Thursday, May 11, 2017

Awards

The Arkansas Museum Association awarded the Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum and the North Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau with high honors at their 51st annual conference. 


Stephanie Slagle with the North Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau was awarded Overall Achievement for her role organizing and leading the Arkansas Remembers Pearl Harbor Committee and the 75th commemorative ceremony.  The weeklong event saw 17 partners in Central Arkansas and around $20,000 in sponsorships to create this commemoration.  The ceremony at the Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum had approximately 1,200 people in attendance. 


The Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum was awarded Outstanding Achievement in Exhibition for our exhibit about Pearl Harbor.  A big thank you to Cathy and Steve Owen for sponsoring the diorama and to our diorama craftsmen: Ken MacLeod, Bill Owens, Steve Staples, and Dix Wood.



The Distinguished Museum Professional of the Year was awarded to the Museum’s Director of Operations, Allison Hiblong.

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Work Week 2017

The Razorback Association, Razorback crew members, came again this year to work on special projects at the museum.  The main projects completed were starting the number 1 engine aboard USS Razorback again, installing a railing aboard Hoga, and preserving the Razorback nameplates.


The crew included past crew members off the submarine, along with some sons and grandsons of these crew members.


The number one engine was first started at the museum in 2013.  But the past few years work was being completed to allow the engine to run for longer periods of time and more effectively.  This year a rebuilt governor was installed to the number one engine.  This governor was rebuilt by the Governor Control Systems in Mandeville, Louisiana.  The governor is now the cleanest equipment aboard the submarine!  The enginemen of the week were able to start the engine multiple times and allow it to run for 20-30 minutes at a time.  See this video of the engine starting up from inside: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_kd7Xk6S0g.



Hoga served with the United States Navy from 1941 until 1948.  After that she was loaned to the Oakland Fire Department and served from 1948 to 1994.  During that time her exterior changed, so the museum has been working on preserving Hoga back to her original 1941 appearance.  A railing on the upper deck was removed at some point in her history, so we had four volunteers work to reinstall that railing.




Two of our crew members worked diligently to preserve Razorback’s nameplates.  These are now all spiffy for our visitors this summer!





A past cook off Razorback brought two of his grandsons to cook for the crew while they were in town. 

We always appreciate the work that these guys do and love to hear their sea stories throughout the week, even if we have heard them more than once.