Join us for our regular monthly meeting! We’ll hear from our speaker, SCDNR Community Archaeologist and Education Specialist, Lelia Rice, at 6:30PM. After Lelia presents, we’ll break for snacks and social, before returning for any regular business.

Lelia Rice works at the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) Cultural Heritage Trust Program as a fulltime Community Archaeologist and Education Specialist. She provides children’s programming with hands-on activities in the classroom designed to teach archaeology. Rice presentations have her travel across the state to attend schools and libraries, often with the assistance of other Heritage Trust staff members. Rice represents Heritage Trust at several festivals throughout the state, many related to either science or celebrations of culture.

The SCDNR Cultural Heritage Trust maintains a collection of more than 600 Edgefield vessels manufactured at the Joseph Gregory Banyham pottery located in Trenton on what is now the Horse Creek Heritage Preserve. This collection and Edgefield pottery has now become a focus of Lelia Rice’s studies as she pursues a Master of Arts in Public History with a concentration in museums at USC. Rice's thesis will focus on Baynham's life, his pottery and the property itself. The pottery collection includes whiskey stackers, cream risers, beehive jugs, poultry waterers, and churns. Banyham’s successful businesses included the pottery, a tannery, and a gristmill. As part of her masters, she plans to design traveling exhibits to share her knowledge and the vessels with the public.