By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
The Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum in Atchison is once again nominated to be a part of USA Today’s 10Best Reader’s Choice Awards.
For a second consecutive year, the museum is nominated in the Best History Museum category. The hangar museum has come in at number four the last two years, first ranking on the Best New Museum list.
Executive Director Mindi Love Pendergraft says it’s an amazing recognition to be on the national stage among all these other museums
“Some of the museums that are also included like the Heinz History Center and the American Revolutionary Museum up in Philadelphia, those are amazing museums, they’re very large and they’re in very large cities,” Pendergraft tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “So, to be included in a list like that is just really a wonderful opportunity for our museum.”
There is one other museum from Kansas on the list as well, the National Orphan Train Complex in Concordia, in north central Kansas.
Pendergraft says making those lists has an impact on the museum, and it shows, because many people do find them because of it.
“The hard thing to is people are like well I saw it online, but I don’t remember where exactly, but others have absolutely said the USA Today list,” Pendergraft says. “So that’s wonderful especially international and destination visitors as I call them, folks not from the Kansas and Missouri region, the close end they absolutely say that, and we’ve had visitors from all 50 states.”
Pendergraft says every single year visitors from all 50 states have come to the museum through its almost three years, as well as from around 10 to 20 countries with about 40 represented.
Pendergraft says coming at number four is great, and just making the list is an honor in itself, but the hope is to be higher this year
“I’d love to be number one, love to be higher than four, so that’s our goal this year is to really push votes and have a higher ranking than number four, although four is tremendous,” Pendergraft explains.
You can vote daily online for the museum until February 9th. The top 10 list will be announced on February 18th.
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