Speakers Bureau Offerings from the Powers Museum

Can't come to the museum? Need a speaker for your club, church group or fraternal organization? Looking for a special program for classroom or scout group?

Powers Museum Director/Curator Michele Hansford presenting a Valentine's Day program to Freeman Hospital Volunteers in Joplin, Missouri, in 2008.

Look no more....... the Powers Museum staff, volunteers, and board can assist you with your programming needs.

Presentations can be arranged for Black History Month (February), Women's History Month (March), Missouri Day (in October), special holidays including Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas (complete with displays of greeting cards or decorations), the mining and stone industry heritage of the Tri-State Mineral District, famous Carthaginians in history, or just about anything else you might see discussed throughout this website including our participation in the Library of Congress Veterans History Project and our growing collection of area veteran interviews. If you are looking for a particular topic, you can always ask and see if we can put something together for you.

Remember for those close by, you have the option to hold your meeting at the museum and touring the facility along with having a special program presented. There is no fee for this, but donations are suggested (donations are used to cover extra expenses incurred for these situations) especially if you want to serve food or hold your meeting at night.

Hands-on workshop topics include making greeting cards and holiday decorations, ideas for food preparation and table decorating, how to encapsulate documents, how to care for quilts and other historic textiles, discovering your home's history, helping students select National History Day themes (based on national guidelines/annual theme), and what curators do at museums (a behind the scenes look at museum work).

Student thank-you mailed to the museum after presention of museum's 100-year-old teddy bear to one of Mark Twain Elementary School's classes.

Also, children's programming can be arranged for holidays including making old decorations or greeting cards, historic storybook readings, historic teddy bear visits and stories, letters from children through history (based on the museum's archival collections) and other topics represented in our educational materials offered for teachers and homeschoolers.

We will be happy to present programs within Jasper County for free as long as requests are made at least 2–3 weeks in advance of presentation date (subject to staff/volunteer availability). Outside Jasper County, Missouri, within the tri-state area (SW MO, SE KS & NE OK), we ask groups to make a donation to the museum between $20-50 to cover mileage expenses. (Locations beyond one hour's drive of Carthage, reimbursement should be made to the Powers Museum for the current IRS mileage rate, round-trip.)

If you have further questions, please e-mail or call 417-237-0456.