Museum works to spur youth interest

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Mount Airy Museum of Regional History Executive Director Matt Edwards along with, from left) the winners of the teacher appreciation door prize, Nicole G. Scearce of Mount Airy Middle School and Melissa L. Martin of Jones Intermediate School
Hoping to spur more interest and use in the museum by local school children, officials with the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History held a teacher appreciation day on Wednesday. It didn’t turn out exactly as hoped, but Executive Director Matt Edwards said he is still optimistic about building stronger ties with area youth.The promotion was, at least in part, aimed at raising awareness about the museum and its programs among local teachers and school systems. Edwards explained museum staff had evaluated the number of student attendees over that past 10 years and noticing a significant drop.  Thus Wednesday event, during which he hoped a number of local teachers would stop in to see the museum’s offerings as well as to take part in a chance for a raffle prize.
Three teachers showed up before 2 p.m. when the event started and two teachers made their appearance around 4 p.m., near the end of the scheduled event.  Edwards said even though the audience was smaller than expected, “We know the number decrease we have seen over the years is not something that’s going to improve overnight. Hopefully we can get more students involved and we can continue to be a great resource to the schools.”  “It’s something that may take a few years to build back up,” he said.  Nicole Sceare, a teacher at Mount Airy Middle School, and Melissa Martin a third-grade teacher at Jones Intermediate School, were on hand at 4 p.m., winning the door prize and splitting the contents.