Science museum honors director with new bridge

In a surprise ceremony at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in downtown Raleigh Tuesday, former Gov. Jim Hunt today announced that the bridge that will connect the museum to its new wing, the Nature Research Center, has been named in honor of Museum Director Betsy M. Bennett.

Posted 10:00 p.m. Jan 25, 2011 — Updated 10:00 p.m. Jan 25, 2011

RALEIGH, N.C. — In a surprise ceremony at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in downtown Raleigh Tuesday, former Gov. Jim Hunt today announced that the bridge that will connect the museum to its new wing, the Nature Research Center, has been named in honor of Museum Director Betsy M. Bennett.

Museum staff invited Bennett's family, leading museum donors and members of the museum's advisory boards to be present when they sprung the surprise on Bennett.

“No one has done more for science awareness or science education in North Carolina than Betsy Bennett,” said Tom Earnhardt, president of the Friends of the Museum.

The bridge, which will extend from the museum's second and third floors across Salisbury Street into the NRC, will have one enclosed and one open-air level, both of which will contain educational exhibits. Construction of the bridge begins in February.

The 80,000-square-foot NRC, slated to open in early 2012, will connect everyday people to research and show them how science affects their daily lives.

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