FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jeff Blanchardg
December 21, 2007
(701) 825-6840

GRAND OPENING OF NEW EXHIBIT, EMIGRANTS FROM THE EMPIRES:
NORTH DAKOTA’S GERMANS, SET FOR PEMBINA STATE MUSEUM JANUARY 12

PEMBINA – The grand opening of a new exhibit, Emigrants from the Empires: North Dakota’s Germans, will take place on Saturday, January 12 at 2 p.m. at the Pembina State Museum, with a program by Ron Vossler, English Department senior lecturer at the University of North Dakota and author of several books on Germans from Russia in North Dakota.  Vossler will present his ideas on what it is to be German in North Dakota. 

Refreshments will be served.

The exhibit investigates what it means to be German in North Dakota. Artifacts, photographs, and documents tell the story of who they are, how and why they emigrated, and how their culture and traditions still thrive in North Dakota.

Visitors will also see the exhibit, Looking Back: Pembina’s Flood Battles, which examines the struggles the city’s residents have faced with flooding during the past 150 years, including battles both won and lost.  Pembina’s location at the confluence of the Red and Pembina Rivers was of strategic importance to early fur traders, but it has had its disadvantages as well, as the exhibit illustrates.  It will be at the museum through Spring 2009.

Managed by the state’s history agency, the State Historical Society of North Dakota, the 12,000-square-foot Pembina State Museum houses two museum galleries.  The permanent exhibit gallery features 100 million years of regional history from the Cretaceous Period to contemporary times.  The second gallery houses temporary and traveling exhibits highlighting regional and state history.

The Pembina State Museum is located off Exit 215 on I-29 at Pembina, North Dakota.  Admission is free.  There is no charge for children ages 12 and under to visit the observation tower.  The tower charge for youth ages 13 to 18 is 50 cents, and $2 for adults.  It is open year-round, closed only on New Year’s Day, Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. 

For more information, call the Pembina State Museum at (701) 825-6840 or visit the State Historical Society of North Dakota’s web site at www.nd.gov/hist.

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