Teamwork made the Dream Work

Perseverance: steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.

We've been experiencing what this word truly means as we wrap up the end of installation week. I was unsure of how this week would go at the beginning, worried things would go wrong or we wouldn't have enough time but, I was pleasantly surprised by the way it's turned out. Last week we were each assigned to be a project manager along with a fellow classmate to lead each day. This really pulled us together and got us on the ground running by making to do lists, delegating tasks, and other teamwork type stuff.

As we anticipated, many challenges arose as we started filling cases such as too much space, not enough, paper not cut straight (mostly my fault), issues with objects, and countless other problems. Despite these problems, we all pulled together and wracked our brains for fixes to these problems, with the help of Mr. Riccio, of course.

At our opening Thursday night, everything went great. Dr. Samuel Wheeler spoke about the future of public history. His speak really stuck with me and reminded me why I became involved with public history in the first place. We also recognized some people who were vital in the exhibit process. Matt Boonstra let us use the fabrication studio and guided us on how to use heavy duty power tools (the reason we still have all our fingers). Beth Heldebrandt helped us to make a booklet for the exhibit and worked with us to edit and design several aspects of the exhibit. Bev Cruse was amazingly patient while we worked in her office printing labels, reprinting labels, dry mounted, cut labels, etc. She's probably going to be happy to not see my face every time she looks up from her computer anymore. Most of all, Mr. Riccio deserves a huge thank you for putting up with all of us. He has now seen all sides of the HA 16-17 class even the sides he didn't want to.

This is a huge thank you to all involved in making this exhibit possible. We all appreciate you and hope this exhibit means as much to you as it does to us.