The Northgate Park Neighborhood Association's Bronto committee is looking for willing volunteers and other aid for the restored dinosaur's birthday party Nov. 15.

According to committee spokeswoman Nancy Rizzo, the group could use raffle prizes, photographs and videos of Bronto, recorded recollections about the statue and stuff to keep kids amused.

The party celebrates the 42-year-old brontosaurus's repair after vandals decapitated it last spring.

"We hope to have additional good news to announce as well," Rizzo writes in an email appeal.   "There are many opportunities to participate and celebrate this joyful success. Bronto continues to hold his head up high thanks to all who cared enough to give."

The party goes on 1 to 4 p.m. on the lawn beside the statue, on Murray Avenue at Ellerbe Creek (just west of the Museum of Life and Science). For information, contact nrizzo@nc.rr.com.

Friends of the restored brontosaurus are selling "Save the Bronto" t-shirts Saturday at the Durham Farmers' Market.

"People really love the t-shirt," Save the Bronto spokeswoman Nancy Rizzo told Bull's Eye this morning.

The venerable dinosaur statue has had its head restored, but the group still wants to raise money for more repairs, repainting and fencing, Rizzo said.

The t-shirts, with a stylized dinosaur drawn by Northgate Park artist Sebastien Florand and the words "Save the Bronto/Save Durham's History" went on sale in mid-July. More than 700 shirts have been sold, Rizzo said in an email, and they have gone into a third printing.

"We have sent t-shirts to California and New York and many points in between," Rizzo said.

Plans are to keep the shirts on sale until November, when the group plans a Bronto Birthday Party. Once repainting is done and a fence put up, t-shirt income will go into a "long-term care plan" in case the statue needs tending later on, Rizzo said.

Vandals decapitated the statue, which has stood at the Museum of Life and Science since 1967, on May 31. A groundswell of public distress led residents of Northgate Park and others in the area to combine forces with the museum and have the landmark repaired.

"It is amazing the attachment folks have to the bronto," Rizzo wrote. "I guess it is a reminder of a simpler time in our lives when life was easier and we enjoyed life's simple things."

Dinosaur fans (and isn't that just about everybody?) — the Museum of Life and Science grandly opens its new, state-of-the-art and -science Dinosaur Trail at 9:45 Saturday morning.

Get there by 9:30 and you can hear the ceremonial remarks.

The new trail is up from the Butterfly House, in the museum's main section on the north side of Murray Avenue. Back on the south side, in what used to be the main section's Pre-History Trail, the vandalized brontosaurus has his head back on.

Another reason to celebrate.

Call it "The Land That Time Forgot" syndrome.

The 1975 movie, based on a 1918 Edgar Rice Burroughs (the Tarzan guy) book, puts a group of British sailors on a remote island where dinosaurs still roam. I must have been 14 when I saw it.

So when my friend Liam took me hiking along Ellerbe Creek and we came upon the hulking bontosaurus in the weeds years ago, I couldn’t help but travel a little bit back in time myself.

I think it’s that way with a lot of folks. That’s why so many got so angry at the unnamed vandals who sawed off the dinosaur’s head last month.

And that's why the museum is just as strongly protecting the identities of the kids who did it.

“The Museum has received both strong positive feedback and questions from our community regarding our choice to use mediation rather than pressing charges or litigation,” vice president Julie Ketner Rigby said in a statement.

The museum decision has irked some Durham residents. John Sideris donated money to help repair the statue and added a note criticizing the museum for not being more transparent. That and other comments on the Duke Park listserv made me call Rigby yesterday.

“Not everybody’s happy with the situation,” she conceded.

But the museum --  which started as a children's museum, remember -- is concerned about the safety of the vandals. Some people were so angry they made threats, with at least one person saying somewhere that those responsible should be shot.

“This is not a situation that we’re used to dealing with,” Rigby told me last night. “We’re prepared for a lot of things, but this is not one of them.”

Sideris spoke with Rigby too and said he came away less upset.

“From my perspective the point of consequences is to improve behavior not to mete out vengeance, as much as that might be what we really want.” he wrote. “Jail or criminal charges may not be the best consequence if the desire is to improve behavior.”

Still, the museum receives tax dollars and is asking the public for money to make repairs. Doesn’t it owe the public more details on how those responsible will pay for their “heinous” act, to use the word of neighborhood leader Mike Shiflett?

Rigby said she would talk with the museum President and CEO Barry Van Deman today and get back to us if she can provide any more information.

UPDATE: Rigby called back this afternoon (Wednesday). She said the museum won't say how many kids were involved, how much they paid in restitution or give details of their community service.

It's official: Durham's decapitated dinosaur will get its head back.

The dino's owner, the Museum of Life and Science, made that official this afternoon.

There's just one thing — 

The Bronto Project to restore the vandalized brontosaurus at the Museum of Life and Science has a pledge of support — $2,000 from Bronto.com, a Durham software firm.

Meantime, the museum is looking into how much repairing the 42-year-old statue by Ellerbe Creek is going to cost — at least, for the initial step of reattaching the head and neck cut off in a nighttime attack May 31.

"We are working in concert with one another," said Nancy Rizzo, one of Project Bronto's organizers.

The project's steering committee is meeting Thursday to plan money-raising. A meeting last week to assess interest drew about 35 people, Rizzo said."The people that were there were really motivated," she said.

The old dinosaur that lost its head this week received a great outpouring of sympathy from all around the town. Next Thursday, good Bull Citizens have the chance to put their bodies where their sentiments are — to the extent, at least, of attending a meeting.

All interested parties are invited to a meeting on the dinosaur's future at 7 p.m., in the Friendly City Civitan Clubhouse, 2510 Glendale Ave. The meeting is sponsored by the Northgate Park Neighborhood Association.

Museum of Life and Science spokeswoman Taneka Bennett told Bulls Eye today that the stolen head has been taken to a safe and secure location pending a decision what to do next.

Restoration, she said, is "certainly" an option on the table. 

The aged brontosaurus at the Museum of Life and Science has lost its head.

A good bit of its neck, too.

"We're very sad," said museum vice president Julie Ketner Rigby.

According to the museum, the dinosaur statue was probably vandalized Sunday night. Part of the neck was found on the ground nearby, but the head remains missing.

"An act like this is just heinous," said Mike Shiflett, a resident of the nearby Northgate Park neighborhood.

Northgate Park and the museum have discussed conserving the statue, which has stood beside Ellerbe Creek since 1967. While scientifically obsolete, the brontosaurus is fondly regarded as a Durham landmark.

Shiflett has offered a $100 reward for recovery of the missing pieces, and other neighbors have been discussing repair since word hit the neighborhood email list Monday morning.

For old time's sake, the museum encourages people to post their images of the Old Dinosaur Trail at http://www.flickr.com/groups/847625@N22/.