NEWBERRY — History is literally coming to Newberry as the Smithsonian Institution’s traveling exhibit “Crossroads in Rural America” comes to the Newberry Opera House.
The exhibition will examine the evolving landscape of rural America. The exhibition opens in the lobby of the Newberry Opera House on Dec. 16, 2018, and will remain on display through Feb. 2, 2019.
How did the Newberry Opera House get the opportunity to host a Smithsonian exhibit? Well, it actually started around the time of last year’s Eclipse.
“We just finished coming off the Eclipse, and it was an inspiring day when we had the Eclipse. We had all these people from all over, we had our community involved, and we said, what’s next for us,” said Heather Hawkins, Box Office manager at Newberry Opera House.
Hawkins credits Molly Fortune, executive director at the Newberry Opera House, for finding the grant.
“I worked with another Smithsonian exhibit in a theater in Georgia, intrigued me, why can’t Newberry do it,” Fortune said.
In fact, Fortune put in the application a week prior to the Eclipse. She said this exhibit gives them an opportunity to be a platform beyond their tower, and have a conversation.
“I found the Smithsonian premiering something about rural communities, and said we need to do this. I basically went to the councils and mayor and asked for recommendations, asked for written recommendations from the NASA folks that had just been here, and there you go, we were pegged,” Fortune said.
According to Hawkins, over 100 communities in South Carolina applied, and Newberry was one of six that got it. The Crossroads exhibit, according to Hawkins, is a way to let Newberry ask what’s next.
“Helps us ask ourselves, what we love about our small towns, and what we want to take forward in the future and what we want to challenge ourselves to be innovated about as we move forward,” she said. “The Opera House was a game changer for Downtown, been so many things that have changed in our rural community, what’s next. Let’s honor these things that came before us and transformed our community, and what is next to do that.”
The Opera House has plans to include all of Newberry County. Around the lobby will be posters that say, “Did you Know?” and will touch on something historical in Newberry County. There will also be a slideshow that shows what changed Newberry County. For example, the flood that destroyed Chappells many years ago, or the mill that was the first steam powered textile mill in the country, right here in Newberry.
“What resonated with me, when I went and saw it in Union and Voorhees College, everything I look at, I see us. Although it is not a picture of us, I see Newberry County. To see the connections across America in rural America, and the themes repeat, that has resonated with me the most,” Hawkins said.
The major component of this exhibit is the fact it is supposed to invoke conversation. Visitors will not see Archie Bunker’s chair, but they will see a lot of images, videos and examples of things communities have done to revitalize downtowns.
For example, there is a section on the Rural Electric Authority, and audio of someone remembering the first time the lights came on in the barn. Hawkins points out, if it wasn’t for the Newberry Electric Cooperative, or the Newberry Water and Sewer Authority, a lot of places in the county would not have access to water, sewer or electricity.
At the end of the exhibit, visitors will be able to fill out a postcard. The postcards, provided by the Smithsonian, will ask three to four questions, like “What would you do if you were mayor?”
“Thought provoking questions everyone gets to fill out and we get to keep,” Fortune said.
There will also be the Stories: YES program. The Opera House is teaming up with middle schools and high schools. They put in for a grant that will provide the equipment, and students will use the platform to learn about the community and engage the community, making videos about their history. The Newberry Museum will then take ownership of the videos.
The exhibit will kick off this Sunday, doors open at noon, and the official ribbon cutting will be at 4 p.m.
After the ribbon cutting, guests can go upstairs and watch “Newberry in Color, with speaker Randy Cohen. Cohen is the vice president of Research and Policy at Americans for the Arts, the nation’s advocacy organization for the arts.
Also, mark your calendars for January 22, 2019, as guest author/speaker Tom Poland will lead a discussion about South Carolina’s back roads, along with a book signing at 7:00 p.m.
“Poland is a very well known southern writer. That date he is going to talk to school age children about lost traditions of the south. That evening (he will discuss) South Carolina Backroads, specifically in Newberry,” Fortune said.