- [Narrator] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, and the citizens of Minnesota.

(upbeat music) Coming up next, "Off 90".

(upbeat music) Join us as we visit the Southern Minnesota Museum of Natural History.

Travel along with us to Rochester for the Sweet Adelines Regional Competition.

And finally, stop by the Austin Ladies Floral Club meeting.

It's all just ahead, "Off 90".

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) - My name is Jim Pollard, and I am the curator of the Southern Minnesota Museum of Natural History.

The museum started as just an idea to create a science place for rural kids to, you know, see specimens, and basically, we're just trying to encourage kids to get interested in science in the rural areas here.

We're very far from museums, so we thought we'd bring a museum to Blue Earth, and I had a big fossil collection of my own, and with a few other people in town, we started this program.

So we're basically a charitable organization and we are open to the public.

Basically, we're just getting kids interested in learning, and a lot of kids here in the rural areas don't go to college, and so much of the collection was collected by amateurs.

So I show them that you can do science and not have a college degree.

If you can read and if you're interested in learning, you can teach yourself pretty much anything.

And the kids seem to be picking up on that.

When kids come here, they will see fossils that pretty much spread the whole time period, from the beginning of the formation of the earth, of course, there won't be fossils, but we have rocks from that time.

And then we go from the earliest fossils to fossils that are collected in Minnesota just a few thousand years ago.

So, we pretty much span the whole time period.

We like to take kids, if we can, on digs.

That's sort of a very select thing that happens.

It's not a frequent thing.

But when we do take kids on digs, we want them to see the fossils that they might be collecting in the field, so the collection focuses on fossils you might find in North America.

Generally, the fossils that we have were found in South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana, but there's fossils here from all over the world.

And so it's like a miniature museum.

The idea here is to make it small but interesting.

It's sort of like the Mona Lisa.

It's small in size, but packs a punch.

And we have to stay small because we're in a rural area.

There's not a lot of money to fund something like this, so it's pretty much done on a shoestring.

Summer, the museum's open from one to four, seven days a week, June, July, August.

From September to May, through May, it'll be probably next year, one to four also, but only on Saturdays.

So the summer, kids are off of school, so they come in, so it's best for us, and we get people driving through town, tourists that stop in, and a lot of people... Actually, people from the Twin Cities drive down to bring their kids here.

And so we find that because we, you know, we have limited finances, these are our limited hours, but it's been working good so far.

They like to see big and scary, which is dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs have lots of... You know, it's an alluring thing for kids.

We have bones and things that I've collected, my sons have collected, and other things that we have in the collection.

The bigger skeletons are cast, of course, because they cost a couple million dollars, and we were exactly 2 million short of buying that cast.

Here, for example, this is one from Brigham Young University.

But everything else is real.

And interestingly enough, you never can tell what really hits people the most.

We have some insects, some people like to see those.

We have fluorescent minerals.

It just depends on the personality.

But I ask people, "What's your favorite thing?"

And I get different answers.

Often it's like, "I like everything," and a common comment we get is, especially with the adults attending with their kids, they say, "We learned more here than we've learned at any of the big museums."

So, we can do things that bigger museums can't do.

The Cherney Bison, this is our one Minnesota display, and they were dug by these three people, Pat and Renee Cherney and his friend Gary, and this is a herd of now extinct bison that was dug up in 1992, and it's essentially two groups of now extinct bison, bison antiquus and bison orientalis, interbreeding, So you have these different horn expressions.

There's a research paper coming out on this, Professor Richard White, he's down at the Mammoth Springs site in South Dakota, so that should be out this year.

But another example of an amateur sort of citizen science, the people who are self-taught, because the state and the universities weren't interested, so they took it upon themselves to learn what to do, and they excavated the skulls on their own, and as a result, we're gonna have a research paper that would've never existed had these people not taken it upon themselves to do this.

(dramatic music) The mission is just to get people interested in science.

And, you know, what you learn when you're young affects your whole life.

And so the idea is to get kids interested, and, you know, it tends to stay with you.

I was interested as a young kid, and, you know, I can see it happening to these kids when they come in.

You can see it in their face.

It's just like a wow, you know?

And you know that you've sort of, you're giving 'em an experience that they'll remember when they're an old person like I am, just as I remember the experiences I had as a kid going to certain museums and seeing certain things.

But we do, like, for example, what we can do that other museums can't do is you can actually hold, you know, a dinosaur bone.

You can feel these things in your hand, and it makes it more of a real thing.

When you feel the weight and, you know, you see the color and texture and you can hold it and examine it up close, it's different than having it as a specimen in a display case.

(gentle music) You wanna know the history of the planet you live on, of course.

But to me, the most important thing is that we're teaching kids to become interested in learning.

And it doesn't really matter what it is.

It can be science, it can be literature, it can be art.

The idea is to teach kids that you can teach yourself.

If you have an interest, pursue it, and if you have questions, find answers.

And the whole museum is geared towards that, this sort of question and answer, and I interact with the kids.

We have these information they can take home on each exhibit.

It explains about it in a simple way.

And the kids just naturally have questions.

And if I don't know an answer, which often happens, I ask them to come back with the answer.

And they do that.

They say, "Oh, here's the answer."

One kid asked, "How long does a Tyrannosaurus live?"

Well, I didn't really know the answer, and he comes back and he says, "Oh, about 28 years."

I said, "Great," you know?

And so it doesn't take much to get kids onto that path, so to speak.

Whereas in school, often it's, you know, it's more of a command and control thing.

And here, it's on the kid's own initiative.

And that's how you live your life.

And if you can carry that through your whole life, you end up living an interesting life, you know, a life worth living, and it becomes more of an aesthetic experience.

You become aware of the things around you.

You ask questions, you know, about, you know, why is the sky blue, or just all sorts of questions, and then you seek the answers.

As opposed to living an anesthetic life where you're asleep through your whole life.

And so we're just trying to get kids to be aware of the world around them and to be curious.

And fossils are perfect, dinosaurs are, because they're automatically tuned into it because they're big and they're scary.

And so the interest is there.

And so once you've got the interest, then you can expand on that.

(upbeat music) - We are ready for contestant number six.

May we have the doors closed, please?

From Spirit of Harmony, Affinity!

(crowd cheering) - Barbershop music, which is the type of music that Sweet Adelines sing, is really a very special art form.

♪ When you wish ♪ ♪ Upon a star ♪ ♪ Makes no difference who you are ♪ - So Sweet Adelines is barbershop music, and people always think of men as being barbershop singers.

It has its roots back into the African American traditions, their harmonies.

There's a lot of similarities between the roots in jazz and blues.

And the men formed up a society back in 1938, and their wives and girlfriends and mothers decided it'd be fun, and so in 1945, they started singing.

The first international competition for Sweet Adelines was 1947.

The chorus here in Rochester began singing together in 1965, so it's kind of an anniversary for us.

♪ Anything your heart desires ♪ ♪ Will come to you ♪ - This is the regional competition for the Sweet Adelines International.

Sweet Adelines International is an international organization, and our region is Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and a little bit of Canada.

We have about 26,000 members.

It's the largest women's singing organization in the world, across 11 countries and most of the states, and everybody has regional competitions about this time of the year.

- We are ready for contestant number seven.

May we have the doors closed, please?

- And the choruses and quartets that win this weekend will go on to perform on the international stage.

♪ I'm sitting on top of this ♪ ♪ Great big wonderful world ♪ ♪ Wonderful world ♪ - There's a team of people that do everything from preparing the publicity, figuring out the transportation, working with the facility here at the Mayo Civic Center.

There's a person who manages the bazaar, and she has about eight or 10 volunteers that work with her.

There's a whole system of getting people from the hotel into the stage and through their warmup rooms, and there's probably 20 people that works on that team.

So, everybody's got a little part to play.

Another thing that's really interesting is the different types of people that participate in Sweet Adelines.

♪ Somewhere ♪ ♪ Over the rainbow ♪ ♪ Way up high ♪ - So we have people here that are in their teens and we have people here that are 90.

We've got a few women that have been doing this for 60 years, and some, this is their first time walking onto the stage, so it's kind of neat to have that broad range of people participating.

- I'm with the Twin Cities Show Chorus from Richfield.

I'm a participating singer in the chorus contest tomorrow.

Tonight is quartets, but it's also an opportunity to grow and get critiqued and get tips and get feedback, which is one of the great things about the organization, is they help singers develop not only vocally, vocal technique, but they also help in terms of performance.

And so we may compete against many choruses or quartets during the course of the weekend, but they're also friends.

(crowd cheering) - [April] 305 people participating in the competition.

- And we get to see how people grow and how they improve, and you get to have a lot of fun, just blow the pitch.

(chuckles) Blow the pitch, it's all acapella, so you have to take a pitch in the very beginning, and then you're on your own.

♪ Many a love song ♪ ♪ Both old and new ♪ - We will sing, really, any genre of music in barbershop style.

We will work on music that's been written 100 years ago, and anything's game, but that's the fun part.

♪ Yes, it's a good day for singing a song ♪ ♪ And it's a good day for movin' along ♪ - There's a certified judging panel that has to be flown in to adjudicate and decide who's gonna advance to the next level.

It's quite a big deal.

Oh, it's very complicated.

The judges go through a multi-year training process, and each chorus gets judged by four judges across four different categories across two scores, and the totals are added up, and they could go up to 1,000, and it's really pretty elaborate.

(chuckles) - From Zumbro Valley, Med City Remedy!

(audience cheering) - We have two members that are in the medical profession, and we have two educators, and we thought that was a good name that represented all four of us.

♪ Maybe I'm old fashioned ♪ ♪ Feeling as I do ♪ - So, it went by very fast.

It's interesting when you work with your quartet all year long for this event, and then the moment of truth goes by in about five minutes.

So, that's really interesting.

Crowd is incredible at this event and we could not wish to be in a better place for our first time performing.

♪ For once I can touch what my heart used to dream of ♪ ♪ Long before I knew ♪ - What I love to listen for is how people are performing, how they've improved, how they are able to work together and create what we call the barbershop sound.

In barbershop, you have, hopefully if you're singing with quality and correctly and together, you have overtones.

So you will lock the chord, and it will create tones that aren't actually being sung.

♪ Please let my dreams come true ♪ - And that's the fun part, it's really beautiful music.

♪ I'm always so ♪ - The emotional connection between the performers and the audience is really high.

A high amount of energy on the stage.

The harmonies are amazing.

- Oh, you just get to listen to the harmony.

We strive to really promote the art form, if you will, and basically try to promote it with the community that we're in and the communities that we live in.

We perform in our home communities.

- It's one of the oldest art forms in the United States.

And there's a few things that are really special about this barbershop experience, because we interact with the audience.

We're telling a story.

We're entertaining.

There's costumes, there's choreography, and there's the emotion of the story that comes out to the audience.

So it's a very different experience than just going to a regular choral concert.

♪ Where troubles melt like lemon drops ♪ ♪ Away above the chimney tops ♪ - It was so amazing seeing all the quartets and knowing how much experience all of those women have, and just looking forward to someday maybe cracking the top five.

- The winners will get a trophy, and the participants in those groups will get ribbons to wear.

And the first place in quartet go on to international, to compete at that level.

♪ That's where ♪ ♪ Where you'll find the ♪ (upbeat music) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) - Austin Ladies Floral Club started in Austin in March of 1869.

This was a community just beginning, and the ladies wanted to start a lending library.

And in order to do that, they needed to organize themselves and present a letter of organization to the state legislature in St. Paul to be recognized as a group.

All this sounds sort of formal, but at that time, there weren't very many organizations, and that was what was required.

So that's what they did, and 13 women were gathered in March to sign that petition, which was sent to the state of Minnesota, and they were organized as a group.

And their purpose was to start a lending library in Austin.

They also wanted to study floriculture.

Floriculture is a word that we just don't hear anymore.

But they were interested in studying plants.

And so how they thought they would make money to buy books is they would have floral shows and/or sell plants, and both of which they did.

And many of the early programs were given by members, and they wrote them about their own experiences tending plants and that sort of thing.

So, in the beginning, they were able to buy about 100 books, and that's what started the Austin Public Library, which they called the Lending Library.

- The biggest challenge came in having enough people on the very first meeting to actually form the club.

It was a really sloppy, yucky day, and 4th Avenue was a mud road.

And so we didn't have all of the ladies who were originally invited to come, and that was going to be the nucleus of starting the group.

So we actually had to grab one of the maids from upstairs at the Hormel Home to be our last person to sign our documentation.

Our history is very lengthy.

We are 156 years old this year.

We have been meeting in Austin all of those years.

And we are about the second oldest women's club in the United States.

So, we're pretty proud of that.

Our history is very well kept out at Mower County Historical Society.

All of our records are there, all of our photographs are there, and we're pretty proud of our history.

(energetic music) - Initially, they didn't have a place to really store these books, so they stored them in a courtroom at the courthouse, and that just did not work very well, because there were so many interruptions for the use of that space.

So for many years, the books were housed in members' homes, and so you would go to somebody's house to borrow the books, and they continued to build their collection.

If you were a member of Floral Club, you could pay a dollar, and that was your subscription to use to be able to lend books from the library.

And if you were not a member of Floral Club, it was $2 a year, which is, you know, big money at that time.

But after a while, having books in people's homes, as you can imagine, became very cumbersome, and they again moved them to the courthouse, I believe.

And at some point, they were able to contact Andrew Carnegie, who at that point was building libraries in the country, and he agreed to build a library in Austin if the city would donate land for this purpose, which they did.

That land is now a parking lot, and it's behind Clasen-Jordan Funeral Home.

But that was where the original Carnegie Library was.

- To have such a long history to be...

So, as far as we know, we're one of the earliest clubs in the whole United States that's still meeting, and it started when there were a lot of ladies groups that were founding libraries in various cities, but not all of them have kept meeting over the years, and this one has its whole history sitting there.

And we do support the library in some of their activities, so that's good too.

We just have a really good time talking to each other, and it's some of the themes that we've had.

So, this year, we decided to make our theme be flowers, so we did a lot of things with finding out things that otherwise you wouldn't necessarily know about, how the flower pots that are hanging on all the light posts get done and the new businesses in town that are floral based.

And just one year, we did all the things that United Way supports, so, find out things about our city that maybe you wouldn't even think you didn't know about.

But there's a lot of learning that goes on, as well as good fellowship.

- We have always had a large number of highly educated women that have joined our organization, and they're very well read, and most of them, of course, join the organization because that is our goal, is to continue to keep our local public library very vibrant, and we just all believe that from the early age of infancy, people should be exposed to books, and you're exposed to the whole world through books.

And so we like to start at an early age, and when we do donate books to the library or donate funds to buy books for the library, we make sure they cover a wide variety of genres and every age level.

- I think the women recognized the importance in a new community of having a library and what it would mean.

I think they thought this would reach the whole county, which they certainly hoped it would, and it did.

And, you know, it's hard for us to recognize how the importance of books and the written word to people at that time, but it was.

You may remember that there used to be people who rode around the country and would read newspapers.

I mean, they weren't obviously news, I mean, brand new, but they had a newspaper, and they would come into a community and read them.

So the written word was very important then, and it continues to be today.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music) - [Narrator] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, and the citizens of Minnesota.