GPDM's Woodruff to be featured on PBS

As anyone in Phillips County knows, if you have a question about anything prehistoric-related, Great Plains Dinosaur Museum and Fieled Station's Director of Paleontology Cary Woodruff is your huckleberry.

So it makes sense the Public Broadcast Service's Emily Graslie took to the the road and started filming for "Prehistoric Road Trip" - a three-part series where Graslie travels across the western United States examining our planet's history - she found Malta's Woodruff.

"I am one of the experts in this documentary series," Woodruff told the PCN. "I am in parts one and two. Emily does this really popular series on YouTube called 'Brain Scoop" and she actually grew up in South Dakota. For the (PBS series) she covers lot of the Northern Great Plains because that is where she grew up.

Woodruff said that "Prehistoric Road Trip" is a history, in chronological order, dealing with the oldest items first and moves to the youngest. Woodruff specializes in dinosaurs that are up to 150 million years old and was filmed and interviewed last year, including during adig in Livingston, Mont. The second part of the three-part series focuses on many of the famous age of dinosaurs in Montana including the T-Rex and Triceratops and Woodruff was also filmed and interviewed on a dig he took part of run by the Royal Ontario Museum (where he is a PHD student.)

"We were digging up a triceratops skull there," Woodruff said. "I was interviewed and I don't know how much of the interview will air, so I don't know if I am on the screen for one minute or 20 minutes...I will have to tune in and see."

Woodruff has been in several documentaries, some with the Discovery Channel and others on National Geographic, but he said this will be the first time he is featured in a documentary.

"They were mostly background or live, online events that were short, but this is the first time I was interviewed as an expert," he said.

The first of three episodes of "Prehistoric Road Trip" premiers on Wednesday, June 17 at 9 p.m. on PBS and will also be streamed on PBS a day after airing. After that, the next two episodes air on the following Wednesdays - June 24 and July 1, also at 9 p.m. - but if you have any prehistoric questions, remember that your huckleberry, Woodruff, is only a phone call or short drive away.

"What I really enjoy about this series is that it is not just highlighting western paleontology, but it is paleontology of the Northern Great Plains," Woodruff said. "We are the Great Plains Dinosaur Museum so if people want to learn about the evolutionary history of life right here in the area where they live, they are going to enjoy this."

Woodruff has more first-time news as he has written and published his first children's book and a book signing will be held on Saturday, June 27 and the GPDM will host a kid's day and book signing. The PCN will have more information on this event in next week's newspaper.