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Volume 52 Number 20
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shelburnenews.com
May 18, 2023
Shelburne Museum plans new building for Indigenous art LIBERTY DARR STAFF WRITER
PHOTO BY LIBERTY DARR
Shelburne’s fire stations host an open house for operation Mayday.
Shelburne fire department on the hunt for more volunteers LIBERTY DARR STAFF WRITER
The Shelburne volunteer fire department hosted an open house on Saturday for Operation Mayday, the first statewide initiative aimed at bringing new firefighters into the Vermont fire service. Although the department has no full-time employees, the town has successfully relied on its
professional volunteers for more than a century, but interest in the volunteer service has slowly decreased with the department seeing a smaller influx of new recruitments in recent years. Chief Andrew Dickerson, who has been with the department about 14 years, said that although the department isn’t in dire need of volunteers like some local departments, what they are experiencing
is steady turnover rates, leaving the department with significant skill gaps between members. “We have folks that have a lot of experience and are good, competent leaders, and we have a lot of folks that are still very green and new to the job and have a lot to learn,” Dickerson said. “They’re See VOLUNTEERS on page 6
The Shelburne Museum is in the works of launching a new 9,750-square-foot building set to feature Indigenous Art from more than 80 bands across America — an initiative Chief Don Stevens of the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk-Abenaki Nation has called a “tremendous partnership.” The $12.6 million new Perry Art Center for Native American Art has been nearly four years in the making said director Tom Denenberg and has been a major lesson in cultural competency amidst a time when many museums are reconsidering what it means to advance and uplift the voices of those within their collections. The building was named for Vermont resident Anthony Perry’s expansive Indigenous art collection which was donated to the museum by his wife, Teri Perry. However, becoming stewards of the collection would take years of planning and learning led by Indigenous voices in Vermont and the nation at large. “At the time, I suggested to her that we were going to have to do a lot of due diligence work on cultural competency that the museum wasn’t familiar with looking after Native American material,” said Denenberg.
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COURTESY PHOTO
Artist formerly known [Tsitsistas/Suhtai (Cheyenne)], Southern Cheyenne Boy’s Coat, ca. 1870. Perry Collection of Native American Arts.
He, along with other board members and staff of the museum, called upon a national advisory committee made up of enrolled members of Native American Tribes, scholars, curators and culture bearers to guide the project from start to finish. “I said yes because this is our homeland,” said Stevens. “We need to be front and center and welcome people as they come to See MUSEUM on page 12
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