Andrew County Museum program will prepare residents for eclipse

A program featuring an eclipse-chaser will take place this weekend at the Andrew County Museum.

Museum Director Jan Glenn said the event is for anyone wanting to learn more about the upcoming total solar eclipse happening in the area in August.

Jackie Beucher of Kansas City will be speaking at the event on Saturday.

“She travels abroad, she’s been to 11 different total solar eclipses all over,” Glenn said. “She’s even led tours… to Greece and Tahiti and all kinds of places to see the total solar eclipses. She says if anybody thinks they’ve seen one, they really haven’t unless they have made a special trip somewhere to do it.”

According to a press release from the museum, Jackie has been an astronomy enthusiast all of her life thanks to her father, a TWA pilot. She joined the Astronomical Society of Kansas City in 1984, where she has served as treasurer, secretary and president and currently serves as vice-president. For 13 years she was a national officer of the Astronomical League, an international group of astronomical societies, and currently serves as the Mid-States Regional Secretary-Treasurer for the League. Jackie has also been a team leader for the Astronomical Society of KC, which owns the Powell Observatory in Louisburg, Kansas.

Jackie serves on the national Eclipse Committee of the American Astronomical Society and will have all the most current information regarding the August 21 eclipse from their latest meeting.

Glenn said they wanted to hold the event in Andrew County so people can learn what to expect in August.

“What we thought, early on, was that people don’t really know what’s coming and what a big event it is,” Glenn said. “So this is kind of an attempt to make it available to people to learn about the eclipse to understand how it is really a once-in-a-lifetime and that they need to attend, so we wanted to get that information out.”

The program at the Andrew County Museum featuring Jackie Beucher takes place at 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 8th. The museum is located at 202 E. Duncan Drive in Savannah.