Trucks carrying the official Smithsonian Museum on Main Street Program exhibit will roll into Jennings County this Tuesday, and there will be many citizens waiting at North Vernon’s Stellar Building to welcome them.
A Division of the famed Smithsonian Institute, the Museum on Main Street Program is designed to bring high quality exhibits and resources to rural communities across the nation.
Jennings County is one of six Indiana counties chosen to showcase the traveling exhibit titled “Crossroads: Change in Rural America.” Indiana Humanities is bringing the tour to Indiana as a part of the INseperable initiative.
The exhibit at the Stellar Building in Downtown North Vernon will officially open on Dec. 12 and will run for six weeks, until Jan. 26.
The traveling Smithsonian interactive exhibit is designed to track the nation’s movement from rural America farming into industrialization and the digital age.
In addition to the traveling exhibit from the Smithsonian, there will also be a local component to the exhibit highlighting Jennings County History. Volunteers from several local organizations and schools have worked for more than six months to ready the local component of the exhibit.
The effects of changing modes of transportation in the county, the impact of school consolidations and the increasing shift from small family farms to corporation farming are three themes in the local component of the exhibit.
“It’s about building pride in our community and an awareness of where we’ve come, where we are and where we are going, “ said Joanie Van Horn, assistant director of the Jennings County Foundation.
Students and staff members have been very involved in developing the local component of the exhibit. Under the direction of Art teachers Karen Chilman and Barry Hovious, Jennings County High School students have worked on several projects to display elements of Jennings County History.
Art and shop students worked together to make a unique “identity cabinet” to display historical artifacts and mementos from citizens across the county.
Individual students used their senior projects to contribute to the exhibit. Many local businesses also participated in getting the local side of the exhibit ready.
For JCHS Senior Abigail Rowlet, the exhibit became an educational endeavor as well as her senior project when she teamed up with the local business Imagination Graphics. She made banners and a timeline display that aligns local events against major national events during the past 100 years.
“I am just hoping to learn more about how the graphic design process works in order to put together a great exhibit for Jennings County, a place that I love,” Rowlet said.
Other students teamed with the Jennings County Historical Society to do historical research for the exhibit.
Jennings County Historical Society President Chris Asher said, “The best part of the project is that everything designed and collected for the exhibit’s run will be able to be shared and reflected upon for years to come.”
“The local exhibit itself is built to travel so we will be able to take it to all kinds of places,” Asher added. “We can take it to the County Fair, to our local museum and to the public library for all kinds of people to see it.”
Karen Chilman said the opening of the exhibit on the 12th “will be fun. We hope we have great attendance each day.”
