Arts

KMUW is partnering with the Ulrich Museum of Art for "Co-Lab: Getting Personal," a community lending art show. The community was asked to contribute a cherished object from their collection. Here are stories from members of our community and the items they lent for the project. Tune in to 89.1 FM to hear these segments airing on October 28 and 29, as well as November 4, 11, 18, 25 and 26 at 5:19 and 7:19 a.m., 3:18 and 5:18 p.m.

Something from a very very very remote past

KMUW | By Torin Andersen

Published November 11, 2025 at 12:00 AM CST

KMUW is partnering with the Ulrich Museum of Art for CoLab: Getting Personal, a community lending art show. The community is asked to contribute a cherished object from their collection. Here is the story of a fossil and how it was discovered on a farm by a Kansas couple.

Transcript:

Both: Hi, [We’re] Jane Murphy and Barry Murphy.

Jane: We donated a fossil of [an] ancient shellfish. The fossil is 66 to 145 million years old. I think some people would be surprised to learn that Kansas has been underwater many times. A geologist told me that it had been underwater for more years than it's been above water, [by] millions and millions of years.

Barry: I guess my sense is that we were giving something to the museum or providing something to the museum that was of value to us, and it wasn't too important to to be impressing anyone, or educating, really. It was something that was a treasure to us.

Jane: We found it on a pasture of farmland in north central Kansas.

Barry: When I retired, I had multiple projects at the farm, and I was out in the pastures, or I was around the buildings, and everywhere I went, I would find interesting pieces. The biggest thing, from my standpoint, is just the sense of continuity from the very, very, very remote past that this all didn't start 2000 years ago. This was millions of years ago, and we're a part of it. We're in it.