SALEM, Va. – Folks from the Smithsonian Institute will be in Salem Thursday working on construction of a new exhibit at the Salem Museum and historical society.
The Hometown Teams exhibit highlights how sports played a critical role in our American culture. The museum is going one step further highlighting its own local champions too.
The Salem Museum and its director Fran Ferguson are finally getting their missing link. The museum is in Virginia's Championship City after all, but you wouldn't know it inside the museum.
"The Smithsonian wanted to know, do Salem and the Roanoke Valley love their sports?" Ferguson said. "And we were able to give them a very enthusiastic, oh yes."
The Smithsonian exhibit Hometown Teams brings iconic moments in sports to town, highlighting how sports culture shapes our culture.
Salem is coupling the exhibit with its own sports exhibit, Salem's Champions Celebration Gallery. Assistant museum director Alex Burke curated it. He's a champion himself, winning two state titles for wrestling with Glenvar High School. He said digging into the history was unforgettable.
"I think it's a great opportunity to combine the past with the present, you can look back and you can see people you heard about when you were growing up and what they accomplished but it also really is a good opportunity for kids to strive to be better themselves," Burke said.
The local exhibit covers all the Salem area champions. The names and faces of nearly two thousand people are enshrined digitally on interactive computer exhibits, dating all the way back to the area's early roots.
Physical items line the walls and shelves. There's everything from a recent state football title helmet with a memorial sticker for the late Adam Ward on it, to a jersey from the football game made famous in Remember the Titans. There's even marbles from the national marble champion, now a retired Salem Police officer.
"It was a lot of trying to find people who know the story and just sitting down talking with them and getting their take on what was important to them at the time and how we can preserve it for the future," Burke.
One of the highlights of the collection is a baseball jersey from the original Salem High School, one of the few items saved from a major fire at the school.
There's still a lot of work left to do before the exhibit is unveiled Saturday. It runs through the end of the year, and the local exhibit is now a permanent one. It's a long time coming for the city.
"Having the Smithsonian seal of approval, having their exhibits, having their collection items here is just huge for us," Ferguson said.