BROKEN BOW, NE- A chance meeting years ago has brought new ownership and management to the Boneyard Creation Museum in Broken Bow. Saturday April 13, visitors to a grand re-opening event got to take in changes as well as excitement of more to come.
KCNI/KBBN spoke with CEO Brian Young ahead of the event about the journey to he and Manager Kris Tyma taking over operations. He said that meeting previous owner Steve Sommer years ago led to everything happening.
“I had stopped in one day going through and got to know him. I was impressed with what he was doing here and when he was ready to kind of slow down a little bit he contacted me to see if I would be interested in continuing it here. Through a lot of prayer and time, we decided that we would,” said Young.
Young grew up in Montana and was in education for about a decade before beginning a creation ministry in 1995. It was during those travels when he and Sommer crossed paths.
While those that have been driving past the museum the past several months may not have noticed much going on outside of the building, a complete transformation has taken place inside. Tyma said every room has a hands-on activity for kids. Various pieces of technology are present throughout, offering a different way to take in information.
Rooms throughout the museum include creation, astronomy, fossils, ice age, and the dinosaur room. Two virtual floor areas in the museum invite kids to put footprints on the surface of the moon or play mini-games with friends. An education room in the back of the museum holds a stage, seating, and a screen for presentations and speakers.
Young said the museum reading pieces are written in a way to help people learn.
“Sometimes it’s easy for the signs to get lost in a lot of terminology that people don’t really understand anyway if we talk about cretaceous and tertiary and all of these, you know, periods. Unless you’re a scientist, most people have heard the word but it means nothing. So while that evidence isn’t ignored here, we don’t focus on that in the signs so that people can learn.”
For those who prefer to have information read to them rather than reading, a numbered audio tour with mp3 players and headphones is available for visitors.
Tyma and Young said the plan is to get as plugged into the community as possible by being an asset and attractant to visitors from near and far. They estimate about 500 visitors have popped in during renovations since November.
Both having previous backgrounds in education, Tyma and Young had met through ministry with a mobile museum. After Sommer contacted Brian about taking over the location, Young’s call was to Tyma for help with renovations now and management going forward. Young plans on continuing to help with putting the final touches on the inside of the museum and making external changes. Going forward, he plans to do speaking and events at the museum from time to time.
CEO and Manager are on the same page when it comes to the goal of the museum and the message they want to convey: that the bible and science can work together.
Young explained with an example, “We find millions of sharks teeth in Nebraska but yet, you know, the data is the teeth are in Nebraska but how do we interpret that information? If we believe the bible, we say ‘well, Noah’s flood’. If you don’t believe in the bible, you’ll say ‘well, the oceans have been moving around’. So, to me it’s the best of both worlds, where we see ‘well yeah, the bible talks about Noah’s flood, science shows that there was a flood, there are fossils’. And so when the two worlds come together I think all the answers really just line up.”
Museum hours going forward are Monday 10 am to 5 pm, Friday 11 am to 7 pm, and Saturday 10 am to 5 pm. Events such as “Monday Minicourses” on the first Monday of each month, “Homeschool Happenings” on April 28 and August 26, “Free Friday Night Flicks” on dates from May to September, and “Friday Family Fun Nights” are just a few activities already on the calendar for the museum.
Young and Tyma repeatedly thanked the volunteers from near and far that have helped them get the museum back up and going and are excited to watch visitors put a pin in their map of the United States in the gift shop.
“It’s definitely worth coming in and checking out again because it’s a completely new museum,” Young closed.
