Philanthropy Today
Philanthropy Today
Friends Of The Fort Riley Museums on the GMCF Community Hour Radio Show Episode - 184
Discover the vital role that the Friends of the Fort Riley Museums play in preserving military history and fostering community engagement. This segment of the radio show explores exciting events, restoration efforts, and opportunities for the public to connect with their heritage through local initiatives.
• Exploration of the Fort Riley Museums and their significance
• Overview of the First Infantry Division Museum and its historical importance
• Insights into community events like Apple Days and ghost tours
• Discussion of volunteer programs and community outreach initiatives
• Update on restoration projects, including the clock tower
• Announcement of upcoming historical chats with Dr. Bob Smith
• Overview of collaborative efforts with regional organizations and events
Philanthropy Today is brought to you by the Greater Manhattan Community Foundation. In this episode we feature a recently broadcast segment of the GMCF Community Hour, as heard on NewsRadio KMAN. We are back with the GMCF Community Hour here on NewsRadio KMAN and we just heard from Jack Lindquist and he's going to continue to sit in on this session where we visit about the Friends of the Fort Riley Museums. We are joined by Christine Binney who is you are president of that organization.
Speaker 2:I am the president of the organization. All right, it's a great organization, lucky you, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, we you and I got together and actually the three of us got together a couple of years ago, before the first infantry division was reopened, and we talked a little bit about what was going to be coming along. And I think that there's a lot more to the museums aspect of the post. They're not necessarily connected to the post financially.
Speaker 2:No, they are, it's a whole different deal.
Speaker 1:it's a whole different deal.
Speaker 2:It's a whole different deal. Um, as dr bob's been on a few times, and talked about that. Um, it's part of the uh, the centers for military, centers for military history, and which is a big, which is big army, and so they they've overseen all the renovations. Beautiful. If you haven't been, you need to go. It's really easy to get on post. If you don't have an ID card, just go to the gate. But both museums are now open and they're just beautiful, jack.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love taking groups there. I have a lot of tour groups that I work with. I have a lot of tour groups that I work with, and being able to go to visit the museums is just a reminder to a lot of the group members that we have of what was in their own personal history.
Speaker 1:And they really appreciate being able to see that, reflect and remember experiences, but to be very proud of their service. I think that's one of the things when people walk out of there there's a lot of.
Speaker 2:I didn't know that about Fort Riley.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of things that have happened in our Army's history that was as a result of some of the work done by those who served here locally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And then you have the First Infantry Division Museum, which really takes the history from the First Infantry Division when it was started in 1917, all the way up to now through all the different conflicts and wars, and so they're both just beautiful museums, very glad.
Speaker 1:Well, you have opportunities for people to come and visit whenever they wish. You have tours that are specially designed for certain times of the year and you have fundraisers. You have a. You've got a lot going on with the group.
Speaker 2:So the Friends of the Fort Riley Museums essentially we support all the historical aspects on Fort Riley we were. I just want to also throw in there that the Calvary Museum has a beautiful gift shop, and so if you're wanting anything Fort Riley 1st Infantry Division should pop into that gift shop.
Speaker 1:Is there a stuffed Comanche horse?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's in the museum.
Speaker 1:The museum has a representative of those historic horses and the last remaining living horse, a representative of those historic horses Custer's horse, right.
Speaker 3:And the last remaining living horse is also there. But when you see Chief it looks like a real horse. I mean, there's no question as to whether or not that horse, chief, was the last living horse, correct?
Speaker 1:Yes, that's correct, and Comanche was Custer's horse.
Speaker 3:Chief is actually buried on Fort Riley Bays now Buried upright.
Speaker 2:Saddle on and everything Saddle on, and everything.
Speaker 3:It's in full gear and it's buried on base just very close to the museums, right, and so the museums also includes. You've got to go outside and look at all of the monuments and the equipment that's there as well, because that's also our responsibility.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you've got a lot of static displays.
Speaker 2:A lot of static displays. So, yes, so, friends of Fort Riley Museums, we support the museum, anything the museum needs, and there's little things because most of it comes from CMH, the Centers of Military History. But, friends, we were able to acquire some activities that were done by another group for many, many years, but we took those over and we are. So we are in charge of Apple Days, which these are all kind of events that will happen next year, but we just took them over and we did them last year. And Apple Days huge success. We were able to. I think we had the Pie Queens on.
Speaker 1:I remember the Pie Queens. The Pie Queens were on with their crowns. They would never bring me a pie, but they bring, you know.
Speaker 3:One of the most incredible apple pies you've ever had.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'll take your word for it.
Speaker 2:We work with Fort well, with Fort Riley they were. We made the pies on Fort Riley some of them, but we also made pies at Junction City High School. The kids there did a great job. We stored the frozen pies at K-State. Mary Moult was great. She helped us do some different things this year. So Apple Pie Day will be, I think, the end of September I don't have a date yet, they're still finalizing that date but that'll be in September probably. And then we'll slide right into ghost tours, which ghost tours haven't been done for a few years.
Speaker 3:I'm not much into ghosts but there's a lot of people that love ghosts.
Speaker 1:It is fun, it's not just fun, oh my.
Speaker 3:I still. I saw it the first time 20 years ago and I still have reflective memories of how it spooked me. There are there's a woman that walks through a field, there's mist around her and she's all wearing all white, and there's homes that have ghost activities in them to this day and every day that have ghost activities in them. To this day and every day, there was a group of soldiers, headless horsemen with sabers, out riding across the parade field.
Speaker 1:That sounds like fun.
Speaker 3:Oh my.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it just wakes you up. Not so sure if the headless part or the sworn part is the most fun aspect of that yeah too much for me, but it is fun, it is fun.
Speaker 2:So we were able to do ghost tours. Those will be doing those again, probably close to Halloween, which is always a good time. And then this year we were able to partner with, or we were able to do some things with, the Flint Hills Volunteer Center, and I'll let Jack talk about that an incredible experience.
Speaker 3:General Sims, when he was with command he came up with Operation Victory Wellness and the objective was to have more community outreach with the Fort Raleigh soldiers and the region's communities and through the Flint Hills Volunteer Center they placed 800 soldiers to assist in area nonprofits.
Speaker 3:So a really great relationship there Still to this day. The 9-11 Day of Remembrance is a very important event for the Flint Hills Volunteer Center where we recognize first responders. The members of the volunteers group out of Fort Riley helped with the Hope Therapeutic Ranch, tuttle Creek State Park, fresh Start Emergency Shelter, the Be Able Community Center activities where they utilized 40 volunteers for that Also the Manhattan Emergency Shelter, the Manhattan Free Clinic and the Flint Hills Community Clinic and they also volunteer with the harvesters and those volunteer activities continue to this day. So we realized that there was a relationship there with Fort Riley and through our friends organization then we purchased a tree that could go as a contribution towards the Festival of Trees, the Home for the Holidays event. That's the biggest benefit fundraiser for the Flint Hills Volunteer Center and we were extremely pleased with how well that worked because we partnered with some members of the Big Red One staff, command staff, and they decorated the tree. We had ornaments, collectible ornaments that were donated by the Central Kansas Military Community Foundation.
Speaker 2:So they do the ornaments every year that have a special, they show a special.
Speaker 3:Yeah, each of the historic sites.
Speaker 2:Historic sites on post.
Speaker 3:And, in the area, historic items that are part of our reflective history. They were on the tree along with some beautiful decorations. That tree we had about, I think, $219 in the tree and then the decorations and everything went into. It was worth about $650. If you were going to retail it, it sold for $3,100.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so it was the second highest valued tree in the auction for the benefit, and Max Motors, I believe, purchased that, but there was very competitive bidding on that it's very spirited.
Speaker 1:Oh my, yes, it was.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it. The K-State tree and the Santa Claus tree were the highest three providers of funds to the event, but the Big Red One team. They got to sit right at the front center of the room for that auction. One of the generals came in and was sitting with them and it was quite an event, especially to see the reflection of support from the community for Fort Riley and for our organization in particular. We got a lot of mileage out of it. Of course it doesn't generate a penny for us. It all goes as a contribution to the Flint Hills Volunteer Center, but that in turn supports all of the volunteers from Fort Riley that help with community activities.
Speaker 1:One of the things I noticed that night is there just seemed to be a whole new resurgence from Fort Riley.
Speaker 3:to you know, they were there and they figuratively bought into the event and what the effort was for Exactly right, and the best part of it was is that it showcased a very important part of our region and our state and our nation region and our state and our nation and so that event ended up generating the most ever in funding for the volunteer center. So we were really pleased with the result and in fact we're ready to invest in it again this year as friends with the Fort Elling Museums, and we're going to do it all again and see if we can do even better.
Speaker 1:Okay, something else to look forward to. So that's a little bit more toward the holidays. There's some other things, including some restoration efforts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the clock tower has been part of the museum for years ever since it was built, I'm assuming but it hasn't worked for quite a while and we've had some money set aside to refurbish that. We haven't been able to get up there because there needed to be some mitigation. There's some baths up there that's their home, and so we have to be careful about that and needed some repairs and we were able to get those repairs finished and we have a clock man that's actually here in town, david C, and he's all ready to get up there and fix our clock and we're hoping, by the 9-11 memorial event that they hold every year, that that clock tower will be working. So it's, it's a beautiful clock up there. Unfortunately it won't have the original chimes, but it will have the sounds of chimes. That will be.
Speaker 3:It's all digital now.
Speaker 2:It's all digital Very different, but more reliable.
Speaker 1:This has little sound, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, but we're very excited that that's going to be finally completed this year.
Speaker 3:That was that was pretty much our primary project when we first started reorganizing the friends of the fort riley museums and had very little funds at the time and under christine's leadership in particular it has just grown by leaps and bounds with these other activities that allow us to get more recognition for Fort Riley and our historic sites. So it's just a thrill to be involved in it.
Speaker 1:now I understand, Christine, you're also having some historical chats.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Dr Bob Smith retired. Still hanging around. Still hanging around, but that's okay, we love him hanging around. Still hanging around, but that's okay, we love him hanging around.
Speaker 1:He can hang around for a long time.
Speaker 2:He can hang around for as long as he wants. We're going to have him start doing some historical chats. We don't have any dates yet. We're hoping to do them at least every quarter. It might be just three times a year, but they will be some really fun, interesting chats. We'll probably bring in some authors that have written books. We will, of course, just using Dr Bob's immense information that he has in his head. There'll just be some really great chats.
Speaker 3:One of the things that we do with Dr Bob Smith is that he's been hosting and coordinating a symposium and that symposium we help support that and sponsor it in several different ways. But most importantly, that symposium was an international draw. This past year there were people there from six countries and they were hoping for 50, and I think there was closer to 250 people were participating in that from all over the world.
Speaker 3:So they're coming here to Manhattan or the surrounding area. We're going to be in Ambly, I think, this next year with help from the Eisenhower Center and. Museum and Libraries, but it's just great to have Dr Bob and his capabilities of sharing history in a way that we can all appreciate where we've come from and where we're headed Very fortunate to have him in the community?
Speaker 1:still, absolutely. What can individuals do to come out and be a tourist and also be a participant?
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you go to friendsofthefortrallymuseumsorg, there will be all kinds of information about how you can volunteer, how you can visit, visit the museums, upcoming events. If you have any questions, give me a call here at GMCF. My other thing that I do once in a while is I'm the military relations coordinator here at GMCF.
Speaker 1:And then you'll be busy leading up to Veterans Day with a lot of activities there with that, yeah.
Speaker 3:And if people want to see what we've accomplished in the last year, you can go to our Facebook page Friends of the Fort Arlington Museum's Facebook page, and see some highlight pictures and activities.
Speaker 1:Sounds good. Jack Lindquist, Christine Binney, thanks for joining us on the GMCF Community Hour today. It's been a pleasure.