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Printer version: Editorial: History matters/Stop cutting Historical Society startribune.com L2 date: April 13, 2005 at 6:59 AM Editorial: History matters/Stop cutting Historical Society Published April 13, 2005 Page 1 of 1 Close window For a look, taste, smell and feel of Minnesota farm life in the 1860s, no place surpasses the Oliver H. Kelley Farm near Elk River. Its oxen-powered plow, heirloom vegetable garden, wood-burning cookstove and farm chore demonstrations give visitors memorable immersion in agricultural history. School tours bring upwards of 15,000 students a year to the farm where the National Grange movement started. Among those kids have been the three Rohlf children of Elk River. All three became serious history buffs as a result. So when a state financial crisis in 2003 landed Kelley Farm on the Minnesota Historical Society's list of sites to be closed, Elk River city employee Stephen Rohlf swung into action. He helped organize the 130-member Friends of the Kelley Farm and set out to raise the $140,000 per year needed to keep the farm open to the public -- albeit with reduced hours and staff, and higher admission prices. The goal was met for 2004 and 2005, thanks to two large one-time gifts, a Save the Farm event, and a lot of work. But Rohlf says the fundraising for 2006 isn't going as well. "It's a struggle to get the repeat donor," he said. "They think that if this is for the good of the public, the public should pay." That proposition -- that Minnesota's historical treasures belong to the public, should be available for the public and are the fir°~cial responsibility of the public -- is being tested this year at the Legislature. Gov. Tim Pawlenty's proposed 2006-07 b~ ~t takes a 2.5 percent bite out of the Historical Society's state appropriation. That's not just a nick. It's added insult to the injury the Historical Society sustained in 2002 and 2003 -- an 18 percent cut in state funding and the layoff of 25 percent of its full-time staff. Perhaps the governor's proposal was built on the belief that private fundraising is dependable enough to keep Kelley Farm and five other threatened sites open indefinitely. If it was, legislators need to hear Rohlf s testimony: "People are willing to step up in the short term. But expecting them to sustain that [level of giving] isn't reasonable." All year long, many of the Historical Society's 18,000 dues-paying members have been wearing rectangular lapel buttons reading, "History Matters." It does indeed, to the education of this state's citizens, its tourism economy, its cultural diversity, and its sense of identity and pride. This year, the Legislature needs to make funding decisions commensurate with history's value to this state. That means -- at a minimum -- no more cuts. © Copyright 2005 Star Tribune. All rights reserved. http://www.startribune.com/dynamic/story.php?template=print_a&story=5344625 4/14/2005