What do you get when you combine the history of the Smithsonian Institution and the love Americans have for hometown sports teams? The answer is a traveling exhibit highlighting the many roles sports play in American society. “Hometown Teams” is now open at the Todd County Welcome Center, in Elkton, and focuses on the stories that unfold on the neighborhood fields and courts, the underdog heroics, larger-than-life legends, fierce rivalries and gut-wrenching defeats.
Nowhere do Americans more intimately connect to sports than in their hometowns. The Kentucky Museum on Main Street states on its website that “Hometown sports are more than just games–they shape our lives and unite us and celebrate who we are as Americans.” Whether it is professional sports or those played on the collegiate or scholastic level, amateur sports or those played by kids on the local playground, sports are ubiquitous in America.
“Hometown Teams” was brought to Elkton by the Kentucky Humanities Council as part of the Museum on Main Street project–a national/state/local partnership to bring such exhibitions to rural cultural organizations. The touring exhibition, a partnership between the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and State Humanities Councils, began in March and will cover 15 communities in Kentucky through Dec. 29, 2018. “Sharing exhibits from our nation’s premier museum with rural Kentucky communities is an endeavor Kentucky Humanities is passionate about,” says KHC Executive Director Bill Goodman. “We knew that Hometown Teams was the perfect exhibit for us to bring to the Commonwealth, given the state’s passion for sports.”
The exhibit in Elkton is open Wednesday through Saturday from noon until 7 p.m., Sundays from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., and Monday and Tuesdays by appointment. For updated information about events taking place in conjunction with the Hometown Teams exhibit, visit the Todd County Welcome Center’s Facebook page. For more information about “Hometown Teams” and other Museum on Main Street exhibitions, visit museumonmainstreet.org
