(upbeat music) - Utah Humanities is partnering with the Smithsonian Institution's traveling exhibition service to bring Museum on Main Street exhibits throughout Utah.

Executive Director Jodi Graham will tell us all about it.

Hi, Jodi, thanks for being here.

This is such a great program that you do with the Smithsonian.

What did they call it?

Museums on Main Street.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you for having me today, Mary.

So most people know about the Smithsonian back in Washington, DC.

What most people may not know is they have a traveling exhibition service and one of the programs that they do is called Museum on Main Street.

It's designed to bring Smithsonian exhibitions out into small and midsize rural museums all over the country.

So we have been working with Museum on Main Street since 1994, which, to me, seems like not that long ago.

But when I do the math, it's almost 30 years.

It'll be 30 years next year.

And in that time, over those 30 years, we've done 10 exhibits in 50 communities, reaching millions of people.

So we've been doing it for a long time.

It's a brilliant program, and we're really excited to have this next one coming up that's opening in September.

- That's so great.

So I wanna hear more about it.

It's called Crossroads in Rural America.

- Right.

Right.

So Crossroads: Change in Rural America.

So it takes a look at the history of rural communities sort of over the past hundred years, the changes that have happened, some of the challenges that have happened, and then really inspires and wants people to talk about what is the future of rural America?

What are the strengths?

What's the innovation?

What are the things that we can and should be focusing on as we're moving into the next hundred years of life in rural America?

And it gives local communities a chance to host this national content.

But then the local museum, they'll create their own exhibit telling the local story and there will be free public programming that happens along with that.

So it's a big exhibit, the local exhibit, and then a lot of local programming that happens, too.

It's fantastic.

- It's so great.

Well, thank you for doing it.

Thanks for bringing it to Coalville this time and thanks for being here.

- Awesome.

Thank you.

- And if you'd like to know more about that Smithsonian exhibition with the Utah Humanities called Crossroads in Rural America, it's September 16th through 19th at Ledges Event Center in Coalville, Utah.

Go to utahhumanities.org.

That's utahhumanities.org.

I'm Mary Dickson.

Thanks for watching "Contact."

(upbeat music) - Local events, arts, culture.

It's what brings us together.

Hi, I'm Mary Dickson.

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