UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Penn State's Pasto Agricultural Museum has for 27 years aimed to help the public understand and appreciate the way farming life used to be. However, the museum's contents have outgrown its space, according to museum curator Darwin G. Braund. Currently, only about 35 percent of its collection can be displayed at any given time.

So that the museum can better fulfill its mission, the College of Agricultural Sciences has launched the $500,000 Pasto Agricultural Museum Enhancement Campaign. The museum hopes to open the newly remodeled and expanded facility during Ag Progress Days in August 2008.

"I know it's a vigorous time schedule, but we'd like to dedicate the new museum during our 30th anniversary," says Braund.

Well known for having one of the nation's finest collections of dairy antiques, the museum has over 1000 rare and unusual pieces used for farming and homemaking in the era before electricity and gasoline power changed things forever. The focus is on Pennsylvania and the Northeast from the 1800s to the early 1940s, with links to modern agricultural methods.

"The museum's collection emphasizes the period of history where the energy for farm work was supplied by humans and domesticated animals," says Braund. "This tight criteria sets us apart from most other agricultural museums, which cover a wider era of history. We like to say that we're B.C. and B.E. -- that's Before Computers and Before Engines and Electricity."

The campaign has already received more than $250,000. Four leadership gifts of $50,000 each came from Braund; Jerome "Jerry" Pasto, the museum's former curator and its namesake; the Pennsylvania Dairymen's Association; and the museum's nine-member advisory board. In addition, the museum has pledged $50,000 to the project derived from revenue from the next five museum silent auctions held during Ag Progress Days.

The Pasto Agricultural Museum opened in 1979 at the Russell E. Larson Agricultural Research Center at Rock Springs, nine miles southwest of State College on Route 45. Penn State's Ag Progress Days is held at Rock Springs for three days each August. An estimated 10,000 persons visit the museum each year, including elementary, high school and college students, classroom teachers, professors, senior citizens, farmers, and urban dwellers.

"We want to preserve the heritage of the past for current and future generations as to how we got to where we are," says Braund. " There seems to be a disconnect with young folks today, as to where we came from, and it is really nice to receive appreciative letters from grade school children after they have visited the museum."

According to Braund, plans include doubling the floor space, which will allow the museum to display 80-90 percent of its collection. Also in the works are such improvements as climate control for artifact preservation through installation of heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment, and the addition of office/workroom space for the curator, staff, and volunteers.

The leadership donors each have longstanding ties to the museum and to Penn State agriculture.

Jerry Pasto, the museum's namesake, is associate dean emeritus and professor emeritus of agricultural economics in the College of Agricultural Sciences. Volunteer curator of the museum from 1979 to 1998, Pasto collected and restored many of the museum's original items. His previous philanthropy to Penn State is widespread and includes gifts to agriculture, athletics, and public radio and television. Penn State named him an Honorary Alumnus in 1993.

Braund is a 1956 Penn State alumnus in dairy science and professor emeritus of animal science at North Carolina State University. He has been volunteer curator of the Pasto Agricultural Museum since 1998. He served on the board of directors of the College of Agricultural Sciences Alumni Society when the society established the museum. He grew up on a Bradford County dairy farm and spent 22 years as director of dairy and livestock research and development for Agway in Syracuse, N.Y. Braund himself has donated over 125 items to the museum's collection, including a circa-1875 horse-powered treadle and threshing machine made in Berks County.

The Pennsylvania Dairymen's Association is a longtime supporter of the University's Department of Dairy and Animal Science and contributes to the Penn State dairy cattle judging team fund as well as other funds in the college, including scholarships.

This year's Ag Progress Days silent auction sold more than 300 items, and included for bid a variety of dairy antiques, hand tools, milk bottles, an ox yoke and other farm equipment; food from the University Meats Lab and Berkey Creamery; and such farming supplies as wheat seed and corn seed.

Members of the museum's advisory board include Glenn Carter, Stephen Spencer and Elaine Wickersham of State College; Robert Storch of Troy; James Davis of Petersburg; Ronald Johnson of Manns Choice; Larry Harpster of Pennsylvania Furnace; Dee Muller of Lemont; and Oscar (Hank) Will III of Gettysburg.

The museum's staff includes a volunteer curator, volunteer tour guides and one paid, part-time administrative assistant. All items in the museum's collection are donated. Modest financial support is provided by income from the Ag Alumni Endowment for the Pasto Agricultural Museum. Traditionally, the Ag Progress Days silent auction raises money for this endowment.

Fundraising for the Pasto Agricultural Museum Enhancement Campaign is ongoing and donations are welcome, says Braund. Plans call for donor recognition in the new museum for various giving levels, as well as for donors of items to the collection. Visit http://pasto.cas.psu.edu to learn more about the Pasto Agricultural Museum.

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EDITORS: Contact Darwin Braund at 814-863-1383 or at pastoagmuseum@psu.edu.

Writer/Editor Chuck Gill Phone: 814-863-2713 E-mail: cdg5@psu.edu