Yesterday at the museum something happened that reminded me of why, as volunteers, we do the things we do. I have been working on the Museum image archive project a lot lately. We have a new 40 inch TV dedicated to slide shows of state hospital history.

A group of nursing students were brought in to see the museum. This happens often, with students from several area nursing programs.

One student came up to me and said, “You have a picture of my Grandpa here. Do you think I could get a copy of it?”

Turns out she just discovered it in our display about the hospital police. After she pointed out the image to me, I told her I had recently done a quality scan of that image, and I was quite familiar with it:

I have emailed her a copy of it. That image is one of many taken by John Suhay when he did an extensive group of photographs of the state hospital in the fall of 1976. I came across three binders of his negatives at the Pueblo County Historical Society (my other volunteering gig), and have been scanning them for inclusion in our museum slide shows.

I came home from the museum yesterday feeling quite motivated.