Eight tips for touring the Winchester Museum

The museum is open 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. It's also open on some Saturdays for special events.
Weekend group tours are available per special request.
Groups of 10 or more are encouraged to call ahead and schedule a tour.
Admission is free for NWTF members.
Non-member admission is $5 for adults and $2 for children.
The admission fee includes a souvenir token redeemable for $5 off a purchase at Turkey Shoppe on Main.
After you shop at the Turkey Shoppe, take your picture with one of the colorful ceramic turkeys that decorate downtown Edgefield.
For more information about the museum or to schedule a tour, go to www.nwtf.org or e-mail Museum Coordinator Sam McDuffie at smcduffie@nwtf.net.

Danielle Lawrence, of Martinez, Ga., helps organize, photograph and process data associated with the museum's collections and archives. She also uses the right side of her brain to prepare materials for field trip programs and helps coordinate the NWTF's national youth art contest. The education/museum staff would like to thank Danielle for the donation of her time and expertise.

Danielle Lawrence

Christine Rolka
Director of Education

Destination: Education

Every fall, the halls of NWTF headquarters come alive with squeaks, squawks and imaginative attempts at yelps. It's not our staff preparing for fall turkey season; it's the time of year when students flock to the Wild Turkey Center, learning more about the famed, feathered holiday table centerpiece.

They learn to talk turkey during a guided tour of our museum or one of the field trips hosted by the education department, and get a hefty helping of our conservation message on the side.

Almost every week, the Winchester Museum, Federal Cartridge Center and Outdoor Education Center come to life with bright eyes, eager expressions and the sounds of novice attempts at making turkey sounds using freshly made turkey calls constructed from cups, coffee stirrers and other craft materials.

And I'm not just talking about kids.

Visit the Wild Turkey Center when a group is on tour and you might…

hear giggles coming from the conference room as a reluctant father (serving as field trip chaperone) is transformed into a gobbler. He's donning the necessary adaptations to survive in the wild, including a cheese grater necklace to represent a gizzard, large googly eyes for keen eyesight and gardening trowels as turkey claws to help him scratch for acorns and insects.
see a family climbing aboard a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service helicopter to watch a video of prescribed burning or "taking their first deer" at the museum's laser shot exhibit.
hear kids howling with disgust and delight as they learn to identify wildlife by their poop — then eat real-looking chocolate replicas.
watch teams of students scoop critters out of the pond to observe, record, identify and learn how insects are indicators of water quality.
hear a group of senior citizens hooting like owls as the lights dim in the Dave Harrelson Memorial Theater. It simulates early morning in the woods, when wildlife awakes, then launches into a video about hunting heritage.
witness teachers experiencing firsthand how active management practices benefit wild turkeys and other wildlife as they emerge from a habitat hike through the Outdoor Education Center, guided by an NWTF biologist.
wave to children on a school bus, leaving the Wild Turkey Center parking lot, heading to nearby Sumter National Forest for a creek stomp.

Students of all ages leave our facility with a better understanding of the conservation success story that surrounds the wild turkey, and the role hunting has played in that success.

I hope you'll visit the Wild Turkey Center this year, whether for an action-packed field trip or a leisurely stroll through the only museum dedicated to our favorite game bird.

And if you're lucky enough to catch a chaotic chorus of screeching whistles, know you're witnessing the creation of conservationists. — Christine