Arrrrr! Winners named in Pirates contest

Stu­dents and advis­ers from 14 schools gath­ered to tour the Den­ver Museum and Nature and Scienes’s lat­est exhibit, “Real Pirates,” on Sat­ur­day, March 12.

Check out a slide show of pho­tos from the event at http://www.flickr.com/photos/60626494@N07/sets/72157626272981174/

Stu­dents had to email their con­tests entries — news writ­ing, review writ­ing, or pho­to­jour­nal­ism — within five days of the event. You can check out the top entries below.

Heather Hope, pub­lic rela­tions man­ager for the museum and a for­mer high school jour­nal­ist at Lit­tle­ton HS, arranged the exclu­sive tour, and also pro­vided break­fast and a press con­fer­ence for the nearly 80 in atten­dance. The exhibit runs through Aug. 21, 2011.

This is the sec­ond year for CHSPA to part­ner with the DMNS in an event for high school jour­nal­ists, and fol­lows last spring’s Body Works exhibit. Every­one involved expressed the desire to con­tinue this relationship.

First Place in the “Real Pirates” News Story Con­test
Real Pirates com­man­deers Den­ver
Sam Katz­man, Conifer HS / Sportsaholic7775@aol.com

Pirates have cap­tured the atten­tion of vis­i­tors at the Den­ver Museum of Nature and Sci­ence. Reach­ing its sixth loca­tion tour­ing the United States, the trav­el­ing exhibit Real Pirates arrived in Den­ver in March and will remain until August.

Arti­facts from the sunken slave and pirate ship the Whyda are on dis­play in the Phipps Spe­cial Events Gallery in the museum. Set­ting the Whyda apart from other pirate ships of its time, it is the only pirate gally to be recov­ered in U.S. waters.

Unlike dra­ma­tized movies depict­ing fic­tional lives of scurvy sea dogs, this exhibit gives museum goers a dif­fer­ent insight on piracy in the 1700s.

Accord­ing to DMNS anthro­pol­o­gist Mark Levine, “We’re try­ing to get the real pic­ture of pirates to the pub­lic instead of the fake Hol­ly­wood productions.”

After being com­mis­sioned in Lon­don as a slave ship par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Atlantic tri­an­gle trade, Cap­tain Sam Bel­lamy com­man­deered the Whyda, col­lect­ing trea­sure and pirat­ing from Cuba up the Amer­i­can East coast till it sank in a vio­lent nor’easter off the coast of Cape Cod, MA  in 1717.

Under­wa­ter explorer Barry Clif­ford and his team of researchers strug­gled for years to find any evi­dence of the ship despite tales he heard of its def­i­nite exis­tence. Finally in 1984 the ship was recov­ered by Clif­ford; how­ever, sal­vaging the con­creted rem­nants became the dif­fi­cult task.

Now with over 200 objects from the wreck pre­served, National Geo­graphic has part­nered with DMNS exhibit coor­di­na­tors to host this exhibit. “Real Pirates allows you to learn from the objects instead of other sources,” said Jen­nifer Moss Logan, educator/coordinator for nature and cul­ture gallery programs.

“The exhibit tells the story of the Whyda ship from its ori­gins in Lon­don to dis­cov­ery on the ocean floor,” she said.

As the exhibit snakes through the gallery, the time­line of the ship’s his­tory pro­gresses from early slave day antiques being pre­sented near the entrance and infor­ma­tion on the wreck’s recov­ery placed at the exit.

Real Pirates was designed as an espe­cially inter­ac­tive exhi­bi­tion to sat­isfy all age groups. Chil­dren can cre­ate their own pirate hats, embark on a trea­sure hunt and have a con­ver­sa­tion with a pro­fes­sion­ally trained his­tor­i­cal actor. Accord­ing to Logan, “A lot of our younger and even older audi­ences come dressed as pirates. This is a great fam­ily friendly exhibit because it’s more than just arti­facts in pro­tec­tive cases.”

Event orga­niz­ers took extra care in details to ensure vis­i­tors are immersed in the pirate expe­ri­ence for the dura­tion of their time in the gallery. Never before used “intri­cate light­ing and sound sys­tems” sim­u­late the fate­ful storm and guests must board a replica Whyda ship to pro­ceed through the exhibit, said Levine.

Though the cen­ter of the attrac­tion, most agree, is the orig­i­nal bell which is inscribed “The Whyda Gally 1716,” other items include gold, din­ing ware and the leg bone of the ship’s youngest crew man, John King.

The Den­ver Museum of Nature and Sci­ence has obtained large scale exhi­bi­tions in the past, but they have a high amount of pride in the work put into Real Pirates.  Accord­ing to pub­lic rela­tions man­ager Heather Hope, “Our team is very well known within the indus­try for get­ting great exhibits and tak­ing them up a notch.”

It’s their hope vis­i­tors will notice the extra effort and grasp the con­cept those who have con­tributed to the exhibit intend to con­vey. “It’s not what you find; it’s what you find out,” said Clifford.

First Place in the “Real Pirates” Review Writ­ing Contest

Pirates: Review
Tyler Blair, Smoky Hill High School

The pirates have invaded Den­ver! From March 4 to August 21, “Real Pirates: the Untold Story of the Why­dah from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship” will be on dis­play at the Den­ver Museum of Nature and Sci­ence (DMNS). The exhibit, cour­tesy of National Geo­graphic, Arts and Exhi­bi­tions Inter­na­tional and AEG Exhi­bi­tions, is a must-see for fans of Pirates, and for peo­ple who need some­thing to do on a bor­ing day.

The exhibit tells the story of Sam Bel­lamy, a man who became a pirate so he could earn money to marry his beloved Maria Hal­lett. Before he could return to her, how­ever, after mak­ing his for­tune as a pirate, he died when a storm struck the ship and caused it to sink.

To be hon­est, I’m not a major museum fan, and I don’t exactly have the great­est opin­ion of pirates in gen­eral. As I walked into the museum, images of “Pirates of the Caribbean,” and other tacky pirate cliches began to enter my mind, leav­ing an unfriendly feel­ing in my stomach.

But all those feel­ings dis­ap­peared when I entered the exhibit.

As I entered, the bell of the Why­dah that rang repeat­edly as the ship was sink­ing dur­ing a storm, sat haunt­ingly in a foggy case of water. Imme­di­ately, I was sucked into the world of Sam Bel­lamy and the world of “The Golden Age of Piracy.”

Mak­ing my way through the exhibit, I repeat­edly stopped as inter­est­ing arti­fact after arti­fact caught my atten­tion, and drew me toward them. Images of the treach­er­ous Mid­dle Pas­sage slave route, and gleam­ing troves of trea­sure left me heart­bro­ken and excited at the same time.

And then there was the ship, which was quite pos­si­bly the coolest part of the tour.

In the mid­dle of the exhibit sits a life-sized model of the Why­dah ship. I entered onto the ship’s deck, and then made my way under­neath as the wax fig­ure pirates with voice overs nar­rated my jour­ney, giv­ing me a taste of what they experienced.

As I left, I felt a need to turn around and expe­ri­ence it just once more. I didn’t want to leave! I wanted to go back inside and learn more about Sam Bel­lamy and his crew of beloved pirates.

The tragic story of the Why­dah, while more than 300 years old, deliv­ered an emo­tional punch to the patrons of the exhibit. “Real Pirates: the Untold Story of the Why­dah from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship,” was truly an amaz­ing expe­ri­ence, and I highly rec­om­mend it for peo­ple of any age. Trans­port your­self back to the “Golden Age of Piracy,” and let your inner scal­ly­wag out!

Top entries in the “Real Pirates” Pho­to­jour­nal­ism Contest

First Place - TC Scaggiari, Engle­wood HS

Sec­ond Place — Alex Sor­rell, Smoky Hill HS

Third Place — Emily Ward, Palmer Ridge HS