Press Releases

Celebrating 86 years of service in 2015, the North Carolina State Highway Patrol remains dedicated to fulfilling its primary mission — promoting a safer state. A new exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh will highlight the organization’s history and showcase vehicles, firearms, uniforms and more from 1929 to the present. The exhibition North Carolina State Highway Patrol: Service, Safety, Sacrifice will open Saturday, Jan. 31, and run through Aug. 2, 2015. Admission is free. The exhibit was produced in conjunction with the North Carolina State Highway Patrol and the Highway Patrol Hall of History.

“Photographs by Hugh Morton: An Uncommon Retrospective” brings North Carolina’s landmarks, people, events, wildlife, scenery, sports and its oldest university together in a special photography exhibition held Jan. 10-Feb. 22 at Tryon Palace’s North Carolina History Center.

The North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) announces a recent gift of works of modern and contemporary art from the private collection of Jim and Mary Patton. Amassed over a lifetime, the Pattons’ collection includes seminal works by masters of mid- to late-20th-century American art: Milton Avery, Richard Diebenkorn, Jackie Ferrara, Helen Frankenthaler, Adolph Gottlieb, Hans Hofmann, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Motherwell, David Park, George Rickey, Sean Scully, Frank Stella, and many others. The gift includes paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and photographs. On December 10 the NCMA’s Board of Trustees accepted 81 of what will be a total of 100 works from the Pattons’ collection; two were previously given in 2013, and the final 17 are promised gifts to the Museum and will be acquired at a later date.

Ocracoke Island's iconic mail boat Aleta kept the Island connected with the mainland of North Carolina...and the rest of the outside world for years. The old mail boat, Aleta, carried passengers and mail to and from Ocracoke in the 1940s & 1950s.  For many, the mail boat was central to coastal communication.

The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum will pay tribute to Aleta, in a richly illustrated new exhibit that opens April 1, 2015. The exhibit With Love, Aleta runs through February 26, 2016 and is designed to encourage young readers