Lowell Milken Center Features New Exhibits and Expands
Loretta George
The unveiling of the exhibit honoring African American Suffragettes Mamie Dillard and Carrie Langston Hughes by Lowell Milken Center Docent Rhonda Hassig, left, and Miah Lugrand, the principal of Pinckney Elementary School, Lawrence, KS. Both Dillard and Hughes lived in Lawrence.
The Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes, 1 S. Main, has expanded its’ exhibits into the park south of the building.
On October 8, the center hosted an unveiling of two Kansas black women who were suffragettes in the movement to allow women to vote. The exhibit was sponsored by a Kansas Humanities Grant and featured Carrie Langston Hughes and Mamie Dillard.
In addition, that day several new exhibits were unveiled in the green space area south of the center, named the Unsung Heroes Park.
“The objectives of the park are to provide a place for visitors to enjoy the pleasant outdoor scenery, learn about unsung heroes, and offer a centralized community gathering space for programs and activities, while also complementing the downtown area,” according to a prior LMC press release.
A Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes screen announcing the new exhibit featuring Kansas Suffragettes Carrie Langston Hughes and Mamie Dillard.
The new outside exhibits in the Unsung Heroes Park are inter-changeable and will be occasionally switched out, Ronda Hassig, LMC Docent, said.
“We are still awaiting murals that will be placed on the north side of the center, facing Wall Street and also on the south side of the center, facing the park,” she said.
The biggest part of the funding for the park was by the center’s founder Lowell Milken. Milken believes “education can awaken the mind, sustain curiosity and strengthen our engagement with others. More importantly, … education has the power to instill in people the impulse to take initiative for the good of others,” according to the LMC for Unsung Heroes website.
Others who helped with the park funding: the American Association of Retired People Challenge Award, The Timken Foundation, and a Sunderland Grant, Hassig said.
Lowell Milken Center Director Norm Conard, left, welcomes the crowd to the unveiling of new exhibits on Oct. 8. Megan Felt, LMC Program Director; Ronda Hassig, LMC Docent; Robert Nelson who sang a moving spiritual as part of the program and Gordon Parks Museum Director Kirk Sharp look on.
Norm Conard, left, watches as Kirk Sharp and Robert Nelson unveil the Gordon Parks exhibit, which is part of the new expanded space for exhibits south of the Lowell Milken Center in downtown Fort Scott.The storyboard, also called a story rail, of Gordon Parks, who had a humble beginning in Fort Scott and went on to be a famed photographer, journalist, author, and film producer.One of the new exhibits features Mary Anning.Chester Nez, a World War II Veteran, who was a Navajo Code Talker in service to his country, is featured on the new story rail in the Lowell Milken Center Unsung Heroes Park.Juanita Moody is a new featured exhibit in the Unsung Heroes Park.Amos Bronson Alcott is newly featured in the Unsung Heroes Park.A waterfall feature adds to the beauty of the Unsung Heroes Park.The greenspace south of the Lowell Milken Center at Main and Wall Street in downtown Fort Scott has new exhibits in the expanded area. The picture is taken from the southside of the center looking south. Main Street is to the right.
