School Spirit Clothing
The newly-opened School Spirit exhibit at the Old Courthouse Museum features a variety of uniforms, letter jackets, and other clothing items from local schools. While many schools are represented, we do not have artifacts from every school in the county. Like most history museums, we acquire items through donations. So, if you don’t see a particular school in the exhibit, it is likely because nobody has donated things from that school to the museums.
If you would like to help us expand our collection by donating items from local schools, we’d love to hear more about what you have! Please reach out to our Collections staff at (605) 978-7016, and they will walk you through the next steps.
Museums call the process of bringing in new items accessioning. This involves gathering information, assigning a number, taking photos or scans, adding it to our database, and packing it in materials that will help preserve it for the future. Most of our collection stays at the Irene Hall Museum Resource Center, where it remains in a climate controlled, archival environment until it is needed, maybe for a future exhibit or for someone to consult during research.