By John O. Roberts, Curator, St. Clair Historical Museum

The honor of receiving the Humanities Award has affected The St. Clair Historical Museum in a positive way. The excellent coverage of the St. Clair Missourian alerted our community of its importance to the citizens. Of course, over the years, more than 100 people have contributed their individual labor, artifacts and expertise in establishing the Museum. This award should have gone to them. Most citizens did not realize how much love and work was donated to make it a reality. In the beginning there was much apathy. Nothing earth-shaking happened here, such as famous people or events. This has always been a financially-deprived community, and still is. The main source of income was from mining, timbering and the International Shoe factory. Consequently, people did not take pride in their past. However, this is beginning to change, as they now realize the Museum is the "star of St. Clair, Missouri."

No outside funding from governments or corporations has been made available to the Museum, so all revenues have been derived from dues, individual contributions, and fund raising activities. Of the thousands of items displayed, all but three which were purchased, were donated by individuals.

At first there was a great reluctance for the people to donate family items as they feared we would sell them. However, once our integrity was established the items began to flow in. We have alerted the community that if an elder person dies do not destroy his papers or pictures as we would like to review them first. This past week a member of an old family brought me a business letterhead that was his Grandfather's in the 1890's.

Probably, the most heart-warming event is the interest of the school children when they make their tours. For several weeks afterwards they will visit the museum when it is open and will bring their parents with them. In most cases the parents had never visited before. Everyone seems to be very impressed with our facility. Several new programs are being initialized this coming year. One, that should benefit from the Humanities award, is the Sac and Fox Heritage display which we will be showing in March. Very little is known of the American Indians' activity in the area, so this should be a success. I was greatly honored to receive the Humanities Award. It is great to know that people do appreciate your efforts to improve the community.