For the second year in a row, the Pioneer Florida Museum & Village in Dade City will be hosting a traveling Smithsonian Exhibition.
This year, it will be presenting “Hometown Teams: How Sports Shape America,” from March 17 through April 28.
The Pioneer Florida Museum & Village, in cooperation with Florida Humanities Council, will be presenting the program, which is part of the Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street program.
The exhibit will feature a variety of sports, said Stephanie Black, the museum’s executive director.
The Smithsonian does one traveling exhibition a year that travels to six different place in the state, Black said.
“Out of the group from last time, we’re the only ones who got it for a second time in a row,” she said.
The exhibition also will arrive at the Dade City museum first, which helps because the Smithsonian and the other museums all come to help set it up, Black said.
The Florida Humanities also is involved with a family reading project leading up to the exhibition, Black said.
In conjunction with the exhibition, the museum receives grant money and must meet certain requirements, Black said. One of those things is to help a home team in the area, she said.
“We’re looking at Dade City Little League. We’re going to sponsor a team this year,” Black said.
“Hometown Teams” will capture the stories that unfold on the neighborhood fields and courts, and the underdog heroics, larger-than-life legends, fierce rivalries and gut-wrenching defeats. For more than 100 years, sports have reflected the trials and triumphs of the American experience and helped shape the national character. Whether it is professional sports or those played on the collegiate or scholastic level, amateur sports or sports played by kids on the local playground, sports are everywhere in America, according to a news release about the exhibition.
Black said she’s still working on the details regarding what will be part of the exhibit at her museum.
In other news, the museum is working on improvement projects and additional events.
It is using a state grant to pay for the construction of eight new bathrooms.
“Those will help us when we have events here, we don’t have to rent port-a-lets. Nobody likes those anyway,” Black said.
The permanent restrooms will provide more comfort for guests and eliminate the rental costs, she said.
“The grant was for $53,500,” Black said, so the museum just needs to chip in a few hundred dollars to cover the remaining cost.
The museum is also adding a new blacksmith’s shop and a new carpenter’s shop. The blacksmith shop is 24 by 24 and the carpenter’s shop is 24 by 32.
In the blacksmith’s shop, the museum acquired Dade City road bricks to put in the floor.
There are also beams from one of the railroads, to put in the buildings, Black said. Since the buildings weren’t moved there, the staff still wanted it to be full of Dade City history, she said.
In another project, the community is trying to organize a room that will feature an exhibit focusing on black churches and black businesses.
“There’s a woman from Saint Leo University who is doing a lot of work on black history that’s involved with this,” Black said.
The museum also is planning some additional events this year.
The Living History & Civil War Re-Enactments will be on the museum grounds on Feb. 24 and Feb. 25, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with a special school day planned for Feb. 24.
“We’re very excited about it,” Black said.
The event had been held at the museum years ago, but it was in September, which was the wrong time of the year. “It was just way too hot for them.”
The Pioneer Florida Museum & Village is at 15602 Pioneer Museum Road in Dade City. It is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with general admission of $10 for adults; $8 for seniors and $5 for students. Children under age 5 are free.
Revised February 15, 2018
