The McDuffie Musuem board of directors met Thursday night, March 22, and voted to close the museum on Sundays. We looked at the attendance from the middle of August through the middle of March, and decided that not many folks wanted to visit us on Sundays. Therefore, beginning April 1, our new hours will be Tuesdays through Saturdays from noon until 5 p.m. Of course, we will be available for qualified functions at any other time, if the board agrees.
The museum is removing its Black History Month exhibit at the end of April. If you’re interested in seeing a few items pertaining to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, or a lot of artifacts of James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, or two dozen large photos of the black community from about 1905, come see us now. We have been honored to present the history and contributions of African Americans of our country. We will continue to exhibit items of black history in our future exhibits. We know that black history is American history.
Our next exhibit will showcase our community’s dedication to the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life program. We have already hung four posters and put up three other awards showing our great local success in raising funds for this program. It’s a community-wide effort that has produced results of which any area could be proud. The items on display at the museum show how we’re almost always in the top 10 percent of fundraising for our size in the nation. If you have some special items or pictures of past Relays, let us look through them to see if we can use some of them during our exhibit.
We probably won’t ask again, and we need to start planning very soon.
A second feature of the next exhibit will be the 1996 Olympic Torch run through our county. We would like to have five, or six, torches to display. We would like a have a map detailing the run as it passed through here. We would ask you to let us use some of your best photos that you have of the event. We need them soon, so please come see us.
The last part of our next exhibit will be blown-up photos of buildings, roads, people and places. We’ll have eight pictures from Joyce Blevins of the 1931 Bulldog Bark blown up to 24 inches by 18 inches. We’ll also have 10 blown-up photos from Carole Ann Hunt Edging of Miss Vera’s Kiddie Ranch from about 1958. She and her brother Henry have also given the museum the pictured USPO steel bike, which is now on display. We believe Alton Smith used this one around 1950. We request that you would let us look at your local photos of people and places from any era. We would like to find some you may let us display.
We appreciate the local support you’ve given us. If you would like to be a member of the museum, come by and get a membership card and join today. But remember: we are now closed on Sundays and Mondays. Thanks, y’all.
