By Broc Anderson
Nebraska Museum Association Attendee
My earliest memory of the Knight Museum is from an elementary school field trip in the early 2000’s. Riding the merry-go-round and riding my bike is my paradise. One day, late in the school year, we load up on a bus from Emerson Elementary to Central Park. We only take a short ride, but so exciting for going somewhere! I walk in with classmates quickly move past the stuffed horse at the entrance. I circle through the array of guns and find my friends. There are other prairie histories on display, but I only take a quick photo of the guns, but never did I think I would be back.
Fast forward to spring of 2013. About ten years later I am now a young college student building a resume in a social studies education degree. I was a lifeguard, but am I smart enough to continue in school? Who would take me? What if I fail? What will I do? Where will I live? How can I live? Every and any question crosses my mind. I don’t know… but I want to try.
By 2016, I found a niche for history. This is fun! I want to make this into a career somehow. I need to be a high school social studies teacher, right? Additionally, I need to “stand out” to future schools, so I need to show any past connections to my hometown museum. Plus, I have always wanted to know more about my own heritage and family origins. In some ways, I need to fill a hole in my heart.
From April 6 – 8, 2025, I feel right back at home, but a little foreign. A few familiar faces, but many new peculiar old interests at the same time. New displays, new projects, and new stories, but still the same feeling of walking into a home that built me. I have four others with me from Lincoln, Fort Robinson, and McCook. I arrive as a director for the Nebraska State Historical Society, but I feel like a kid again exploring the museum all over again. I show them around, and make acquaintances with new and old colleagues. Between the commotion of speakers, friends, and colleagues around the Knight Museum and Sandhills Center, I see one peculiar old interest that still resonates to me. Instead of passing by the stuffed horse, I greet and embrace him and walk past the guns.
The Knight Museum and Sandhills Center matters in a much larger grand scheme of Nebraska museums across the state. Between 100 other Nebraska museum related professionals and myself, I found myself reflecting upon my own experience. In a way, I feel like I have come full circle from the stuffed horse, through the guns on display, and the other related western prairie histories from my childhood. At the same time, it just seems so much better than I remembered as a kid, college student, or the last time I visited the museum. Alliance history matters, and it was on full display as an example of what is possible for many other county historical societies and museum professionals within their own communities. As John McGhehey proclaimed at a luncheon for the conference, he described how much local history matters and the support to the museum is important for the community going forward. I could not agree more.