Rolling Hills Wildlife Adventure

Modern Zoo with an "up close and personal" experience with the animals. Only zoo in Kansas with Indian and/or White rhinos. Additional experience with our Wildlife Museum with wildlife and animatronic robots representing seven ecosystems. Visitors will have two unique experiences all in one destination.

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This Fall, Rolling Hills Wildlife Adventure welcomes seniors, age 65 and over, to Senior Safari Days. Every Tuesday in September and October, seniors will receive zoo admission, tram ticket, and a soup and sandwich lunch for $12.50. Free coffee will also be available to seniors until 11:00 am.

Senior Safari Days are a great way for individuals as well as groups of seniors to enjoy the zoo and the over 105 species of animals on exhibit throughout the beautifully-landscaped park. Seniors can upgrade and add a visit to the Wildlife Museum for $3 more. Visiting groups are encouraged to contact Debbie Tasker, Group Sales Manager at 827-9488 ext 114.

Rolling Hills Wildlife Adventure, a non-profit organization, features a world-class zoo, a state-of-the-art wildlife museum, full service catering, a conference center, and unique educational and volunteer opportunities and programs. For more information on Senior Safari Days or other special events and activities call 785-827-9488 or go online to www.rollinghillswildlife.com.

On Friday, August 22nd, The Soul Preachers, one of the area’s favorite bands, will perform at the final Zoo Brew of the summer at Rolling Hills Wildlife Adventure. The third of the series of three “after hours” events at the Zoo designed specifically for adults 21 and over will feature a variety of specialty beers and happy-hour-style food. Zoo Brew guests will be able to enjoy 2-1/2 hours of live musical entertainment by The Soul Preachers while strolling through the Zoo, taking a tram ride, or relaxing on the Overlook patio.

 The Soul Preachers are a Kansas-based trio with over 30 years’ experience playing phenomenal Rock-n-Roll. Their live shows are not to be missed with a sense of spontaneity that makes them quite unpredictable – just like life.

Admission to Zoo Brew is $10 for Zoo or Museum members, $15 for nonmembers and includes Zoo admission, entertainment, food and tram ride. Guests are encouraged to bring a lawn chair. Zoo Brew runs from 5:30 to 8:00 pm. Only adults 21 and over will be admitted with specialty beers being served for $3. A discount of $2 per person is available for groups of 15 or more by calling 827-9488 ext 114. Zoo Brew is sponsored by Vidricksen Dist. Co. and Rolling Rock.

Rolling Hills Wildlife Adventure, a non-profit organization, features a world-class zoo, a state-of-the-art wildlife museum, full service catering, a conference center, and unique educational and volunteer opportunities and programs. For more information on Zoo Brew or other special events and activities call 785-827-9488 or go online to www.rollinghillswildlife.com.
 

Rolling Hills Wildlife Adventure presents Summer Splash on July 4th at the Zoo. Sponsored by the Salina Journal, the day will be filled with activities throughout the park designed to let kids get wet and stay cool while enjoying all the sights and sounds of the Zoo. All kids age twelve and under will get into the Zoo free with a paid adult. The activities begin at 9:00 a.m. and will continue until 4 p.m. on Friday, July 4th.

“We thought it would be fun for kids to come out to the park for the day in their bathing suits to ‘soak up the fun’”, says Special Events Coordinator Debbie Tasker. “We’ll have a Slip-n-Slide, the Fire Truck Soaker, animal enrichment booth, and Keeper Chats throughout the park along with our daily tram rides and Giraffe Feeding station”.  Safari meals for kids will also be available at the Overlook restaurant along with frosty ice cream treats.

Rolling Hills Wildlife Adventure is please to announce the addition of Danelle Okeson, D.V.M., to their staff. As veterinarian for the Zoo, Danelle is responsible for the medical care of all of the animals including nutrition, preventative programs, routine care, and treatment of all animal illnesses and injuries.

Danelle comes to Rolling Hills most recently from the San Antonio Zoo, where she had been the associate veterinarian since 2005. Her other previous posts include staff veterinarian at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, Colorado Springs, CO, an Aphis Science Fellow at the National Wildlife Research Center in Fort Collins, CO, and Veterinary Medicine Intern at the Henry Doorly Zoo & Lee G. Simmons Wildlife Safari Park in Omaha, NE.

Dr. Okeson was the Curator of Education and the on-site Veterinarian at Rolling Hills Zoo from 1996 through 2000. Danelle received her Bachelor of Science in 1992 and her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine in 1996 both from Kansas State University, Manhattan.

Rolling Hills Wildlife Museum announced today that it has received a $5,000 grant from the Smithsonian Community Grant program. This competitive grant was awarded to assist in the development and implementation of The Antarctic Wildlife Expedition program and Taste of Adventure: Antarctica. These public educational programs are being produced in conjunction with the Smithsonian traveling exhibition Wondrous Cold: an Antarctic Journey. 

The Smithsonian Community Grant program, funded by MetLife Foundation and administered by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), is used to strengthen the connections between museums nationwide and their communities. The grants allow exhibitors to enhance current program offerings or to create a new program suited to the topic of the SITES exhibition that they will be hosting. Grants up to $5,000 are awarded based on criteria that each exhibitor must meet. For more information on Smithsonian Community Grants, visit www.sites.si.edu or email sitesgrants@si.edu.

“This is an excellent opportunity to encourage our exhibitors to engage their audiences in new and exciting ways,” said Anna R. Cohn, SITES director. “We are pleased with this tremendous show of support from MetLife Foundation and we recognize the impact that their support will have for museums and their visitors.”

The first event the grant will be supporting at Rolling Hills is an adult education program, Taste of Adventure: Antarctica, which takes place Sunday, September 21, 2008. The program will feature a presentation by Jo Schwartz who just recently returned from four months working for Raytheon Polar Services, part of the United States Antarctic Program dedicated to sustaining the Antarctic environment and funding scientific research. She will share with participants her experiences working at McMurdo Station, the location of much of the subject matter of Wondrous Cold. Taste of Adventure is sponsored locally by Bennington State Bank.

The grant will also support the creation of a new 45-minute Wildlife Expedition program with an Antarctic theme that will be available to school groups as a free program onsite or as an outreach program. The free program will be available during the run of the exhibit from September 20 through November 30, 2008, and will continue as a fee-based program to be available as part of our ongoing offering of education programs after the exhibit has ended.

Wondrous Cold has been made possible through the generous support of Quark Expeditions and is additionally sponsored for Rolling Hills by KSN.

Rolling Hills Wildlife Adventure, a non-profit organization, features a world-class zoo, a state-of-the-art wildlife museum, a conference center with full-service catering, and unique educational and volunteer opportunities and programs. Located just 6 miles west of Salina off I-70, Rolling Hills Wildlife Adventure is open daily 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. For more information about Rolling Hills Wildlife Adventure visit www.rollinghillswildlife.com.

SITES is the largest traveling exhibition in the world.  Each year, SITES shares the wealth of Smithsonian collections and research programs with millions of people outside of Washington, D.C. One of the Smithsonian’s four National Programs, SITES makes available a wide range of exhibitions about art, science and history, which are shown in museums, libraries, science centers, community centers, botanical gardens and shopping malls.  SITES exhibitions range from 500-square-foot panel exhibitions for rural communities to 5,000-square-foot blockbusters. On average, SITES exhibitions visit between seven and 12 venues, staying about 12 weeks in each location.  During 2005-2007, SITES will bring approximately 150 exhibitions to 750 venues in 50 states. To learn more about SITES, visit www.sites.si.edu. 

MetLife Foundation was established by MetLife to carry on its longstanding tradition of corporate contributions and community involvement. Grants are made to support health, educational, civic and cultural organizations and programs. Recognizing the vital role museums play in building communities and educating young people, MetLife Foundation supports initiatives to increase opportunities and access and reach broader audiences through inclusive programming. For more information about the Foundation, visit www.metlife.org.

Rolling Hills Wildlife Adventure is proud to present Ansel Adams: The Man Who Captured the Earth’s Beauty, Organized by the Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, North Carolina, scheduled to open Saturday, July 5^th and run through August 23^rd in the Earl Bane Gallery of the Wildlife Museum.

Ansel Adams (1902–1984) was born in San Francisco and took his first photograph with a Kodak #1 Box Brownie camera in Yosemite Valley when he was fourteen. Although trained as a concert pianist from 1914 through 1927, he also studied photography with the photo-finisher Frank Dittman. By 1930, photography became his career choice and the American western landscape his focus. In 1932, he was a key figure in the founding of Group f/64 with Edward Weston, Imogene Cunningham, and others to promote what they called “pure” photography; the department of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, New York in 1940; the department of photography at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco, California in 1946; and The Friends of Photography in Carmel, California in 1967. His skill as a writer and teacher had a tremendous impact on the history of creative photography. From 1955 until 1984, he conducted annual photography workshops, first in Yosemite National Park and later closer to his home in the Carmel Highlands. He was recognized as an ardent and effective conservationist and served as a member of the Sierra Club board of directors from 1934 to 1971. During his lifetime he received numerous awards, but his most treasured was the Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded by President Carter in 1980 for his conservation work.

These photographs are part of a Museum Set Edition, published by the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust in 1980 and 1981 from vintage negatives. Thanks to his technical virtuosity and sensitive eye, these dramatic images remain profound reminders of Ansel Adams’ reverence for the beauty of the earth and the healing force of nature in our lives.

The Mint Museums, located in Charlotte, North Carolina, are unique gathering places for people to experience art through significant and varied collections, engaging exhibitions, and innovative educational programming. The Mint Museum of Art is housed in what served as the first branch of the U.S. Mint from 1837 through 1861. Before it was dismantled and moved to its present site in 1933, the Greek revival building served as a Confederate hospital, an assay office and a federal courthouse. It opened as North Carolina’s first art museum in 1936. The art museum houses extensive collections of pre-Columbian art, historic costumes, American art, and contemporary art; it is also well-known for its ceramics collections, including European and American, with particular strengths in works from North Carolina. The Mint Museum of Craft + Design, which opened in 1999 in the former Montaldo’s department store, focuses on the presentation and study of traditional and contemporary crafts made of ceramics, glass, wood, metal and fiber, as well as all 20th century design disciplines.

The Rolling Hills Wildlife exhibition runs July 5 through August 23, 2008, during regular Museum hours 8:00 am to 5:00 pm daily and is included in Museum admission. This exhibit was made possible with a grant from Bank of America and is presented in part by the Kansas Arts Commission, a state agency, and by the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency which believes that a great nation deserves great art.