By ELISHA BECK

Special to The Hays Daily News

At the end of January, the Ellis County Historical society began the transfer of thousands of historical artifacts from Fort Hays State University's Sternberg Museum of Natural History.

The types of artifacts we are adding to the Ellis County museum collection include those no longer relevant to the Sternberg's focus of natural history. We will soon have many more artifacts pertaining to the people and places of Ellis County, which will greatly improve our collection and future exhibits. The artifacts will be on loan to us with the plan that eventually most of the items will be permanently gifted to the society.

Exhibit

From March 30 to April 30, we will have the exhibit "A Chronicle of Quilts: Revisiting Past Quilt Exhibits" at the museum. Due to the large acquisition of artifacts from Sternberg, our normal temporary gallery in the historic stone church will not be used for the quilt exhibit. Instead, the exhibit will be featured in the museum basement and will display quilts representing the variety of quilt exhibit themes the museum has had through the past 30 years. Visitors will be able to view quilts loaned by local quilters and historic quilts from the museum collection.

Like our usual quilt exhibit, we are asking for loans of any types of quilts from local Ellis County residents. If you have an heirloom or new quilt that you would like to share for our exhibit, contact the museum as soon as possible. Loaned quilts will be returned after the exhibit, but we will need the loans at the museum before March 12 in order to prepare for the exhibit.

Board meeting

The Ellis County Historical Society had its annual meeting Jan. 25. We had a nice attendance of society members and an entertaining program provided by the Heartland Community Theatre Group. The following officers were elected for the 2010 year: Ed Howell as president, Steven Kite as vice president, Linda Leiker as secretary, and Brad Boyer as treasurer. Other members of the board include Jackie Langholz, Kevin Rupp, Glenda Shuetz, Pamela Pohly, Rita Stramel, Jim Henergarde, Willie Pfeifer and Evelyn Zellmer. Tom Drees is our county representative.

At the meeting, we presented plaques to honor the founders of the historical society Don Bickle, Mildred Drees and A.A. Reisig. Present were Bickle, James Drees, son of Mildred Drees, and Brad Boyer for A.A. Reisig.

The public is welcome to attend our next monthly board meeting at 5:30 p.m. Monday.

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For more information, contact us Tuesday through Friday between the hours of 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 100 W. Seventh, Hays, KS. 67601, (785) 628-2624 or go to www.elliscountyhistoricalmuseum.org.

Admission to the museum is $4 for adults and $1 for children between the ages of 3 and 12. Members and children under 3 are admitted free of charge. Our research facilities are included in museum fee.

Elisha Beck is Curator and Exhibit Designer for the Ellis County Historical Society.