Community Roundtable on March 4 Spotlights Planned Living History Center

02/17/2010 

Three representatives of the Homer-Cortland Community Agency (HCCA) will update the public on the ambitious project to create a Central New York Living History Center during a Community Roundtable on Thursday, March 4, at SUNY Cortland.

The individuals, all volunteers, will discuss their Cortland, N.Y., project to bring to life the community’s industrial, agricultural and military heritage during this talk from 8-9 a.m. in SUNY Cortland’s Park Center Hall of Fame Room. Refreshments will be served at 7:45 a.m. A question-and-answer period will follow the presentation.

The panelists will include Jamie Dangler, board member and a SUNY Cortland associate professor of sociology/anthropology; Hugh Riehlman, a farm owner who is president of the HCCA as well as vice-president of the Brockway Truck Preservation Assoc., Inc.; and Shirley Randolph, a keyboard specialist at SUNY Cortland who serves as HCCA treasurer and president of the Brockway Truck Preservation Assoc., Inc.

The planned volunteer-operated Living History Center at the old A.B. Brown site on Route 11 will combine three separate collections: the Brockway Truck Museum, Ken Eaton’s Homeville Museum, and Tractors of Yesteryear.

The project will offer an interactive journey through hundreds of years of regional history, observed Dangler.

“These anchor collections will display Brockway trucks, antique agricultural equipment, military artifacts and items related to railroad history and model railroading,” she said, adding that the College community benefits by lending volunteers to the project.

 “The Central New York Living History Center will provide teaching and learning opportunities for SUNY Cortland students, faculty and staff. Student interns from the Sociology/Anthropology Department’s Museum Studies Program have been involved in developing a cataloguing system for artifacts in the Homeville collection and we anticipate internship possibilities for students in other areas of study.”

The HCCA has a four-fold mission: to develop a museum complex for the preservation of historical artifacts of local, national and international significance; to educate students from the intermediate grades through college; to contribute to the economic revitalization of Cortland County by creating a museum that will enhance tourism in the Central New York area; and to provide opportunities for volunteers to become involved in community-building activities. More information about the project is available at www.cnylivinghistory.org.

Sponsored by the President’s Office and the College’s Center for Educational Exchange (CEE), the Community Roundtable is free and open to the public.

For more information, contact the CEE at (607) 753-4214 or visit www.cortland.edu/cee.