With this irresistible invitation, the "It's Electric!" exhibit at the Children's Museum of South Carolina was officially opened last week.

Santee Cooper, a provider of direct and indirect electric service to over a million customers in South Carolina, donated the new exhibit to the museum. Miniature replicas of various local landmarks are included in the exhibit, with streetlights that can be controlled by museum visitors. Before cutting the ribbon, T. Graham Edwards, CEO and president of Santee Cooper, thanked Brenda Spadoni, president of the museum's executive board, and Pam Barnhill, museum director, for creating a museum filled with interesting exhibits for the children of South Carolina and visitors from out-of-state.

"Also, I commend you for your efforts to build a new facility which will be many times larger than this," Edwards said. Drawings of several concepts for exhibits at the new Children's Museum provided an intriguing backdrop for the event.

Barnhill explained the mechanics of the exhibit to visitors. "Children can experiment with opening and closing circuits while another child turns the hand crank of a World War II generator. As they open and close circuits, different parts of the city light up," she said. The exhibit also includes a center with a series of interactive circuits that can be used to build motors and parts of a radio, or light a lightbulb.

"This is a great start to all the new things that will be happening," said Crystal Lemmons, museum board member, who brought her family to the event. "We really appreciate companies like Santee Cooper that invest in the community."

The seed for the new exhibit was planted seven years ago, when William White and Mark Stalvey of Santee Cooper had a conversation with their children's' teacher.

"The teacher was concerned about electrical safety," said White, a technical supervisor. "So we built a small model for an electrical safety program. Barbara Allen (Santee Cooper's educational director) saw it and asked if we could do something on a slightly larger scale."

At 4'x8', the new exhibit is grand, indeed. Allen and educational assistant Diane Vascovich got involved after White and Stalvey, a technician, completed the connections for display. None of the team had ever worked on miniatures, and they had to be inventive and resourceful with materials (see sidebar for details).

White's boss supported the exhibit enthusiastically. "Electricity is something you can't see," said Edwards. "The hands-on interaction helps children visualize how it works. That's the neat part of all this."

"By using these switches, children can see how substations operate throughout the system," added White.

The exhibit, constructed at Santee Cooper's technical metering office on 10th Avenue, moved into the museum last October and opened to the public on December 1. Museum educational director Eddie Lott said the museum has already received letters from a number of teachers whose students enjoyed the exhibit.

According to Barbara Allen, Santee Cooper donated $5,000 toward the new exhibit, which will go into the new museum. Additionally, CEO Edwards said that his company has contributed $250,000 to the capital campaign for the new facility.

"There is no better opportunity for us to give back to the community than this, and we're glad to be a part of it," Edwards said.

It's been said that necessity is the mother of invention.

William White, Mark Stalvey, Barbara Allen, and Diane Vascovich discovered this firsthand when they constructed the "It's Electric!" exhibit for the Children's Museum of South Carolina. The Santee Cooper team spent two years building on the intricate little world, mostly from scratch.

The lake is made with blue vinyl used for auto upholstery. A "C"-cell battery was transformed into an oil barrel. "The roads are made out of black sandpaper," said Stalvey, a technician. "The little gazebo over there? It's an umbrella you'd get in a mixed drink, covered with spackling paint."

"We couldn't find any white bucket trucks, so we bought Matchbox trucks," he added. "We had to take them completely apart, repaint them, and reassemble them."

Various local landmarks are represented in the exhibit. "Each part represents areas of Myrtle Beach and Horry County. We've got Chapin Park and Grainger Generating Station." White points at a tiny structure in the exhibit. "That white two-story building is around 55th Avenue, on the hill."

A few bugs had to be worked out before the exhibit went live. "The trickiest part was trying to get the right voltage from the hand-cranked generator," Stalvey said.

A relic from World War II, the generator was found in Barbara Allen's office closet. "It's an old army crank that generated enough voltage for the phone system to let them make a call. We had to manipulate it to get 15 or 16 volts out of it," recalled Stalvey.

"There was some frustration, but for the most part, it was a lot of laughs," said White. "None of us have an architectural background or anything like that. We were really surprised at how it turned out."