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Wright brothers, coins and commemorations to be topics of programs Saturday (May 3)

CHAPEL HILL -- The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will celebrate the 100^th anniversary of Orville and Wilbur Wright’s historic first flight in Kitty Hawk with talks and exhibit tours Saturday (May 3).

"The First Flight: Celebrating the Wright Brothers in Print, on Coinage & Other Commemoratives" will be free and open to the public from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Pleasants Family Assembly Room of Wilson Library.

The library’s North Carolina Collection Gallery will host the event, said Neil Fulghum, gallery keeper. Sponsors will be the Blue Ridge Numismatic Association, the North Carolina Numismatic Association and the Raleigh Coin Club. Numismatics is the study of collection of coins, tokens and paper money.

"Of particular interest to collectors of coins and medals will be presentations that examine the types of currency that were in circulation in the United States a century ago," Fulghum said. "Local money experts also will focus on Wright-related designs and themes on later coinage, medals and other commemorative pieces, including the U.S. Mint's First Flight design for the 2001 North Carolina quarter and the new Wright coinage being released by the U.S. Mint in August."

The Wrights’ achievements will be highlighted in a speech beginning at 10:30 a.m. by Dr. Thomas Parramore, professor emeritus at Meredith College in Raleigh and author of "First to Fly: North Carolina and the Beginnings of Aviation" (UNC Press, 2002). Other speakers will include:

• Ferg Norton, executive director of the N.C. First Flight Centennial Foundation, from 11:15 a.m. to noon, on special events this year to commemorate the Wrights’ historic flight; 
  
  
• Bob Schreiner, president of the N.C. Numismatic Association, from 1-1:30 p.m., on "U.S. Money at the Time of the First Flight";
  
  
• Dave Provost of the Raleigh Coin Club and the N.C. Numismatic Association, from 1:30-2 p.m., on "The Wright Brothers on Coins, Medals and Tokens"; and
  
  
• Schreiner from 2-2:30 p.m. on "History and Design of the North Carolina State Commemorative Quarter."

The daylong program also will include tours of exhibits and rooms in the library’s North Carolina Collection Gallery, including the Sir Walter Raleigh Rooms. Discussion topics will include the state’s gold rush in the 1800s and numismatic holdings in the collection.

For more information, contact Fulghum at 962-1172 or rfulghum@email.unc.edu.

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Photo url: http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/visiting/wright_brothers042903.jpg
Contact: Fulghum at 962-1172 or rfulghum@email.unc.edu