And you think the nitpickers and rivetcounters on the Forums are a rough audience!

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Found this on the internet:

Dave Nelson

================================

http://www.azfamily.com/news/local/stories/phoenix_local_news_20080304_d
iorama.222b7056.html

Student diorama for museum destroyed for inaccuracies

More Phoenix Local News

07:28 PM Mountain Standard Time on Tuesday, March 4, 2008

azfamily.com

Highland high school teacher Glen Frakes has been teaching history for
35 years. He’s been building dioramas with his students just as long.

“Diorama is a miniature scene from history. If you think of like a model
railroad layout only in this case we chose the battlefields, battles
from american history.”

The Texas Military Forces museum in Austin asked Frakes and his students
to build a Civil War diorama depicting the Battle at Palmetto Ranch.

The 5 foot by 10 foot miniature battle scene took them 3 and a half
years to build. Photographs show the intricate details that went into
750 hand assembled, hand painted figures.

“A lot of people who saw it when we finished it said they thought it was
the best thing we had done that they had seen in like 28 years here.”
says Frakes.

Unfortunately the museum’s director, Jeff Hunt, had a different opinion.

“He said it was awful, he said the diorama was the worst he’d ever
seen.” explains Frakes.

That was during a phone call Frakes says he had with Hunt. A short time
later Frakes received photographs of the diorama - in piles.

“Unfortunately when the diorama came to us there were a couple of
problems” says museum director Jeff Hunt. "First off, it was ten feet
long which is about 4 feet

2

Speaking as a resident of Austin, TX where this happened, let me say that Mr. Hunt has brought upon himself the general hatred of the population, and has attracted the attention of the Governor himself, who is looking into possible charges against Mr. Hunt or at the least, dismissal from his position as well as retribution for the damages.

Don Z.

3

dk your link doesn’t work.

4

Try this:

http://www.azfamily.com/news/local/stories/phoenix_local_news_20080304_diorama.222b7056.html

Don Z.

5

Dave,

Good thing you posted the text cause the page in “missing” now!

I can see both sides. First, above all else, a museum diorama should be accurate! Nothing (well, almost nothing) gets me more riled up than someone attempting to rewrite history to suit their own political or personal philosophy. And, if as the museum director says, the size was larger than requested and that caused a problem he has a valid complaint.

On the other hand, there was no cause to destory the display. Historical accuracy (or lack thereof) aside such action on the part of a museum “professional” is childish at best.

If the diorama was “on loan” to the museum from the school, it should be required to reimburse the school in the amount of what it would cost to have a diorama built professionally. If, however, it had been donated to the museum, Mr. Hunt should be fired as he is clearly incapable of providing proper care for the museum’s collections.

-George

Edit: Don Z’s link works!

6

What a [censored](any colorful adjective will do)

7

This is another reason for bringing back public hanging in the town squares. This man should at least lose his job! What a jerk! A public appoligy is not enough. Hard work done by the kids can not be replaced by words. He could have tactfuly explained the inacurasies to the kids but cutting it up is totaly irresponsible.

Just my [2c]

8

This gentleman, sorry to say, is indeed a moron. What a public relations nightmare he created with an arrogant attitude. Yes, he may have been correct, but his approach and final resolution absolutely stunk!

So he did not like the display…how much trouble would it have been for him to use a telephone, call the teacher or a school administrator and ask that someone come over to pick up the display?

Or even if the display had been donated, the museum director could have been gracious and asked that the students make some minor modifications to make it a little more accurate.

Hopefully Mr. Hunt will learn a positive lesson from this experience. IF the above report is accurate, then he needs to really understand that it’s hard enough as it is to encourage so many of our youth to engage in skill building activities that don’t involve a computer or game console.

9

I don’t know about hanging, but it sounds like he may be tarred and feathered professionally.

10

Good ole’ Camp Mayberry…excuse me, Mabry. I was with the 209th WF, TXANG there, and remember some of the bad press the installation picked up without this sort of “help”. It always seemed like a nice museum to me, but always heard rumors of mis-management. I don’t know how much truth there was to that, but I can see how it might be. This guy definately needs to be booted at the very least.

11

That’s a darn shame what the director did, but because what he did gave us the opportunity to see a gorgeous blonde newscaster…lol

12

The museum’s “director” certainly has made an impression on those young people!

What was he thinking?

13

For those who do not know, Palmetto Ranch was the last battle of the Civil War, fought after all Confederate governmental entities had capitulated. It was of course, a Confederate victory.

Mr. Hunt’s problem appears to me to be one quite widespread these days; Incredibly bad judgement.

14

Just going by the above text ('cause the link crashed my IE), I don’t know just what was dismantled nor how much of it. It’s possible that the museum merely cut off the extra 4 feet, removed all the inaccurate figures (infantry, artillery, & casualties), and perhaps removed the incorrect terrain features.

Secondly, I don’t know who owned the diorama. The museum asked the school to build the diorama, but was it a donation? Did they in any way contribute financially to it? If it was donated (or purchased), the museum owns it and can do anything they want to it, even set it on fire if they want. If it was only on loan to the museum by the school, then that museum director is in (legal) trouble.

locoi1sa,
Public hanging? What’s the punishment for jaywalking, the electric chair? Or stoning?

AntonioFP45,
I don’t know about minor changes. It was 4 feet too long on a 6 foot display, which indicates to me that possibly the scale was way off. How would “minor” changes have helped that?

Folks,
This was a museum. Make-believe doesn’t cut it. Personally, I would love to hear this teacher’s reasons for altering history and exceeding his design space in the first place. Over 3 years and he couldn’t get the basic facts right? Sheesh. What is that teaching his students? Don’t get me wrong, if that museum director destroyed someone else’s property, he should be punished. But what was that teacher thinking?

Paul A. Cutler III

Weather Or No Go New Haven

15

From the Austin end of the situation:

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/02/16/0216diorama.html

http://youtube.com/watch?v=k76ERLq9pmQ&watch_response

Even Keith Olbermann has an opinion on Mr. Hunt: (watch the whole video)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=5_QgFH3qbgs&feature=related

Don Z.

16

If the museum director disagreed with the history teacher on the ‘accuracy’ of the diorama, andif the diorama was too ‘long’ for the area that he requested, a phone call to the school to remove and correct the diorama was in order.

But to personally dismantle what students had worked hard and probably lovingly on was IMO the height of Imbecilic Imperialsm. And frankly, who’s to say that the museum director’s interpretation was THAT historically correct? ’

History, is, after all, “The Fiction Upon Which Learned Men Have Decided to Agree.”

If the museum director has an ounce of common sense, he should at least feel embarrassed.

Tom

17

Too weird! If he sent it back as inaccurate, so be it, but WRECK the thing? Wow!

Model rails can get pretty emotional, I haven’t heard of any protoype modelers whacking some freelancer’s layout, or of some vice-versa offense.

18

twhite,
“Imbecilic Imperialsm”? What does imperialism have to do with this?

As to the museum director’s qualifications, he apparently wrote the book on this battle (according to the Statesman story link). I’m wagering that someone who wrote a non-fiction book about a specific battle is going to know a little more about it than a high school history teacher. As to accuracy, the Civil War was pretty well documented by both sides (relative to history). Having a diorama that has over twice as many casualties, artillery that shouldn’t be there at all, troops that shouldn’t be there at all, and making it 66% larger than wanted is just asking for rejection.

BTW, note in that Statesman story that this whole project was bought and paid for by the museum’s volunteers ($23,000). Not the school, not the students, not the teacher. IMHO, that means the museum can do whatever it wants to it. If I pay someone to build a highly accurate model of a New Haven steam engine in G scale and it came out looking like a PRR T-1, and I run it into a pile of rocks on purpose, there’s nothing stopping me from doing it because I paid for it. Now if my RR club paid for a highly accurate model and I was in charge of acquiring it, yet it came out very wrong and not what we paid for, and I dismantled it…I risk being punished by my RR club (fines, suspension, dismissal). But I’m not going to face criminal charges (nor will I be publically hanged).

Certainly, this museum director risks being fired or suspended or fined…but lets try to keep this in perspective, okay? Just because some high school kids made this diorama doesn’t mean that it’s beyond reproach. It’s not like this was their term paper, they were making this for a public museum. These are high standards…much higher than what we normally think is okay for our own personal use.

Paul A. Cutler III

19

Paul,Unless a book is based on after battle reports or the author interview the soldiers on both sides that fought the battle it could be no more the a souped up “Hollywood” book that lacks historical facts.Even at that after battle reports on locations and casualty reports isn’t always 100% accurate because a battle is constantly moving even in Napoleon style muzzle to muzzle battles…

The dead could be anywhere or could be in many pieces and unaccounted for or miscounted.Sound unreal? Its not.It could be days before every casualty is accounted for especially during the Civil War.

Unless that museum director had knowledge based on hard evidence he’s no more “correct” then the builders of the display.

This guy sounds like a suped up my way or no way wanna be expert like so many modelers.

20

I’m going to have to agree with Paul here.

It was a shame that the director destroyed it. That was clearly wrong and insensitive. But if we try to look it at in his perspective. If they paid 23000$ for this and it came out quite wrong which we must agree that it was he must have been pretty upset, he is the one who is going to have to explain that to someone. If he puts it up on display, while taking up a LOT more space then allocated he will get complaints. Just look how much we complain when some small detail is of by a scale inch or something. A lot of people would have complained about the inaccuracies. Even worse, a lot of people would have learnt something very wrong about the civil war battle. The teacher shouldn’t have made this errors. Easy things like, infantry, artillery and casualties should have been right and so should the size. So some blame will have to be put on him as well.

Now, of course the director acted wrong and didn’t manage the situation correctly. But what should ha have done? Should he have asked the teacher to fork up 23K so that he could keep the display? Should he have given away 23K worth of diorama? Museums are not that rich so I do not think that was an option.

As someone who is an educated historian I can understand his grief and his unwillingness to put something incorrectly on display. The words “museum quality” have to stand for something.

And as a final note just so everyone understand my position. The guy did wrong, he should have dealt with it in a better way but a museum can not put things on display that they paid for just because they are afraid to hurt teachers, parents and students feelings. But that doesn’t mean they have to act as stupid as this guy did either.

Magnus