Last week, the Smithsonian traveling exhibit of Crossroads: Change in Rural America left town. 

After volunteers spent eight hours packing hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces into 16 crates, a semi-trailer hauled the exhibit to Chadron, its last stop before returning to Washington D.C. 

Thanks to the Smithsonian, Humanities Nebraska, the McCook Economic Development Corp., and the McCook Arts Council, the free exhibit was at the Keystone in McCook for nearly two months. Hundreds of students toured the six displays as part of field trips. Dozens of docents (ie., a volunteer guides) guided the kids not just around the exhibit but guided them to think deeper about what they were viewing and experiencing. 

Additionally, hundreds of visitors from the community, around the area and across the state stopped by to check out the visit on loan from the Smithsonian and financed by the U.S. Congress. 

The Smithsonian exhibit is a great example of celebrating what is here. We didn’t have to travel to Washington. It was brought to us. 

The exhibit was an opportunity to learn something new and celebrate being included with a reference to the Buffalo Commons Storytelling Festival and a passing reference to George Norris on the displays.

An exhibit of this caliber doesn’t happen very often. While this may have been the first time it stopped in McCook, hopefully it is not the last. There are other traveling exhibits created by the Smithsonian, which will hopefully make their way to the area down the road. 

While the Smithsonian may have moved on, the month of June is a great of example of refuting the statement “There is nothing to do here.”

This weekend in Community Hospital’s Pro Am, which will bring golfers in from across the country. Even if you don’t golf, the event is still a spectacle to behold and benefits the community.

Next weekend, the 25(1/2) Buffalo Commons Storytelling and Music Festival takes place. Again, national-caliber artists will be descending upon the community, bringing their talents and expertise to McCook’s front door. The Talbott Brothers, originally from Imperial and now residing in the Northwest U.S., will return to the area for the first time in years. Shonto Begay will bring his unique artistic style from the Southwest U.S, to McCook. And author, storyteller and playwright Kevin Kling will be sharing stories throughout the weekend. 

While some of the events require paid tickets, many of the events are free to the public from the kids activities in Norris Alley (between the Fox and Keystone) on Saturday, June 11, 12-3 p.m. to the Voices from the past on Sunday, June 12, 2-4 p.m. at the High Plains Museum. 

And as part of the McCook Chamber of Commerce’s Crazy Days at the end of June, the inaugural Bash on the Bricks will take place Friday, June 24. Norris Avenue will be shut down in front of the Keystone and Fox Theater with music, food and fun.

Events and programs like this don’t just magically appear. Organizations and volunteers put in hundreds of hours to make things like this happen. Why? Because they want to do fun things in their very own backyard. Because they want to bring these types of projects directly to their friends and families and neighbors.

So even if we don’t get involved in putting on these events, the least the rest of us can do is show up. Just coming and enjoying the events shows our support; it shows that we want these types of events in our community; it shows that we can be a place that others will want to visit and want to live. 

And along with all these events, this doesn’t even include all the great things our community offers on a daily basis from visits to the nearby lakes to just strolling around our parks. 

For anyone who says there is nothing to do here, ask yourself: What are you doing to make McCook and our communities even better places to call home? Because all of these events are doing exactly that…making our community an even better place to call home.