Students and faculty at ENMU create audio tours for Blackwater Draw Museum
The Blackwater Draw Museum and Site in Portales, New Mexico have added a new service for visitors: audio tours.
Now, when visitors enter the museum, they will have the option to visit the Blackwater Draw SoundCloud account to download and listen to audio as they follow the signs along the trail. Exhibits at the museum have a number that corresponds with a track on SoundCloud to provide information and insight to their experience.
The tours were written by the students in Dr. Erik Stanley’s Anthropological Writing course at ENMU and recorded by Global One Media’s own Doc Elder.
Donald “Doc” Elder, professor of history at Eastern New Mexico University, said the project aims to enrich the traditional museum experience by fostering a deeper engagement with the exhibit material.
Doc explained, “The Blackwater Draw Museum on the campus of Eastern New Mexico University has traditionally portrayed the anthropological history of the area known as the Llano Estacado through static displays. In an effort to allow those who come to the museum to have a more meaningful engagement with the subject matter, the university’s Anthropology Department asked me to record a narrative that visitors could listen to as they examine the artifacts found at that facility.”
Doc Elder is no stranger to broadcasting, having accumulated numerous awards and recognition for his sports radio broadcasting. Not to mention, for the last two decades Doc Elder has co-hosted a popular radio show, the Morning Throwdown, with Kevin Robbins on KSEL 105.9 in Portales.
When asked how he felt about being recruited by students and faculty to collaborate on the project he said, “I was honored to be asked to provide that narration. I only hope that I do full justice to the eloquence of the script provided by my esteemed colleagues in the Anthropology Department.”
The Blackwater Draw Museum not only seeks to preserve the unique heritage of New Mexico, and the greater Southwest, but to educate locals and visitors alike.
Current exhibits at the museum include Casa Grandes Pottery, from the Miles Anthropological Collection, Blackwater Draw in Black and White – a journey back in time through photographs, and Beaded and Beautiful, photographs of beaded artifacts from the Miles Anthropological Collection.
For more information or to schedule a tour visit BWDarchaeology.com.
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