PA Museums Announces Statewide Awards for Museums and Individuals
3/8/21, Harrisburg – PA Museums has announced the winners of its 2021 Special Achievement Awards. Since the 1980s, PA Museums has invited nominations from its membership and chosen institutions, projects, and individuals to be recognized. This year, seven (7) organizations from every region of Pennsylvania have won Institutional Awards of Merit. Two (2) organizations are receiving PA Museums’ prestigious S.K. Stevens Award, and three (3) individuals are being honored for their contributions to the field with Individual Awards.
PA Museums’ awardees are being celebrated at a safe distance this year with a multi-platform social media campaign in April 2021.
This year’s award winners are:
Institutional Achievement Awards
Cannon Ball Online Auction and Party To Go, Fort Ligonier, Ligonier
Berks History for Victory (exhibit), Berks History Center, Reading
Pittsburgh, Virginia (exhibit), Fort Pitt Museum, Pittsburgh
Medal of Honor Display, Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum, Pittsburgh
Cost of Revolution: The Life and Death of an Irish Soldier (exhibit), The Museum of the American Revolution, Philadelphia
Thrown, Fired and Glazed: The Redware Tradition from Pennsylvania and Beyond (exhibit), Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum, Lancaster
Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies, Special Issue featuring the City Beautiful Exhibition and Digital Harrisburg (collaboration of Messiah University, Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, and a number of community partners), Pennsylvania Historical Association
Individual Awards
Walter Rybka, Senior Captain and Site Administrator, Erie Maritime Museum/US Brig Niagara, Erie (retired)
Annita Andrick, Director of Library and Archives, Erie County Historical Society/Hagen History Center, Erie (retired)
Tom Bresenhan, Friends of The Joseph Priestley House, Northumberland (posthumously)
S.K. Stevens Awards
Hamilton Was Here, The Museum of the American Revolution, Philadelphia
The Vietnam War: 1945-1975, The Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh
“PA Museums’ annual awards are meant to inspire the museum field and impress visitors to museums,” said Rusty Baker, executive director of PA Museums. “Pennsylvania’s museums and historical organizations are star performers, and we are proud to recognize the great work being done throughout the Commonwealth.”
About PA Museums
PA Museums is Pennsylvania’s statewide museum association with 350 members across the Commonwealth. PA Museums’ membership includes museums and historical organizations of many types and sizes, and in addition to providing professional development opportunities for museum professionals, the organization also leads advocacy campaigns on behalf of the museum community.
Contact: Rusty Baker, PA Museums, (717) 503-5333, rusty.baker@pamuseums.org
