School district loaning artifacts to museum

The Blytheville School District has entered into a longterm loan with the Delta Gateway Museum that Superintendent Richard Atwill believes will go hand-in-hand with Blytheville Intermediate School's Native American curriculum, and at the same time, provide the museum with an incredible resource.

The agreement involves 32 pieces, including 18 rare pieces of pottery, that were placed on loan with the museum. The artifacts were re-discovered by Melisa Rutherford, media specialist at Blytheville Intermediate School; other pieces were given to the school district years earlier and had been housed at the former West Junior High School library.

Rutherford remembers that the artifacts didn't necessarily impress her at the time.

"During 1999 and 2000, when our district was being reorganized, (former Blytheville Middle School librarian) Marvel Dickerson moved the pieces to BIS because she didn't want them to be lost," said Rutherford. "Some of the pieces were Native American replicas and purchased with a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities; they were part of a teaching curriculum on Native Americans."

Several years after Dickerson retired from BIS, Rutherford became the school's librarian and began using the bookshelves to store the Native American artifacts. While at the school, Rutherford met Phillip King, a teacher at BIS who told her that he and his father used to hunt for the pieces of pottery when he was very young. Atwill then asked the museum's curator, Leslie Hester, to stop by and tell Rutherford what the artifacts were all about. Atwill came with Hester, and it took Hester just a few minutes to tell Rutherford that the pottery was all original.

"I thought that the artifacts were all replicas," Rutherford said. "That was until Phillip told me differently, and Hester confirmed those thoughts."

Hester said she had "goosebumps" when told that she could house the artifacts at the museum.

"This is late-Mississippian pottery because of its form, styles, methods and materials," she said. "The effigies are more lateral. I'd say it's from the late 1400s to the 1600s."

Atwill said he read that Blytheville was a major stopping-off point for Native Americans from both the north and south, and that it's important for persons to know the history of where they live.

"I was very happy that Hester wanted these artifacts of Native American history," Atwill said. "It's important that the public have access to the antiquities of our area. A school and its community should be one and work well together, and I'm grateful that we were able to loan such rare antiques to the museum.

Rutherford received a copy of the loan agreement, which allows the museum to house the artifacts for five years.

"This is a beginning," she said of the museum's find. "It's a place, not just for sharing, but for the building of a community between the museum and the schools."

Hester emphasized that the artifacts will be environmentally controlled and housed behind glass.

"We'll do our best to preserve the pieces that we have left," she said. "This is a very exciting time, and I hope it's just the beginning of our partnership with the schools. The more partnering we have with the school district, the better able we are to serve the children's needs. It should be a very fruitful partnership."

The 32 artifacts, added Rutherford, all include descriptions of the individual pieces that were written for Dickerson by archaeologist Marion Haynes.

"I really look forward to our schools using the museum with our curriculum," Rutherford said. "It's exciting to have something to share, to house a piece of our community's history. The Delta Gateway Museum will continue that history."