SAVE the Reno County Museum!

Message to the Reno County Commissioners

By Jim Potter

(To be presented September 10, 2025, at the Reno County Commission Meeting, at 9 a.m., in the Veterans Room, Reno County Courthouse, 210 W. 1st, Hutchinson, KS)

Hello, Reno County Commissioners. Thank you for your public service. I understand that you get a lot of flak about taxes being too high. I’m also aware that a good chunk of the taxes is due to entities you do not control, especially the school systems, including USD 308 Hutchinson and the Hutchinson Community College.

I might not be here this morning if I understood why last year the Comisssion voted to decrease the Reno County Museum’s 2025 budget by over 23%. I hope that this year you will help the museum bounce back from that drastic cut.

If part of your mission is to “serve the community through effective leadership and innovation to enhance the quality of life in Reno County,” then I’m here to ask you to increase the county’s financial support of the Reno County Museum so it can work towards achieving its mission: “to collect, preserve, interpret, and share the history of Reno County, Kansas to inspire awareness and appreciation of the past and present for future generations.”

I’m concerned that after last year’s $45,000 reduction in the museum’s budget to $140,000, you may have plans to continue in downward direction. With the current budget, you have reduced the efficiency of the museum staff to a point where they are unable to fulfill the museum’s mission.

Keeping the current budget or reducing it further suggests a self-fulfilling prophecy where the museum is unable to achieve high standards because of a lack of staff. In response, the County Commission may further reduce the museum’s budget by noting the museum’s lack of success.

I’m trying to decide, “Am I watching a choreographed, slow motion, train wreck?”

I can’t imagine trying to run the Reno County Museum with a staff of 2.5 employees. It sounds impossible.

Up until two years ago, I supported the Reno County Museum. This was until there was an upheaval in staff. Prior to that, I enjoyed communicating with Curator David Reed. We helped one another. If you ask AI who was the first sheriff of Reno County, the proper response is Charles Collins. If you ask for a photo of Collins, the image you see will be the one I discovered after thirty years of research. I located Collins’ great-great granddaughter, Jody Johnson Buck. Jody shared photos of Charles Collins and his wife, Loretta McMillan Collins, with me and the museum. The photos were from the time Charles and Loretta lived in Topeka, prior to moving to Reno County.

You can find important documents and photos of pioneer Henry Hartford in the museum. He was a Civl War veteran who was seriously wounded five times. In 1873, Hartford moved to Medora Township in Reno County where he became a successful farmer and livestock breeder.

While working with Curator Reed, he discovered valuable documents and photos about Hartford in a museum in New Jersey which he was able to acquire. When I learned of the expense that could not be covered by the budget, I donated $500. I share this information as an example of how residents of Reno County may support a professionally functioning museum that takes time to communicate with researchers and interested patrons.

To those people who are minimally interested in local history, they may be satisfied with using their phone as a dictionary or encyclopedia, but they don’t know what they don’t know. The museum offers so much more—education, connection, and community.  To me, a historian hobbyist, original artifacts give the viewer a much better opportunity of connecting with another time, place, and culture.

The museum has an original Civil War uniform of Colonel Hartford. It’s incredibly more impressive than a photo. Lynne Hartford, great-granddaughter of Henry Hartford, has also donated artifacts to the Reno County Museum. She is considering donating more, but I told her of my concern about the museum’s viability.

Just a reminder, an accession, the formal process of legally acquiring an object for a museum, is considered public trust–and each of you are public servants.

As I said in my opening, I don’t know the reason you cut the museum’s budget last year and I don’t have a full picture of the demands you have for the 2026 budget, but I’d like to see you increase the museum’s budget so it can begin to improve its operation, and not be on life support. Please, help save our museum! It’s on a slippery slope of reduced funding and reduced personnel which creates an inability to give more programs and to accept and care for important historical artifacts.

Here are some questions for each of you:

1. Has the museum at 100 S. Walnut been receiving the full and proper amount of allocated funds every year from the taxes raised in conjunction with the mill levy?

2a. What is your current point of view regarding the future of the museum at 100 S. Walnut?

2b. Four years from now, do you see the museum being run professionally and achieving its stated mission?

3. Finally, have you heard about the Downtown Hutch Master Plan that was approved in 2024? It shows South Walnut Street between East Ave A and East Ave B being closed to vehicle traffic. The idea is to increase and connect public spaces. This could lead to increased traffic to the Reno County Museum.

Thank you for reconsidering the museum’s future. Increasing its budget can help it recover from the past year of being understaffed and overworked year and help Reno County residents have a brighter future with a better quality of life. A more vital museum will give our residents and visitors a better opportunity to connect with our community.

Jim Potter

Hutchinson, KS 67502

jim@copintheclassroom.com

620-899-3144

Visit the Reno County Museum and see the Vietnam Era exhibit! Click on the museum’s Facebook link below to see part of the exhibit.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1227700728778546