Shawn Haugrud, assistant preparator, works on the left jaw of a Triceratops.
(Ron Campbell / Johnson City Press)
ETSU Museum puts dinosaurs on display
By Ron CampbellPress Photojournalist
rcampbell@johnsoncitypress.com
Dinosaurs have made their way to East Tennessee.
Visitors to the ETSU and General Shale Brick Natural History Museum and Visitor Center will be able to examine a wide variety of authentic fossilized dinosaur bones, including material from the Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops.
Through a guided tour, visitors will witness a completed left side of a Triceratops jaw, a leg and arm bone from a Hadrosaur, a Tyrannosaurus Rex tooth, rare egg shells, a fossilized dinosaur skin impression and many other items.
The items are on loan from the Shenandoah Valley Discovery Museum in Winchester, Va., and originally came from the Hell Creek Formation in Montana. The material dates back to 65 to 67 million years ago during the Cretaceous Era and represents the last 2 million years that dinosaurs roamed the Earth before becoming extinct.
ETSU museum director Jeanne Zavada said she was thrilled to develop a new relationship with the Discovery Museum in bringing the fossils to the Natural History Museum.
“I love to see institutions with similar missions coming together to achieve a common goal,” she said.
“It’s a really neat partnership, because they are looking to build their own collection, storage and museum there so that they’ll have enough display places for all of their specimens.”
Former Discovery Museum volunteer Shawn Haugrud was instrumental in organizing the dinosaur fossil loan to the Natural History Museum. Haugrud is now the Natural History Museum’s assistant preparator.
This is the first time the Discovery Museum has loaned fossils to another institution for display.
“All of the material we brought back provides a bigger picture of the area’s environment during that time,” Haugrud said. “We have material representing everything from T-Rex and the smaller predators, big plant eaters, organisms living in the water and even the little mammals that scurried around trying not to get noticed or eaten.”
Zavada said this is just the first of many loans that will be coming to the museum.
“You’ll see many more of these loans coming in and this just gives us a chance to display and let our visitors interact with things that are much, much different than you would ever find in Northeast Tennessee,” she said.
Zavada said the museum is seeking to expand the possibilities of the museum for visitors.
“Great things are happening here at the Natural History Museum,” she said. “We are continuously expanding and improving our exhibits and educational programming as well as our facilitiy.”
The fossils will complement the interactive and informative “Dinosaur Revolution!” exhibit on display in the Niswonger Gallery, which is open to the public until May 16.
The Natural History Museum is open daily from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information about exhibits and programs, visit www.grayfossilmuseum.com or call (866) 202-6233.
Press staff writer Madison Mathews also contributed to this report.