Friday final day for traveling exhibit

A reception for the exhibit "Kansans Tell Their Stories" will be held this Thursday at 7:00 p.m. in the Charlotte and Ken Lunt Lobby of the Danny and Willa Ellis Family Fine Arts Center at Fort Scott Community College. This is the last week that the exhibit will be in Fort Scott as it moves on to a new location on its state-wide tour. FSCC has hosted the exhibit since January 25. The public is invited to attend and the event is free of charge.

As part of the reception the members of the Fort Scott project, entitled "The Buried Roots of African American History of Fort Scott," will be on hand to talk about the project, show the DVD, and answer questions. The event will be led by historian Arnold Schofield who was advisor for the project and Sandra Dudley, project director. Committee members include Robert Nelson, Leroy Nelson, Anne Colum, Elouise Young, J.K. Graham, Roy Colum, and Kirk Sharp.

Included in the traveling exhibition are stories about the Orphan Trains in Kansas, Garden City's Vietnamese community, Topeka's Mexican community and the railroad, Volga-German heritage in Collyer, African immigrants in Northeast Kansas, Shawnee's Belgian community, Wichita's El Huerache neighborhood and Fort Scott's African-American heritage.

For five years, the Kansas Humanities Council has supported special Kansans Tell Their Stories projects that have explored what it means to be a Kansan. Many, like those in this exhibit, involved conducting oral histories and researching community heritage. The Fort Scott project was conducted in 2006-2007 and was titled "The Buried Roots of African-American History in Fort Scott, Kansas." The grant committee conducted basic research and recorded oral histories to develop a DVD and a printed booklet that helped present the rich cultural heritage of the African-American community in Fort Scott. The booklet and DVD of the project will be available for purchase.

The Kansans Tell Their Stories project is made possible by funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Kansas Humanities Council conducts and supports community-based programs, serves as a financial resource through an active grant-making program, and encourages Kansans to participate in their communities. For more information visit their website at www.kansashumanities.org.