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National Ag Center & Hall of Fame Reopens: After financial issues forced its closure for most of 2014, the National Agricultural Center & Hall of Fame in Bonner Springs, Kansas—it is near Kansas City—has reopened to the public with a new lease on life following the sale of some of its land that generated an infusion of cash designed to keep open the site, which has been especially popular with school groups ever since it opened in 1965. In addition to the extensive holdings at its 160-acre site, the attraction plans to host more special events and encourage more tourism. Some of the elements within the Ag Center-Hall of Fame complex include: the Gallery of Rural Art; National Agricultural Hall of Fame; Hall of Rural Living; National Farm Broadcasters Hall of Fame; Rural Electric Conference Theater; National Farmer’s Memorial; Museum of Farming; National Poultry Museum; and Farm Town U.S.A., a full-size recreation of a rural village. For more information, visit www.aghalloffame.com, or call 01.913.721.1075.
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New Textile Museum Opens in DC: A new museum has just is opened in downtown Washington D.C., showcasing a wide variety of art, history and culture through ancient textiles and a significant collection of maps and documents on the history of the nation’s capital. George Washington University is opening/reopening the $33 million Textile Museum, with its collection of artifacts that were gathered and displayed during the attraction’s nearly 90-year run at two other buildings another site in the nation’s capital before it closed down as the huge collection was transferred to a six-story site at GWU’s downtown campus. The opening of the new Textile Museum comes just months after George Washington University also acquired one of the nation’s oldest art museums, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and its art school, demonstrating a major commitment to build a much larger profile as a school for the arts. For more information, visit www.museum.gwu.edu, or call 01.202.994.5200.
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John Wayne’s Iowa Birthplace to Open Museum in His Honor: On May 23rd, the small community of Winterset, Iowa is having the grand opening celebration for the John Wayne Birthplace Museum. Local officials, noting that more than a million people have visited the area to tour the four-room home to see where the legendary movie star of the 1930s, 40s, 50s and 60s who died in 1979, hope that the new 6,100-square-foot (566-square-meter) facility will be an attraction that will appeal to the millions who still remember the actor who specialized in roles that offered him up as a tall, strong hero. The only museum in the world dedicated to John Wayne, it will feature the largest diversified exhibit of John Wayne artifacts in existence, including movie posters, film wardrobe, scripts, letters, artwork and sculpture, one of his customized automobiles and a movie theater. For more information, visit http://johnwaynebirthplace.museum/, or call 01.515.462.1044.
