May 14, 2008 12:29 pm US/Mountain
Family Intent On Keeping Insect Museum Open
By Andrew Wineke, The (Colorado Springs) Gazette
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) ―
Inside a sealed display case at the May Natural History Museum of the Tropics, a butterfly has a broken wing.
"Oh look, Lynda," Louise Steer said to her sister, Lynda Senko. "So fragile, even after 100 years."
The specimens may be fragile, but the May Museum has proven to be a resilient fixture at the southwest edge of Colorado Springs.
On May 1, the museum opened for its 56th year. This is the first year, however, without its founder and the sisters' father, John May, who died in November at 91.
"He's terribly missed, but we know how to operate it," Senko said.
Indeed they do. The twin sisters, now 71, have been helping at the bug museum, the adjacent museum of space exploration and the surrounding campground since they were teenagers. Even before building the museum, May used to drive his family and the bug collection around the country in a tractor-trailer, exhibiting it at fairs and shows.
"It's always to me kind of amazing for somebody with John's interest to take that and turn it into a commercial venture," said Tom Haggard, who owns Santa's Workshop at the North Pole at the foot of Pikes Peak. "That takes some imagination."
May's traveling trailer still sits behind the museum, along with nearly every piece of equipment he collected. Keeping them, and the museum, the 1,000-acre ranch around it and the 500-spot campground running is a job that now falls to Steer's 42-year-old daughter, Carrie York.
York left her job as a schoolteacher a decade ago to return to the family business. She's now the muscle of the operation, working the backhoe, using the chain saw and driving an old tractor Steer calls "Carrie's Cadillac."
"I always worked here, since the time I was a little kid," York said. "I remember barely being able to see over the counter."
So York, whose cell phone ringtone is Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman," grades the roads and readies the campground, while Steer and Senko prepare the museum, stocking the gift shop, mopping the floors and vacuuming the cobwebs.
"I like bugs, but I don't like cobwebs," Steer said.
The collection, about 7,000 butterflies, spiders, scorpions and beetles, changes little year to year.
May's father, James May, began collecting specimens in the early 1900s. The first specimen in the museum is an African butterfly found in 1903.
James May was born in England, lived in Brazil as a boy and collected as far afield as Africa. John May, who was born in Manitoba, Canada, and moved to Colorado in 1942, inherited his father's collection and added to it into the 1980s.
John May built the display cases himself, as he built everything around the ranch; even making the cement blocks in the museum walls and cutting timbers for the roof. He worked until 18 months before his death on the never-ending chores of maintaining the museum and campground.
May was the kind of man, York said, who put his granddaughter to work straightening bent nails to use again.
"I was always taught if you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean," she said. "He had a wonderful sense of humor, but he was all about work."
Well, work and bugs.
"It was his lifelong hobby and dream," said Greg Tabuteau, the owner of Buckskin Joe Frontier Town and Railway near Canon City. Tabuteau worked with May on the Pikes Peak Country Attractions Association for many years.
"You either like bugs and want to go see them or you don't," Tabuteau said. "He was a very down-to-earth, very sensible man who knew his business and knew how to advertise."
About 35,000 people a year visit the museum, including school groups during the winter months when it's closed to the public.
Steer and Senko debate modernizing the displays. They'd like to create some dioramas and devote a section to Colorado insects. But you can't change without losing something along the way.
"It's such a historical thing," Steer said. "It would be a shame to totally modernize."
So the three women carry on the May family tradition. The phone is ringing steadily with campers from Texas and Kansas making reservations. The display case with the broken butterfly wing will be swapped out. The cobwebs will be cleared.
"It's been going on for three and four generations now," Steer said. "It's going to go on like it always has."
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