By Louis Zylka
The 830 Times
The distant past came alive for local youngsters with a day of fun and education at the annual Dino Day on the grounds of the Whitehead Memorial Museum on Saturday, May 18.
Whitehead Memorial Museum Director Michael Diaz said Dino Day is dedicated to the youth of Del Rio. He said the museum, located at 1308 S. Main St., has been organizing Dino Day events for more than 20 years.
“All the kids in Del Rio may not always get a chance to go to larger museums, so we have this day here, and we bring out replica fossils we’ve purchased. They can see the fossils, touch them and learn about where they are from,” Diaz said.
The museum had 10 different activity stations with volunteers at each explaining interesting details about the fossils on display and the animals they came from. They also had an arts and crafts section inside the museum’s barn exhibit area for kids to draw and color dinosaur pictures.
One of the tents featured a “dino-dig” activity area for kids to find fossils inside sand boxes.
Hugo Faz, high school junior, was one of the volunteers and said kids participating were able to dig up various fossils including dinosaur skulls, claws and even fossilized “poop.”
Area residents, high school students and park rangers volunteered at the museum Saturday.
Amistad National Recreation Area park rangers Rhiannon Davis and Austin Rogers talked about the Tyrannosaurus rex and the fossils in their tent. Davis said they focused on explaining how the dinosaur was the “apex predator of their time.”
Margret Peterson, a resident of Midland, Texas, brought her book collection, called the Lutheran Literary Project, where kids were able to select free books. Peterson said she had some dinosaur books but mentioned they don’t stay in the collection long because of how popular they are among kids.
