KOREAN WAR VETERANS NATIONAL MUSEUM & LIBRARY

DATELINE: FEBRUARY 25, 2009
GOOD NEWS FOR ALL!

The long wait for the opening of a Korean War facility is about to end. Thanks to the benevolence of Denis Healy, CEO of Turtle Wax, and himself a Korean Veteran, we now have the funds to build out a substantial portion of the Museum interior. Since we do not yet have enough funding to erect the building itself we have decided to build out the exhibits and install them in a nearby existing building. The obvious advantage of this is that we can have a facility up and operating right now.

The new facility will be called the Denis Healy Freedom Center and will include a gift shop, an authentic replica of a USO canteen as well as exhibits that will trace the entire chronology of the War, from the period before the War began through Korea today. Also included will be a multipurpose area called Freedom Hall. All of this will be housed in 10,000 square feet of floor space.

The exhibits will be high quality and, when the permanent Museum opens, all of them will be relocated to the new building and become part of the state-of-the-art exhibits. What this means is that visitors to the facility will be seeing the exact exhibits that will be later seen in the Museum, not some replicas.

The gift shop and canteen will be operated under contract by outside firms with expertise in their fields, who will handle inventory and staffing themselves. The gift shop people are already onsite, stocking the shelves, and we hope shortly to have the gift shop online as well, on our website.

Southwest Museum Services in Houston has completed the design phase, which the Board has approved, and has already begun the construction of the exhibits, which will be taken to Springfield and installed after their completion.

Our target date for the official Ribbon-Cutting ceremony is now the later part of April. Planning is underway for the ceremony and the guest list of dignitaries is being compiled. Publicity releases will go out to all the wire services as soon as the date is firm. Once the Center opens, the Rantoul facility will be closed and the remaining inventory transferred to Springfield. We hope to accomplish that by May 1st. Much of the Rantoul inventory has already been sent to Houston, and Southwest is incorporating it into the Center exhibits.

The Center will be open 7 days a week, from 9 AM to 5 PM daily. We are in process of establishing admission charges in various categories, and plan to make them as low cost as possible.

We are working to update our Website at KWNM.com to make it more interesting and inviting, with frequent updates like these plus photographs of work in progress. Taking a lesson from the recent political campaigns, we also plan to provide for online donations.

Once again, we are very pleased to be able to announce that a Korean War facility will be up and operating in just a few weeks. Shortly, we will post the interior design plans on our website for all to see. This will be a first class, high quality facility that all Korean War veterans can be justly proud of and we hope that many of you will make the journey to see it. You won’t be disappointed.

Start the countdown…Liftoff is about to happen!

On behalf of the Korean War National Museum, I would like to welcome you to our new and improved home page. We have redesigned the layout and functionality of this page to create a more interactive experience for visitors to learn more about America’s ‘forgotten war.’ Among these improvements are a Korean War photo slideshow that features facts of historical significance about the war. We’ve also posted our ‘Remember Korea’ video, a sixty-second tribute inviting you to join us in commemorating the brave sacrifices of our veterans! We hope you enjoy our new look and consider supporting this crucial endeavor.

Larry Sassorossi
Executive Director
larrysasso@kwnm.org

Since 1997, a group of veterans and friends have been working to create the first museum devoted exclusively to the Korean War. A national fund-raising drive continues, with support from veterans like Buzz Aldrin, James Garner and Ed McMahon. Meanwhile, we continue to display Korean War artifacts at our temporary location in Rantoul, Illinois.

In March 2007, the Korean War National Museum purchased a site in Springfield, Illinois, across from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum, where we will build a world-class museum to ensure that the historical significance of the Korean War is recognized by future generations.

As noted below in the Progress Updates, we will be moving our museum to Springfield, IL. The museum’s new Information Center will open in spring of 2009.

Sincerely,
Wes Stapleton
President, KWNM Board of Directors