To the lunc ol Woild Tobacco Auctioneering Champion Sandy Houston's famous chant. N.C. Sen. Bob War¬
ren and Agriculture Commissioner Jim Graham pulled double doors through a giant museum logo to offi¬
cially open the new N.C. Tobacco Museum in Kenly last month. Others in the photo include Kenly Mayor
Ernest Wilkinson. Jr., museum President Suxanno Bailey, and R.J. Reynolds Vice President Bob Clements.
The people of Kenly turned a $$0,000 R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. challenge grant into more than S300.000
within Iwo years to build the new museum.
PLACES YOU
CAN VISIT:
A
New
N.C.
Tobacco
Museum
In konly I hey are pre¬
serving I lie history of a
way of life.
By JHI WK kI H
One could call Ihe creation of the
Tobacco Museum of North Carolina an
act of yankee ingenuity, but that
wouldn’t be correct: the museum, in
fact, is the brainchild of Southerners de¬
signed to get yankee tourists to stop in
this town of 1,500. Eaeh day. thousands
of out-of-state travelers travel along In¬
terstate 95. a major north-south
thoroughfare, on the western fringe of
Kenly without realizing the historical
significance of the area.
Tobacco is big in Kenly. and has been
since the first white ntan with a mule
and a hoe arrived in the 1700s. Kenly
without tobacco would be the same as
Chapel Hill without UNC or Asheville
without the Blue Ridge Mountains.
"It’s our history, our heritage."
Suzanne Scott Bailey, president of the
museum, says of leaf farming, explain¬
ing that in addition to giving tourists a
reason to stop in Kenly. the museum is
to preserve the history of a way of life
centered around growing tobacco.
The New Building
Opened recently, a new $180,000
building provides 6.(XX) square feet of
museum space — most for displays of
early leaf farming equipment and tools,
although a theater, a restored "country
home kitchen." a gift shop and an of¬
fice will he included. The museum, to
be open II months a year is located
within a peaceful pine grove on a four-
acre tract along U.S. 301. the old north-
south highway that also runs through
Kenly.
The museum, which belongs to the
Kenly community, was bom in 1983 af¬
ter members of the Kenly Chamber of
Commerce began asking each other
how they could get some of the 1-95
travelers to stop in the town. "It was
suggested." Bailey recalls, "that we of¬
fer free tours of tobacco farms. We
thought that was a good idea and we did
it for awhile, but the idea of a tobacco
museum stemmed out of the tours. We
felt we needed a place to show the his¬
tory and heritage involved." Admission
is free.
Bailey, an attractive elementary
school teacher who grew up on her
father Ralph Scott’s tobacco farm at
Kenly. says the people of the commu¬
nity gave the idea overwhelming sup¬
port and she currently has more than 50
volunteers she can call on when assis¬
tance is needed.
Educates Tourists
For the first two years, the museum
was housed in a vacant restaurant along
U.S. 301 and initial response was good,
although that facility was obviously too
small. Bailey explains it is not a part of
the museum’s role to promote the use
of tobacco products, but "to be educa¬
tional.” She likes to relate an experience
with a tourist from Wisconsin. "After
the tour the visitor, a schoolteacher,
said it was the first time he’d ever seen
a tobacco farm, that he had a new out
гг
THE STATE. August 1986