ARTICLES
Sensory Safari & Alabama School for the Blind

To refresh the memories of older members and to inform the newer members, the Alabama Chapter of SCI was instrumental in establishing one of the first permanent Sensory Safaris in the country. The idea came about in 1997 and the chapter went about collecting mounts to carry to the Alabama School for the Blind. Taxidermists from across the state were contacted as well as individuals with mounts they no longer wanted. Around this time we discovered that an elderly gentleman in Arizona wanted to donate his entire collection to just such a cause. The entire collection, containing many full body mounts, was delivered to us by Don Brown who is now Director of Education at the AWLS Ranch. This gave us quite a diverse collection of animals and birds from around the globe.

Several chapter members including Martha Johnson, David Morris and myself had the pleasure of making the first delivery of mounts to the school. The experience was quite humbling and enlightening. Many of the students were allowed to visit with us as we unloaded the mounts and they got the pleasure of experiencing the items. I will never forget the excitement and enthusiasm they showed as they saw the animals for the first time.
On May 21, 1998 a dedication ceremony was held for the opening of the Woods Science Center on the campus of the Alabama School for the Blind. This building would house the Sensory Safari on its ground floor. Again, several of us from the Alabama Chapter and one representative from SCI National were in attendance. The faculty and students had set up the exhibit of the mounts complete with habitats and paintings on the walls. At the dedication the students all wore “T” shirts with SENSORY SAFARI on them.

Mounts in a sensory safari soon become shop worn and need to be replaced. It is also good to have different exhibits for the children to experience. Therefore, we are constantly on the lookout for taxidermy items. The latest of these donations came from a lady in Brownsboro, Alabama, Mrs. Sheila Burson. Mrs. Burson notified us that she had 17 mounted waterfowl that she would like to donate to a worthy cause. These were gladly accepted.

December 16, 2002 finds Richard McFalls and me running errands for the Chapter. Richard had graciously made available several items to the Chapter to be donated in the name of The Alabama Chapter of Safari Club International, Inc. The first of these items was a collection of 5 Tom DuBois Disney prints. These prints were all numbered with the same number greatly enhancing their value. The prints have hidden Disney characters within the picture and it is a challenge to try to find them. This day we are taking them to be shown to Coke Matthew at the Children’s Hospital where they will later be on display. After showing them we carry the prints to Décor-N-More where Mark Smith will be framing them for us prior to their presentation to the Children’s Hospital. This presentation is another story and will be covered in another article. The other items Richard had were a collection of 173 unabridged audio books on tape along with the cassette players to listening to the tapes. These were to be donated to the Alabama School for the Blind, again in the name of our chapter. This brings us back to the heart of this story.

With our van load of goodies, including quite an array of diverse items such as 17 ducks, boxes of tapes and folders of prints we are finally off to Talladega to the Alabama School for the Blind. At the School, we are met by Dr. Carl Ponder, the Principal, Teresa Lacy, in charge of the Library and Sinkkia Smothers who oversees the Sensory Safari. First we unload the ducks at the Sensory Safari in the Science Building. Since birds fare the worst in a sensory safari due to the feathers not being able to take much handling, these need to be replaced the most often. Next we unload the books on tape at the library. It looked like a rummage sale as the library staff goes through the tapes.

The first thing they are impressed with is the fact that the books are unabridged. Also, there are many titles that are unavailable to the library from their regular source, The National Library for the Blind. They assure us that their patrons will be thrilled with the additional titles now available to them to read. Many of the staff were already picking books they wanted to check out.

All in all, Rich and I had a very productive and rewarding day hopefully bringing a little joy into the lives of those less fortunate than ourselves and getting the good name of SCI out to more people.