Kauffman Museum offers a trio of special programs for all interests during Bethel College’s Fall Festival, on Oct. 14 – all connected to long-term impact.
The museum is open extended hours for Saturday, 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m., on Oct. 14. Admission is free throughout Fall Festival (Oct. 12-15). All programs take place in the museum auditorium.
The museum owns a rare (the only one in North America) Teschemacher cabinet, or parlor, organ. At 10:30 a.m., “The Organ at Home” will feature Bethel’s current organ instructors, Donna Hetrick and Rosi Penner Kaufman, playing the organ and talking about its history, context and characteristics.
At 2 p.m., Jerry Jost, conservation director for the Kansas Land Trust, will give a program entitled “Land Trusts Leave a Conservation Legacy.”
This program connects to the museum’s current special exhibit, “Climate and Energy Central.” The Kansas Land Trust addresses climate change through habitat restoration, public access to protected areas and agricultural practices that sequester carbon in regenerative ecosystems.
Jost has been associated with the organization for many years, and will discuss the impact land trusts can make on a community, the state and the world.
Finally, at 4 p.m., Newton attorney Levi Goossen will share his knowledge on the Bethel bell, originally a one-room school bell in western Kansas, now rung to mark the start of the school year and of commencement each year.
Goossen’s presentation, “Hidden Connections: The Bethel Bell and Brown vs. Board of Education in the Supreme Court,” looks at how the bell is related to that landmark decision.
The bell once rang in the only known integrated school in Kansas, Prairie Bell School in Thomas County. Later, the children from rural Thomas County attended school in Oakley, which led to the integration of public schools nationwide by order of the United States Supreme Court case Brown vs. Board of Education.
Meanwhile the bell was passed along from the rural school to the Meadow Mennonite church in Mingo to Bethel College. That led to its photo appearing in a national magazine, and it traveling all the way to Washington, D.C., and back, during the Vietnam War protest era.
Regular Kauffman Museum hours are Tues.-Fri. 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Sat.-Sun. 1:30-4:30 p.m., closed Mondays and major holidays. Admission is free during Fall Festival, Oct. 12-15, but during regular operation, admission to the special exhibit, “Climate and Energy Central,” and permanent exhibits – “Of Land and People,” “Mirror of the Martyrs” and “Mennonite Immigrant Furniture” – is $5 for adults, $3 for children ages 6-16, and free to Kauffman Museum members and children under 6. The museum store is open during the museum’s regular hours. See kauffmanmuseum.org or the museum Facebook page for more information.
