Founders

The Junior League of Boise led the way with the concept of a hands-on science museum, and quickly got the support of key community leaders. Left to right are some of those early leaders; Dewey Dykstra, Joe Terteling, Alec Goth, Jerry Nielson and Jena Vasconcellos and Lorette Williams from the Junior League. Both Jena and Lorette were staff at the New Discovery Center and Lorette was DCI's first Executive Director

Grand Opening Sign

Once the site of some old military warehouses on Myrtle Street was selected, and renovation began, a grand opening sign was hung on the building

First Myrtle St. Sign

The warehouse buildings on Myrtle Street are shown here before the renovation began

The buildings were kept intact, but needed to be completely gutted and a new exterior was added

Local architect, Parker Massman, created the plan to join the 3 separate warehouse buildings into the one building that you visit today

The open buildings without internal pillars provided a lot of floor space to set up and move exhibits around easily

The Junior League of Boise led the fundraising efforts to get the community behind the Discovery Center. Pictured here are Anne Carrol Darger and Lorette Williams from the Junior League

The Junior League of Boise demonstrated their exceptional fundraising skills early on as the science museum project took shape

Through efforts of the Junior League, Joe Terteling and others, the fundraising team was able to involve high profile state leaders like Dirk Kempthorne and Butch Otter. Governor Otter is shown here when he was in Congress

One of the early promotions to get the word out about the new Discovery Center was an exhibit display set up in the Capitol Rotunda

A key to the ongoing success of the Discovery Center to bring in families over and over are our great hands-on exhibits. Bill Molina came to DCI about a year after DCI opened. Bill had been an exhibit designer for the Exploratorium in San Francisco, and still designs most of our exhibits today

Mike Twitchell started at DCI about the same time as Bill Molina, and has been creating and maintaining our exhibits ever since

Bill Lloyd has also been with the Discovery Center as a volunteer exhibits designer and creator for many years

Our first Science Store offered a few unique science kit products, and has since grown to a good sized retail store where you can find many unique science-related products, most of which can only be found at our store

The heart of the Discovery Center has always been our large team of volunteers. From high school students, to retired folks, DCI has a staff of volunteers that greet the public every day with a big smile. Many of today's volunteers have been with DCI from our early years

Volunteers also do most of our onsite demonstrations as well. We have many volunteers with science backgrounds that love to explain, in detail, what force of nature they are demonstrating

From the bginning, DCI has built most of our exhibitions from scratch, just as we are doing today with Mapping, MAKE IT! and Phenomenal Forces. Pictured here is the original catenary arch that we still have today, but with fifth generation arch blocks

Some early exhibits took a lot of effort to build, such as this sloped/notched beam that allowed visitors to roll a large rectangular block down hill

This photo demonstrates the compelling, hands-on nature of our exhibits. This keeps our visitors of all ages engaged in our fun and unique learning process

From time to time over the years, DCI has had major traveling exhibitions stop in Boise. One of our most memorable and successful was the animatronic dinosaur exhibition

Here is a little behind-the-scenes look at the animatronic Tyranosaurus Rex

Through the years, the Discovery Center has had a variety of annual fundraising events, from scavenger hunts to our current Chocolate & Diamonds event. These events are key to raising the revenue needed to refresh our exhibitions

Pictured here is another example of a themed annual fundraising event. These events are intended to be fun for all participants. Chocolate & Diamonds has now been our key fundraising event for the past 5 years

Not as well known about the Discovery Center are our camps and Educational Outreach programs. From our beginnings, DCI has always been well connected with school districts throughout the state, helping to augment science education by visiting schools all over Idaho

Also not as well known is DCI participation and sponsorship in many local and state wide programs, such as Invent Idaho. From the start, DCI has been searching out science related programs and events that we can help to showcase. One recent example was DCI participation with NASA to host a downlink with the International Space Station. This event was hugely successful and garnered international attention for the Discovery Center of Idaho