Dear Editor,

On behalf of our Board of Directors and over 750 members, thank you for your editorial encouraging the permanent location of our museum in LaGrange.

We also want to express our thanks to Shannon Gavin Johnson and her staff for making it possible for us to demonstrate what our mission is and display some of the hundreds of artifacts and antique radios in the exhibit at the Legacy Museum. This came to be because of a recommendation from H. Speer Burdette, of the Callaway Foundation, Bobby Carmichael, former executive director of the Downtown LaGrange Development Authority, and his successor Bill Hunnicutt. Our board met with them last December, and they were interested in our proposal to donate the museum to the city, however, knew little about us.

Formerly, the museum had a small exhibit in St. Marys, Georgia for four years.

According to the St. Mary’s CVB the exhibit attracted 4,000 visitors the last year it was on display.

After spending nearly 18 months searching for a permanent location and meeting with more than a dozen Georgia cities, LaGrange was our choice. We want to give the museum to LaGrange, no strings attached. We would like for it to be open and operated as a nonprofit showcase of artifacts and people who have made, and continue to make, Georgia radio important to its residents since 1922.

We were honored to have Sean Hannity as a guest at our recent awards induction ceremony at the Callaway Conference Center.

While addressing our guests he said, “It doesn’t matter the format or the music, radio touches people’s lives.” And as our mission statement reads, “If the history of Georgi radio and its people are not preserved, one day it will be as if it never existed.”

JOHN C. LONG

LaGrange