we're still getting things done everyday and finding out what works and
doesn't instead of just sitting there andwaiting for something to happen to us.
So I'm proud of all of ourboards and commissions and I appreciate Katrina and

(18:53):
Faith being here and Bob as well. You guys do a great job,
and I hope you can in youthe great work. And I think the
next podcast we're gonna jump on iswe're gonna start talking about a little bit
about our fairs and festivals and whatgoes on there. But right now,
check out the music Great Ben Museumin Ravenswood, check out what parks and

(19:14):
rec has going on in Ravenswood.You can follow our Facebook page, Facebook
dot com slash City of Ravenswood,or you can go to cityo Ravenswood dot
com and find out everything that's goingon in this town. And trust me,
we have a ton going on andwe would love to have you here.

(19:34):
You've been listening to Ravenswood Renaissance Podcast, exploring the past and building the
future of Ravenswood, West Virginia.Find it on your iHeartRadio app or wherever
you get your podcast. You'll alsofind us on Facebook and YouTube and listen
for our next Ravenswood Renaissance Podcast comingsoon.