Have you seen and heard the stunning color, sound and design of the new theater? If you haven't, don't delay! Grand plans are in the works for daily showings, film nights and special events. During regular business hours (Thursdays through Sundays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.) we will show looping documentaries and interviews featuring 1935 hurricane survivors, IGFA Hall of Fame anglers and more. We will have film nights showing movies made in and/or about the Keys, such as PT 109, The Rose Tattoo, Key Largo and True Lies. We also plan to make the theater available for special showings and sporting events...think Super Bowl, NCAA National Championship game and Kentucky Derby. It's all very exciting, as we witnessed with the nearly 200 community members in attendance at the opening this past week. 

You can be a part of this exciting and unique theater. Numerous naming opportunities exist to have your name, or those of your children/grandchildren, as a lasting tribute. Your gift will provide significant support for the development and ongoing operations of the theater. Recognition will include your name, or the name of a loved one, on a beautiful donor board inside the theater, in publications, and on  keysdiscovery.com . For details, contact Jill at 305-922-2237.

We do hope you share our excitement for the new theater and the new experiences we will bring to the community. Thank you for your consideration. 

 

A group of young professionals (21-45ish) have formed to create the Flagler's Folly Society of the Florida Keys History and Discovery Foundation. The name comes from Henry Flagler's dream to build the Key West Extension and people doubting his dream, calling it Flagler's Folly. The Society endeavors to channel his spirited as we work to fulfill a new vision, both for the Discovery Center and for our community. 

The Society's purpose is two-fold: part social and part project-based. Socials, most with a historical theme, will be held quarterly. Fundraising for future projects, such as to help offset costs of permanent exhibits, will be planned as the group grows. An annual membership at $250 gives Society members free access to all socials and unlimited admission to the Discovery Center. Society members also can choose a $65 individual membership or $100 dual membership, however there will be a charge for socials. For more information, e-mail info@keysdiscovery.com and check us out on Facebook...Flagler's Folly Society. 

It is an exciting time to be a part of the Discovery Center family. Our monthly presentations have been provocative and interesting, the long-awaited theater project has been completed and four beautiful permanent exhibits are being constructed at this very moment. Also, a new rotating exhibit will be installed in July, one with a really cool twist.

 

In the theater we will be showing interviews with local fishing legends and other assorted characters, as well as the accounts of people who survived the Great Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. We will also show Keys-centric documentaries that will help to reveal the great breadth of history that can be associated with these special islands. In the future we will be having special movie nights featuring productions that are about or have been filmed in the Keys. Now, while some of the details are still being ironed out, what is clear is that there might just be more to discover between these four walls that even we first imagined!

 

As for our new exhibits, our designer Bruce Merenda of Studio B Design Concepts has clearly gone the extra mile. It is my job to give Bruce the information, artifacts and pictures. Then, after exchanging some ideas, Bruce works his magic and designs how best to exhibit the material. I am fortunate to have Studio B helping me tell these incredible stories; we are all fortunate.

 

These next four exhibits will cover the First People of the Florida Keys, the Spanish Treasure Fleets and the pirates, wreckers and salvage operators who plied their trade on the Florida Reef. Each exhibit will be enhanced by artifacts that have been loaned or donated by people in our community, the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and the Florida State Bureau of Archaeological Research, Collections and Conservation located Tallahassee.

 

We are scheduled to unveil these amazing new permanent exhibits in August/September. In the meantime, I have been working with Cori Convertito, curator at the Key West Art & Historical Society, on a joint exhibit about our Florida Keys' lighthouses. The cool twist about the exhibit is that I have been working in concert with Cori to create a cohesive exhibit in two parts. I will be exhibiting pictures and stories of lighthouses from Alligator Lighthouse north and Cori will be exhibiting stories and pictures of lighthouses stretching from Sombrero Key Lighthouse off of Marathon to the two lighthouses constructed in the Dry Tortugas.

 

We are very excited to be able to cross-promote such a wonderful exhibit with our friends at the Key West Art & Historical Society and hope it is only the first of many collaborations with the many fine museums found in the Florida Keys.

 

Finally, the Jerry Wilkinson Research Library will finally be coming to fruition! In an incredible step forward in my goal to create this incredible addition to our community, The Reporter newspaper has agreed to store the hard-bound copies of their complete library of newspapers in our facility. The 108-book collection includes every copy of The Reporter issued from the 1970s to 2010 and will become an invaluable part of our research facility.