Good Drinks, Good Food and a Dinosaur Named Herb

A good time was had by all ages as the Great Plains Dinosaur Museum unveiled their newest addition at their annual Wine and Dino fundraiser event on Friday, June 25.

The Liquor Haven and Blue Ridge Brewery were on hand to disperse the wine and beer, and Smokin' Ox had the food trailer selling their top-notch bbq. The music for the night was supplied by Jonathon Aldrich out of Helena.

Cary Woodruff, Director of Paleontology at the museum, did the "unveiling" in the museum a couple of hours into the event. 

"My name is Cary Woodruff, and anyone who has been to a Wine and Dino before knows I do not need a microphone! We were very fortunate to have received our star object this year. Everyone, this is Herb the triceratops."

Woodruff  told the crowd how they had actually got the triceratops.

"Herb was a very generous gift from the Whitte Museum in San Antonio, Texas. He had been on display at the Whitte since the 1980s. The Whitte's new director decided a year or so ago that, just like we only showcase fossils from Montana, they were only going to showcase fossils from Texas, and a triceratops is yet to be found from Texas. So the Whitte started on a quest to find a small, regional natural museum from where the triceratops was from. I am good friends with the paleontology curator at the Whitte, Thomas Adams. Thomas asked if we would be interested because we have found bits of triceratops here. So of course we jumped at the opportunity."

Woodruff got a U-haul truck and drove down to get Herb and bring him home to Malta.

He said that Herb had quite the following in San Antonio, saying, "There were grown adults crying that Herb was leaving because they had come to see Herb when they were kids, and had brought their kids to see him. It was like they were giving us a part of their family to bring back up here, which is really cool."

Woodruff went on to tell a little bit about Herb. He said that just as the museum in Malta had named the dinosaurs that are here, like Ralph, Roberta, and of course Leonardo, the Whitte had named Herb. They named him that because Herb is a herbivore. He ate plants.

He went on to say, "Most people know that Herb is a triceratops, and because several people missed it at trivia last night, triceratops means that he has three horns. Not one like a few of the answers."

He added that "This is actually an incredibly famous triceratops specimen. It was originally found in the 1930s. The head is from Wyoming, but parts of the body are from Montana. This specimen was on display at the Museum of Natural History and is the very first mounted triceratops in the world."

Woodruff then went on to say that a lot of work had to be done to get Herb into the museum. He told of explaining to the board that they were literally putting an elephant in the room. He said that they had to move almost everything in the museum around. 

"I'm joking only a little when I say that the toilets are the only things that haven't moved in here," said Woodruff.

He went on to thank the board president, Damien Austin for taking on the construction project, the National Guard for helping them put Herb together, Jim Truelove, and the rest of the city crew for helping lift Leonardo and for bringing in all of the tables and chairs. 

He thanked everyone at the Phillips County Museum next door saying, "I like to think of us out here as a museum complex, where you can learn from the prehistoric to the modern history of this region of Montana."

He went on to say, "We all know that Dixie Stordahl is the real brains of everything getting done around here."

Woodruff thanked Rosemary Veseth and the Veseth family who donated Dr. Mike's pick-up truck so they now have their own vehicle to do their work for the museum. 

Woodruff said, "I also want to thank all of the Malta businesses and the whole community really for helping us make not only tonight possible, but every year possible. We are showcasing fossils from a huge assortment of landowners and that's really cool because those landowners can bring their families in and show them fossils that came from their ranch. That's a legacy they can share and a way that the ranches can contribute to the community that's not exactly a traditional way."

Woodruff ended his thank you's with a couple of special ones. 

First, he thanked Mike and Marla Morser for all of their hard work and making them the MVPs of this year, giving them a potted plant. 

He then thanked Sue Frary, the original curator of the museum, for all of her help this year with the painting of the dinosaur models outside, and for her continued support of both him and the museum.

Woodruff said, "We wanted to do a little special surprise for Sue. If you notice a lot of the dinosaurs around here have names, and some of the ones outside have a name, but there's one that doesn't have a name. So we thought it was only fair that the new triceratops outside, which is Sue's favorite, would from now on be named Sue the triceratops."

Frary thanked Woodruff and said, "This is such an extraordinary place. I've been in museums and worked in them all over the place and this one stands up against any of them. This museum is 90% real fossil material, and not just boring fossils, but kick-butt fossils!  To know that these fossils are coming from around here is amazing! They're in your backyard! I'm just so proud of what it's become."