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Nearly 100 Quest and Advanced Content middle school students took to downtown Bainbridge Monday morning for a field trip. The main destination: the Decatur County Historical and Genealogical Society Museum. The reason? To prepare for a wax museum display for next year’s bicentennial celebration, where the students will be the exhibits, dressing up to portray influential figures from the county’s history.

Historic Society president Rosalyn Palmer spoke more with the Post-Searchlight about the events. “I got a call from the school, from Wally Landrum,” she said, “and he wanted to know about them coming to tour the museum.” According to Palmer, for the upcoming wax museum event, an emphasis on Decatur County was to be the main focus. “This year, instead of just picking out Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter and Andrew Young, they’re doing Decatur County families, Decatur County citizens. So he wanted them to come and get more of the Decatur County info.”

One problem quickly reared it’s head: with roughly 90 students in Quest and Advanced Content, there was no way the museum would be able to hold them all at once. So the decision was made to split the students up into groups of three, with each group learning something through different activities. One group would tour the museum first, while another would get to relax with sidewalk chalk at the Hook & Ladder, while the third would receive a lesson on the history of the square and Willis Park from Amanda Glover, with each group cycling through each activity.

The actual wax museum event will not be until just before next year’s bicentennial festivities. “Their wax museum will be starting on April 17, a Monday evening, before the bicentennial kick-off on Tuesday,” Palmer explained. “We are also having an event that night. I didn’t want our events to clash, and we are working to try to get their event to be downtown this year.” The students will not only be dressed up as whatever person they’re portraying, they will be making their own props for the event as well.

Should things go as planned, the museum may end up being hosted in the courthouse this year. “It’s really heartwarming to see the interest that the local teachers are placing on their students learning local history,” Palmer said. “There’s so much going on in our community right now, not just downtown, all over, and to see them start learning about our town and our county is pretty neat.”