This week this column is an unabashed plea for some assistance.

Hopefully you read the front page story in last week’s Faribault County Register concerning the opening of a brand new museum in Blue Earth.

It is called the Southern Minnesota Museum of Natural History, and as you read in the story, it is located on Main Street in downtown Blue Earth in the building that formerly housed Becki Steier’s BS Studio.

Becki moved her yarn shop to inside the mini-mall, where Welcome Stitchery is also located.

The new Natural History Museum is, indeed, meant to carry on the Fossil Discovery Center, which once was located in the Blue Earth Community Library.

But it is meant to be a whole lot more than what the Fossil Discovery Center was. Yes, it does indeed have a lot of dinosaur bones and other fossils, but it will also have lots of other displays of natural history items.

That includes a large display of 7,000-year old bison bones that were discovered in Coon Creek, Minnesota, insects of all kinds (including the world’s largest beetle) and rocks, gems and minerals of all kinds.

Just to mention a few things.

Not all of the items and displays are in place yet. There are a whole lot more to come.

This is where the unabashed plea for assistance comes in. And by assistance, I do actually mean some financial assistance.

Everything costs money, as everyone knows. And the new museum’s operating board of directors want to raise some funds so that the planned future displays can happen as soon as possible.

One of those items is a tyrannosaur skeleton. It is a smaller and earlier relative of the famous T-rex. Next to it are it’s footprints that were excavated at a Wyoming dig site in 2021.

These footprints are the only ones exhibited in the U.S. The other ones are in a museum in Abu Dhabi.

So, if you visit the museum, you will see that tyrannosaur skeleton right when you come in the door. Your next question might be that if we already have the skeleton and footprints, why do we need to raise money to cover the cost? Well, the answer is that we borrowed money to buy it, because it became available and we had to move fast if we wanted it.

And, we did want it. If you visit the museum, you will see why. He looks like he might bite the head of the next visitor, ala Jurassic Park.

We also want to get a new, very large display case to show off our bison bones and skull collection. We also want to take some of our bison bones and one very large bison skull and have a complete skeleton made of them.

Then we want a large display cabinet to show off our current (and future) rocks, gems and minerals collection. Plus, we want to build a rocks and minerals fluorescent showroom. That would be for the items that glow in beautiful colors when under a certain type of black light.

Next, we want to purchase a very nice, kid-friendly microscope so that kids (and adults) can look at the insects and other items and get a very up close and personal look at them.

Did you know scientists believe there are nearly 10 quintillion insects in the world? That is 10 with 18 zeros after it. That translates into 200 million insects for every human. I believe it. I have one million mosquitoes in my yard and another one million at my camping spot. So I have my share.

The last thing we want to do is to modify the restroom at the museum to make it handicap accessible so it will be ADA compliant. Not quite as exciting as a tyrannosaur or bison skeleton, but pretty necessary in our view.

So, there you have it. All told, our total amount to do all these things comes to around $73,000. Plus we also want to be able to continue to purchase new items to go on display as much as we can.

You may be thinking we should be pursuing grants, and the answer is that we are, especially now that we are open and can prove we are a viable and operating museum. But we still need to get some donations now, and we hope people from near and far will see the value in what we are trying to create here in Blue Earth.

So, please consider making a donation, of any size. Donations can be made to the Southern Minnesota Museum of Natural History, P.O. Box 131, Blue Earth, MN 56013.

Or you can make it in person when you visit the museum. And, yes, we are a 501(3)(c) corporation, so your donation is tax deductible.

You can call the museum at 507-526-DINO for more information.

The museum is open seven days a week, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. through the summer. Please, stop in and check it out. I promise the tyrannosaur really does not bite anyone.

Not yet, anyway.