WELLSVILLE, Cache County — If you want to celebrate the Old West, you'd better be modern about it.
What with television and Gameboys and movies and Xboxes and computers all clamoring for their attention, modern children — and modern adults — are easily distracted. They're not inclined to be taught unless the teaching has some sort of "wow" factor.
"Kids today learn differently," said Rhonda Thompson, the director of the American West Heritage Center. "They're assaulted nowadays. Everything is entertainment oriented."
So, while it may be identified with the 19th century, the heritage center — which re-enacts Western daily living as it was 100 to 200
years ago — is keeping up with the times.
Thompson recently visited Hawaii's Polynesian Cultural Center, which got her to wondering if there was some way to improve the way the public experienced the heritage center. Maybe just showing visitors how to milk a Durham cow or make scones on a wood-burning stove, she mused, wasn't enough.
"Seeing it (the cultural center) — it's a very good pattern for us to utilize," Thompson said. "Disney's been a great model, too. We do a really good job here about educating people, but we need to do it in a more entertaining way."
So Thompson called in David Sidwell.
Sidwell is a Utah State University drama professor who specializes in storytelling. His task, as given to him by Thompson, was to do something to jazz up the heritage center. Give it some zing. Make the presentations, well, sexier. Liven the place up.
Sidwell's solution was to develop scripts, complete with anecdotes, asides, music and jokes, for the period-dressed presenters at the center to follow. Beginning this summer (the center opens for the season Saturday), not only will presenters be demonstrating how to thresh corn or spread manure or clean a gun, they'll lead sing-a-longs and tell stories to help engage visitors' interest.
"It's just a little more for- mal," Sidwell said. "Most of the people right now don't ask any questions. With stories and songs, they'll do more of that."
For example, the old-fashioned telephone in the parlor of the 1870s-era cabin on site was actually used by the cabin's residents. And since it was the only telephone around, neighboring farmers would come in and borrow it as well. But they kept forgetting to pay the owner for the privilege, so he nailed a beggar-style tin cup on the wall as a not-so-subtle hint.
To a large extent, Disney and the Polynesian Cultural Center spoon-feed their visitors, carefully guiding them through so that even a person whose brain has turned into Tapioca through playing Nintendo 24/7 can have an enriching experience. Likewise, you won't have to be proactive in your visit to the heritage center. You can still wander around, sure, experiencing Sidwell's turbo-charged presentations, but at certain times of the day you'll be able to join a tour that will tell you all you'd like to know — in, hopefully, a fun, entertaining way.
"This place is a sleeping giant," Thompson said. "It has tremendous potential regarding where it can go and what it can do. . . . History can be a negative thing to kids. We want to put a little humor in there."
E-MAIL: aedwards@desnews.com