How Sports Shapes America Programs start at Old Independence Regional Museum Feb. 5th (Posted by Ginger Smith)
Old Independence Regional Museum is proud to announce that it has been selected to receive the Smithsonian Institution’s traveling exhibit titled Hometown Teams: How Sports Shapes America. It captures the stories that unfold in neighborhood fields and courses across America. This exhibit will fill the museum’s Main Gallery for 6 weeks, from the middle of December 2017 through the following January, 2018.
Since its arrival is months away, a long time to wait for such a fine exhibition, the museum team decided to focus on community sports all during 2017. This will include Old Independence Regional Museum’s own complimentary regional exhibit titled Our Teams – Our Pride, focusing on local sports history. Accompanying this exhibit will be a monthly program series on regional sports that will lead up to the Smithsonian exhibit installation later in the year.
The first program in this series, and the opening of the local exhibit, will be held at the museum on Super Bowl Sunday, February 5th at 2 p.m. Dr. Brad Austin, Professor of History at Salem State University in Massachusetts will speak about the origin and development of hometown teams as a cultural phenomenon in small towns across America.
Dr. Austin is a 1994 Lyon College graduate. He earned graduate degrees from the University of Tennessee and Ohio State University. Much of his writing and research are focused on the history of sports. He has spoken in numerous professional meetings and at the Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock.
Future monthly programs at the museum are planned around the subjects of media sports coverage, great coaches, community recreation, sports photography, player safety, regional sports history and more. Watch for future announcements of each of these programs.
What will visitors see in the museum’s year-long exhibit of Our Teams-Our Pride exhibit? Twyla Gill Wright, exhibit curator, said, “Our museum’s local exhibit will be filled with many photos of early community teams in our multi-county region, early sports equipment, a regional high school team mascot matching game, and school trophies. A large kiosk will prompt visitors to view portraits of 8 sports champions from our region and to guess who they are from information provided.”
Wright continued, “We have displays of early high school yearbooks and sports record books, plus a video of Batesville’s Rick Monday saving the American flag from being burned on the baseball field when he was playing for the Dodgers in 1976. Then to top it off, Mike West has created a wonderful miniature diorama of a 1950s community baseball park.”
Many will remember the traditional Thanksgiving Day afternoon football game between Newport and Batesville. A portion of this exhibit will feature items from that rivalry. A place will be provided for visitors to write and post names and memories of their favorite coaches.
For children, young and older, the museum’s “dress up” area will be changed to feature sports clothing such as a band uniform, cheer leader uniforms, football helmets and shoulder pads, and much more. They will be encouraged to dress up, twirl a baton, shake pom-poms and take “selfies.”
The program will be free and open to the public. Normal museum hours are: Tuesday-Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $3.00 for adults, $2.00 for seniors and $1.00 for children. The museum is located at 380 South 9th street, between Boswell and Vine Streets in Batesville.
Old Independence is a regional museum serving a 12-county area: Baxter, Cleburne, Fulton, Independence, Izard, Jackson, Marion, Poinsett, Sharp, Stone, White, and Woodruff. Parts of these present-day counties comprised the original Independence County in 1820’s Arkansas territory.
