PAOLI – The Orange County Historical Society was once again proud to sponsor the Best of Show Award this year for the Paoli High School’s “Night at the Museum” event with Chris Lindley and his Advanced U.S. History students.
This year’s theme was “Disasters Have Histories:” A Survey of 20th-century American Disasters and Their Impact.
Taylor Patton, who won the 2024 Best of Show-Gold Award for her exhibit, ‘The Forgotten Nuclear Disaster – the Church Rock Uranium Mine Spill,’ examined the Church Rock uranium mill spill in New Mexico in July 1979, when United Nuclear Corporation’s tailings disposal pond at its uranium mill in Church Rock breached its dam.
The accident remains the most significant release of radioactive material in U.S. history, having released more radioactivity than the Three Mile Island accident four months earlier. What made the story even more tangled was the impact on the Native American population, who were the primary residents of the area and most of the miners. This adverse effect on marginalized communities was a common thread through much of our research about disasters in America.
Jonny Shellenburger’s exhibit, ‘ The Night the Circus Stopped—the Hammond Circus Train Wreck of 1918,’ was the group’s Reserve Best of Show-Silver Award and Hoosier Heritage Award winner.
This project explored the Hagenbeck-Wallace circus train wreck, and since it was an Indiana story, it qualified for the Hoosier Heritage Award.
In addition, he did some research at the French Lick-West Baden Museum and its diorama of the circus.
The Bronze Award was captured by Brian Fullington for “Terror in the Golden City” in San Francisco and the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906.
