Northern Wyoming News - Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years

THERMOPOLIS - The Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis has scheduled a groundbreaking ceremony on Earth Day, this Saturday at 11 a.m. at Red Rock Business Park, the new site for the construction of its new facility.

Center paleontologist Jack Turnbull said, "This is going to take a few years to get this around. It's a very ambitious project but I'm pretty excited about it."

The public is invited to attend the groundbreaking ceremony at the business park, 288 U.S. Highway 20, south of Thermopolis, at the intersection of Buffalo Creek Road and Highway 20.

Following the groundbreaking, a casual luncheon will be at Thermopolis Middle School, 1450 Valleyview Drive, also open to the public. Beginning at 1 p.m. at the middle school, the Center will hold a workshop to present to the community the vision for the new Wyoming Dinosaur Center, including discussion of new trends in interpretive and sustainable design that are planned for the new Center.

Two of the projects architects will lead the afternoon workshop/open house and will seek community input from those attending. Turnbull said there are two architect firms working on the project, Plan 1 Architects and SERA Sustainability Built for the Environment(SM).

The workshop is expected to last approximately three hours. A follow-up report by the architects will be held the following afternoon, Sunday, April 23, at the school at 2 p.m.

Turnbull said the Center will be kicking off a fundraising campaign sometime during the summer after the architects have done "their homework." He said they need to wait until the architects have the rough plan/concept before getting a "price tag for the new facility."

Turnbull, who came to the Center two years ago from California said, "This is really something, pretty terrific. This is sort of the opening round and it starts with community input. We don't want to build something that people are going to refer to as the monster."

He added, "We have to build a big place because we house big things. Dinosaurs aren't small, well some of them are but some of them aren't. We want to make sure [the new center] fits in with everybody."

He said he is excited the architects are seeking public input.

During the workshop/open house, the lead architects will share the vision for the center to be able to meet the needs of the Center, as well as getting public input on the facility and on parking.

Turnbull said SERA was brought on board because the Center "is committed to building an eco-friendly type facility. We're trying to make minimal impact on the utilities here. There's going to be a lot of smart design in this new museum both in terms of the inside presentation, the materials used to build it and the systems that we have."

He said the current center at 110 Carter Ranch Road will likely be used for a prep area and storage. He said it will be used to initially assemble exhibits before they are reassembled for an exhibit in the new museum.

The Wyoming Dinosaur Center first opened in August 1995 and recently reorganized as a non-profit educational corporation dedicated to science education with an emphasis on the geologic and biologic history of the Earth and Wyoming and committed to preserving Wyoming's rich fossil heritage.

As an internationally-recognized Wyoming tourist destination, the Center hosts approximately 50,000 visitors yearly and offers a variety of hands-on educational programs for adults and young people, most notably its popular Dig-for-a-Day dig site experience.