Oak Ridge Today

Larry Burkholder receives Children’s Museum Friend of the Child Award

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Ronnie Bogard presents Larry Burkholder with the Children’s Museum Friend of the Child Award. (Submitted photo)

As a volunteer and advocate for the Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge, Larry Burkholder has always been willing to do whatever hard work needs to be done.

As a member of Knoxville Area Model Railroaders (KAMR), he has developed a mutually beneficial relationship between the railroaders and the Museum, and his hard work and perseverance has continued for years, according to Ronnie Bogard.

“Larry spearheaded the work renovating what was the former preschool area (of the Museum) for the KAMR club rooms; he helped set up the World of Trains exhibit; and he coordinated with Mark Fuhrman on the outdoor train garden,” explained Bogard, in presenting Burkholder recently with the Selma Shapiro Friend of the Child Award for 2019. [Read more…]

Children’s Museum to celebrate national parks at gala in December

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Martha Hart of Karen’s Jewelers, left, with Lee McGetrick and Mike Morris, all members of the Children’s Museum Gala Committee, display a National Park poster for the Gala, which will celebrate the National Park Service Centennial. (Submitted photo)

 

The Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge will celebrate the 100th birthday of the National Park Service at its annual Gala Evening, a benefit for the museum on Friday, December 2.

“Tribute to the National Parks—A Centennial Celebration” will feature National Park trivia and prizes, National Park-inspired cuisine by Rosa’s Catering, music from the Oak Ridge High School Choral Ensemble, an exhibition of children’s photographs from the parks, and a surprise for Gala attendees.

The Gala will be an official National Park Service Centennial Event. In honor of that designation, the museum will offer free admission Saturday and Sunday, December 3 and 4, inviting the public to view the “Parks-in-Focus” National Parks photography exhibit in the Imagination Gallery. Photos of area parks taken by girls from Girls Inc. of Oak Ridge will be shown in the exhibit.

Guests are invited to come dressed to represent a favorite National Park or in semi-formal attire to the Gala, to be held from 5:30-9:30 p.m. December 2 at the museum, which is at 461 West Outer Drive in Oak Ridge. [Read more…]

Partnership benefits Children’s Museum, model railroaders

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Brad Tutt, left, and Peter Acly, with the Knoxville Area Model Railroaders, run a model of the American Freedom Train at the Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge. The train with its steam engine is a replica of the 1976 train that carried symbols of America throughout the country to celebrate its 200th birthday. (Submitted photo)

 

Larry Burkholder grew up next to the railroad tracks in Portsmouth, Ohio, where the mainlines of the Norfolk and Western Railroad guided thundering steam engines through town.

“I spent a lot of time next to the tracks, to the consternation of my parents. It just got into my blood back then, all the big and smoky steam engines. You’d stand beside them and cinders would blow down on you head,” Burkholder recalled. That childhood experience inspired a lifelong interest in model railroading, though it wasn’t until he retired that he had the time and space to set up a train layout in his basement.

He joined the Knoxville Area Model Railroaders soon after that, and the donation of an extensive model train layout by Milton Lloyd and his family to the Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge kicked off a long-term and mutually beneficial relationship linking the museum with Burkholder and the model railroaders. [Read more…]