CLARKSVILLE — Thanksgiving’s not until next Thursday, but there was plenty of thanks to be given at The Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center on Tuesday.
The Falls of the Ohio Foundation celebrated the conclusion of its Crossroads Campaign for New Exhibits, a nine-year-long effort that saw $6 million raised. The money will be used to completely revamp the Interpretive Center; the center’s current exhibits opened to the public in 1994.
“Exhibits kind of lose their luster after 10, 15 years,” said Diane Swank, the president of The Falls of the Ohio Foundation. “Well, we indeed are in the 20th year, and so what you will see forthcoming will be amazing.”
The foundation held a dinner Tuesday to thank its largest donors, including the Clark-Floyd Counties Convention and Tourism Bureau, the town of Clarksville, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and the Paul Ogle Foundation.
“We’re just tickled to death to be a part of this, and we’re going to continue to be a part of this,” said Clarksville Town Council President Bob Polston. Council members Bob Popp and Don Tetley were also present at the event, as was Clarksville Parks Director Brian Kaluzny.
The dinner to celebrate the Crossroads Campaign’s donors is to be one of the last events the Interpretive Center will host in its current form. The center will close to the public Nov. 24, and the current exhibits will immediately begin to be dismantled. The new exhibits that will replace them, which are being designed by Louisville-based Solid Light, will incorporate some of the specimens included in the old exhibits, said Cynthia Torp, president of Solid Light.
Torp explained her vision for the new exhibits to the donors, which will be interactive and stimulate multiple senses, she said.
“This whole exhibit will be as immersive as we can to make it to help people understand,” Torp said.
The interpretive panels that explain the current exhibits will be transferred to other parks, said Dani Cummins, the foundation’s executive director.
Cummins said that before they’re dismantled, the current exhibits will be photographed and the images will be posted to the park’s website, creating a “virtual museum.”
Modifications to the building to accommodate the new exhibits will begin in December, and is expected to continue through May. Installation of the new exhibits will take place during the summer of 2015, Cummins said. The center is expected to reopen sometime in fall 2015.
While the construction is underway and the park is closed, naturalists will take the lessons of the Falls to area schools, Cummins said.
The campaign’s largest sponsor, the James Graham Brown Foundation, donated more than $1 million to the campaign, but did not send a representative to the dinner.
“In their humility, they didn’t want to take away from anyone else,” Swank said.