April has been very busy at the museum with 89 11th-grade humanities students doing research and preparing for presentations that will be given this week to area fifth-graders. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday will be full days of living history for our local fifth-graders as they begin their day with a brief presentation about how Albert Lea came to be and then each will have the opportunity to attend four different presentations during the day. They will experience hands-on activities and presentations of earlier times.

This year, we have fifth-graders attending from Alden-Conger, Glenville-Emmons, Halverson, Hawthorne, Hollandale Christian School, Lakeview, Sibley and St. Theodore’s. Each fifth-grade class has been assigned a specific day to attend.

Many volunteers help to make this project a success. There are volunteers who come with the fifth-grade classes, volunteer mentors for the 11th- graders, volunteers who help with the lunch break by directing students to where they need to go for lunch, shopping or a recycling presentation, volunteers who help with the shopping area of the museum, volunteers who do presentations and volunteers who help with baking, preparing and clean-up for the three days. We appreciate all the time that the volunteers dedicate to this project along with the extra hours that Jim Haney and Kurt Barickman give to make it possible for students to have this great opportunity to experience history.

Our school tours begin the first week of May and continue through the month. We have different tours planned by grade level so that the students see different areas each time they visit the museum. Our tour guides are volunteers that bring many different backgrounds and experiences to the museum, so no two tours are the same.

The Freeborn County Genealogical Society is having a Swiss steak fundraiser on Friday, April 30, at the American Legion Club, 142 N. Broadway Ave., Albert Lea, from 4:30 to 7 p.m. The Genealogical Society pays the annual fee for the museum library to have Ancestry.com available for our patrons to use and for us to have as a resource for helping individuals with their family history. Please support their efforts this Friday. Tickets are available at the museum or at the door the night of the event. The cost is $8 for adults and $4 for children 10 years and younger.

The annual meeting for the Freeborn County Historical Society will be at 3 p.m. Sunday, May 2, at the museum, 1031 Bridge Ave., Albert Lea. We invite you to attend and hear a review of 2009 accomplishments, what is happening in 2010 and our plans for the future which include a building addition. If you have not paid your 2010 membership dues, you may do so at the door the day of the meeting. (A household membership is $25.00 per year, any donation above that is tax deductible.) Our annual report will be available the meeting.

I recently attended the banquet at the American Legion that recognized the 50- and 60-year Legion members and the Legionnaire of the Year. The program included the meaning of “the folding of the flag” that was read as a demonstration of how the flag is folded was done. I have attended many military funerals, but did not know the meaning of each fold of the flag and now have an even deeper respect for the ceremony that is part of a veteran’s funeral.

If you are a World War II veteran or have memories of that era and would like to share those memories, please contact the museum or the Albert Lea Public Library to participate in our special project: See It Now — Freeborn County Memories.

Pat Mulso is the executive director of the Freeborn County Historical Museum in Albert Lea.