Coming off one of its most successful years, the Atlas Cement Museum looks forward to 2014.

At its annual meeting held before the close of 2013, the museum trust reported 569 persons toured the museum, including public visitations. Also visiting were 1,674 students and teachers who participated in the museum's educational programs for school children. The museum took part in four days of special programming with Atlas Universals' seventh grade team at the Northampton Area Middle School, involving more than 900 students and staff.

"It must be noted that the total number of visitors is indeed larger than shown, as not everyone who comes to visit, signs the guest book," Larry Oberly, trust secretary, said recently. "If all contacts are totaled, the museum has reached more than 2,275 in 2013."

A highlight in 2013 was a visit from a delegation from Burgenland, Austria, led by Bishop Agidius Zsifkovics of Eisenstadt, Burgenland. The group also visited Coplay, where a Mass was celebrated. The museum hosted visitors from 10 states, including Oklahoma, Texas, New Jersey, Florida, Massachusetts, Ohio, Connecticut, New York, California and Pennsylvania.

New artifacts added in 2013 to the vast collection included union memorabilia that belonged to Roland Roth of Nazareth. The collection tells the story of union organizing and Roth's role as a union official at a Nazareth cement plant.

New landscaping was planted at the museum's exterior from grant proceeds of Northampton County's hotel tax. A photographic inventory of the museum's thousands of artifacts is under way, along with descriptions of each item.

Financial support from the four operating cement mills in the region permits the museum to continue as "a free, no cost facility to everyone."

In a long-standing program, the museum regularly cites a cement worker in the area. Nine such cement workers were honored in 2013, each receiving a photo and biography that ran in The Press.

Atlas Cement Museum Curator Ed Pany played a significant role is quelling an Internet attack by a Bath resident on the Northampton Area High School's use of its Konkrete Kids designation. Pany, along with the NASD, quickly ended the issue, which was published in local newspapers, by linking the Konkrete Kids to the importance of German and cement heritage in the community for over a century.