Today’s post is a guest post from Tom Fetters, one of the interns in our Media and Film Relations Department. Party on, Tom!

Like many, I go way back with The Henry Ford — back to my childhood when Dad and Mom loaded the kids into the family car for a day with Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers and George Washington Carver. But there was never enough time to see everything, or talk to everybody.

This makes my internship here especially sweet: Not only do I get to explore and blog about The Henry Ford’s five attractions – Henry Ford Museum, Greenfield Village, the Benson Ford Research Center, the Ford Rouge Factory Tour and The Henry Ford IMAX Theatre — I get to meet the people who make the place so special. People like Shauna Wilson, who planned tonight’s preview party for Rock Stars, Cars & Guitars 2 our summer exhibit this Saturday, May 16.

Shauna has been The Henry Ford’s signature events manager for nearly five years and put together the preview party for the original Rock Stars’ Cars & Guitars exhibit in 2007. So, what’s different about this year’s bash? Less glitz and more grit, Shauna says. The atmosphere of this year’s party — and the whole exhibit itself, in fact — will be more blue-collar than the ’07 version. Food at tonight’s party will include a slider station, a gourmet pizza station, a salsa bar and more, typical of the late-night grub Shauna and her friends might have grabbed a few years ago after a Soundgarden show.

And Shauna says tonight’s entertainment, the Rolling Stones tribute band Hot Rocks, was chosen in part because it has played at top venues such as the House of Blues and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, but also for sheer looks. “Last time, when we were going with a Beatles tribute band, we chose the one with the cutest Paul,” she says. “This year, we needed the Stones band with the scruffiest Keith Richards.”