About MoonRise Gallery
We are a gallery dedicated to the efforts of local artists, displaying all forms of creative endeavors. Our building was previously the home of Two Birds Bakery and we have retained certain elements of the bakery in our design. Originally, our little brick building was built as the post office by Roy Johnson, grandfather of gallery owner Barbi Hayes
About Glacier Creek Preserve
MoonRise Gallery supports Glacier Creek Preserve through the efforts of Barbi Hayes and Tom Bragg who have been intimately involved with the establishment and development of GCP over several decades.
Glacier Creek Preserve is a UNO natural resource, restored tallgrass prairie system located at 14810 State St., Bennington NE. It is open to the public from dawn to dusk at no charge.
The priority of the Preserve is research and education for K-12 and metropolitan universities and colleges. It provides a complex of habitats involving restored prairie, crop land, wetlands, draws, and creeks; and is managed with prescribed burning to mirror fire’s role in historic tallgrass prairie systems.
Gallery Owners
Barbi Hayes and Tom Bragg
Barbi Hayes is a biologist/environmental scientist working as Hayes Environmental LLC since 1994. Titled as consulting environmentalist, she works with Section 404 (Clean Water Act) wetland and waterway regulatory issues, natural resource assessments, and prairie ecosystem and prescribed fire management. She also assists her husband in field research on sites in the Nebraska Sandhills and Western Australia.
Tom Bragg is a pyro-ecologist professor at University of Nebraska-Omaha, Department of Biology, and Director of Glacier Creek Preserve near Bennington, Nebraska. His areas of research involve grassland and fire regimes as well as dendron-ecology on sites in the northern Great Plains and Western Australia.
Together, they enjoy doing research at Glacier Creek, the SandHills of Nebraska, and various areas of Western Australia. Their best “husband-wife” activity, though, is that of prescribed burning – they believe every couple should burn together!
Managing Artist
Megan Thomas obtained her bachelor’s degree in studio art from the University of Nebraska in Omaha in 2005 and has been keeping up the practice of creating art ever since- mainly painting.
She is very familiar with the gallery space as it was once home to Two Birds Bakery, her bakery business with co-owner Trilety Wade.
Megan maintains daily functions of the gallery as well as shows her work in the space alongside the many talents of MoonRise.