For too long, Meridian has been a drive-through city for many along Interstate 20.
Organizers hope a new museum featuring the state’s rich arts/entertainment history will change all that.
“The museum will be along I-20, just over the 22nd Avenue, bridge,” Erica Pannell to the Columbus Rotary Club during its Tuesday meeting at Lion Hills Center.
Pannell is the director of development for the Mississippi Arts and Entertainment Experience (MAEE), which is set to open in the spring. The museum, an estimated $43 million project, is being funded by a combination of private, local and state funds.
“It will be an interactive museum, dedicated to education and community development by highlighting the artists and entertainers who have come from Mississippi,” Pannell said.
Pannell said the museum will go beyond the typical collection of exhibits and memorabilia to examine not only the work of the artists and entertainers, but the unique influences that Mississippi had on their art.
“We want to tell the broader story of how our culture, the land, the church and other cultural influences shaped their work,” Pannell said. “Our museum will be organized in such a way to make those connections.”
Pannell said the rotunda of the museum will feature the inaugural MAEE Hall of Fame, many of whom already have museums built in their honor in their hometowns.
“It’s not an effort on our part to take over those stories,” Pannell said. “For example, we don’t want to compete with the Jimmie Rodgers Museum, which is also in Meridian. We want to complement it. We’ll tell part of that story and direct people who want to know more about him to the Jimmie Rodgers museum.
“That’s part of our strategy,” she added. “We want to bring people in, then push them out to the other museums. If you’re interested in Elvis Presley, we’ll direct you to Tupelo. If it’s B.B. King, we want to send them to Indianola.”
Mississippi is in the middle of a museum-building boom of late.
Last year, the Grammy Museum Mississippi opened in Cleveland. In December, two more museums — The Mississippi Museum of History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum — will open next door to each other in Jackson.
The MAEE is one of three museums tentatively set to open in 2018 — the Mississippi Maritime Museum in Pascagoula and a yet-to-be-named children’s museum and discovery center in Columbus.
The latter is a project of the Columbus-Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau. The CVB has purchased the old Elks Building as the site of the museum/discovery center and is well into the design and fundraising stages.
CVB Executive Director Nancy Carpenter said the recent surge in museums is a positive sign.
“I don’t really see all the museums coming on board as competition,” said Carpenter, who as a member of the board of trustees for the Mississippi Archives and History board has worked to bring the civil rights museum to reality. “Each museum tells a unique story, but each one is also part of the bigger story of our state. I think all of them are going to be really good for tourism, so we’re excited to see what’s happening.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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