October 3, 2025 • 5 mins
In this episode of Arrow on the Air, we speak with Carlee Ashby, a senior double major in Historic Preservation and Anthropology, who was involved in the Malone Park Center for the Arts' Smithsonian Exhibit project, 'Voices and Votes: Democracy in America'.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Arrow on the Air. I'm your host, Ella Tinsley,
and joining me in the studio today is Carly Ashby
from the Historic Preservation Program. Welcome Carly, go ahead and
introduce yourself.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
My name is Carl Ashby. I am a double major
in historic preservation and anthropology. It's my senior year here
and then I'm finishing up my master's next year in
public history with a focus in historic preservation.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Well, welcome in. We're excited to have you here today.
Could you tell me a little bit more about this
project you've recently completed with the Smithsonians.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yes, down in Sykeston, there is a local community outreach
group called day OK. But they reached out to doctor Hoffman,
who's our advisor over in the HP program with this opportunity.
It was more presented as an opportunity for like HP
students to advise them on how to go about creating
a public history like local history themed exhibit because per
(00:56):
the contract of the Smithsonian, they had to have a
local history tie to bring in this exhibit. It was
like progress and voting and rights in America. That was
the theme of the Smithsonian exhibit. So they reached out
to doctor Hoffman because they are community outreach, they're not
a museum, so they didn't know really how to go
about it. And doctor Hoffman talked to one of our
(01:18):
now alum but a student at that time, and he
came into the center and asked a couple of us
to help out, and we agreed. We met with Joey
and Joel from Day OK and we ended up just
creating the exhibit for them. Really, it became less of
an advisal and more of a we're creating it. So
we created three local history aspects, the suffrage and Temperance
(01:41):
movement in Southeast Missouri, which is the piece I more
worked on, the sharecropper strike in Southeast Missouri, and a
local figure Wayne Kretz and his story awesome.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
How does one go about curating those kinds of things?
Like is it primary source work? How you put something
like that large together?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah, So it's a lot of research, a lot of research,
and luckily we had a really good starting point. We
didn't have to just like create ideas from scratch, which
is usually where you're starting off. But the guys over
at Day Off had like great ideas to work off of.
So we split up evenly between the four of us,
because there's four of us working on it. And it
(02:22):
was a lot of going on places like j Store
and the Archives and Library of Congress and going through
and coming through documents and research kind of getting a
general understanding on the topic and then figuring out how
we can take that topic and make it apply to
the people of southeast Missouri. So for Suffragettes, which is
(02:43):
what I worked on, I went through and I learned
about different suffragette movements from like Saint Louis South and
wrote about those so people can see that it's not
just a global thing, like it wasn't just happening in
DC or whatever. This is something that is very close
to home, like is something that they could very easily
relate to. We were very lucky to have community members
(03:06):
of the southeast Missouri area, the Syxton area who I
don't remember her name, but she was a very sweet
old lady and her like great grandma, was a part
of that movement, specifically the temperance movement, the anti alcohol stuff,
and she was like so kind to let us use
her documents and tell us her stories. And it's just
a lot of figuring out people's stories and whose story
(03:28):
we can tell to really make people connect.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
That's awesome. I love how much history, especially in a
place like Cape Girarda that is so historic, how it
just interweaves and comes back around as you know, years
keep going. Anything else you want to highlight. I love
to open the floor to my guests and let them
highlight anything about either this or like your student experience
that you just want to talk about.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, So first and foremost, if you're ever in psychs
and you should go check out Day. OK. They do
a bunch of community programming and they were just in
amazing group to work with, just on the building of
the exhibit a little more, there's a little bit of
struggle because we had to find artifacts. Artifacts are weirdly
hard to come by for someone like Wayne krets. But
(04:12):
there's also like the aspect we had a face of
like we had to be careful with our wording. They
are a community outreach organization, so like the guys were like, yeah,
write whatever, But there's also the aspect of but we're
gonna look over it because we don't care. But the
people miss very will right, and especially with someone so
like polarizing as Wayne Crits, I don't know if you
(04:32):
know his story, but things like that where we had
to like be very careful with what we said about
him because there's people in the area. Some people really
like him, really support what he did. Other people don't
like him as much. This is something that I think
our program does really well in the museum's classes, is
you have to present the history, but you cannot tell
(04:52):
people how they feel about the history. But I think
our program did a very good job preparing us for
something like this, and we we are incredibly blessed with
the opportunity. I'm getting to build another exhibit for the
Reynolds House in town on Canion Mills, which I'm very
excited about. I don't have to do the research this time,
which is not my favorite part, so very happy about that.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Well, that is awesome. We're about out of time, so
thank you again so much for coming in and talking
with me. Thank you for listening to Arrow on the air.
I'm your host, Ella Tinsley. Thanks again for listening, and
we will see you next time.
Welcome to Arrow on the Air. I'm your host, Ella Tinsley,
and joining me in the studio today is Carly Ashby
from the Historic Preservation Program. Welcome Carly, go ahead and
introduce yourself.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
My name is Carl Ashby. I am a double major
in historic preservation and anthropology. It's my senior year here
and then I'm finishing up my master's next year in
public history with a focus in historic preservation.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Well, welcome in. We're excited to have you here today.
Could you tell me a little bit more about this
project you've recently completed with the Smithsonians.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yes, down in Sykeston, there is a local community outreach
group called day OK. But they reached out to doctor Hoffman,
who's our advisor over in the HP program with this opportunity.
It was more presented as an opportunity for like HP
students to advise them on how to go about creating
a public history like local history themed exhibit because per
(00:56):
the contract of the Smithsonian, they had to have a
local history tie to bring in this exhibit. It was
like progress and voting and rights in America. That was
the theme of the Smithsonian exhibit. So they reached out
to doctor Hoffman because they are community outreach, they're not
a museum, so they didn't know really how to go
about it. And doctor Hoffman talked to one of our
(01:18):
now alum but a student at that time, and he
came into the center and asked a couple of us
to help out, and we agreed. We met with Joey
and Joel from Day OK and we ended up just
creating the exhibit for them. Really, it became less of
an advisal and more of a we're creating it. So
we created three local history aspects, the suffrage and Temperance
(01:41):
movement in Southeast Missouri, which is the piece I more
worked on, the sharecropper strike in Southeast Missouri, and a
local figure Wayne Kretz and his story awesome.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
How does one go about curating those kinds of things?
Like is it primary source work? How you put something
like that large together?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah, So it's a lot of research, a lot of research,
and luckily we had a really good starting point. We
didn't have to just like create ideas from scratch, which
is usually where you're starting off. But the guys over
at Day Off had like great ideas to work off of.
So we split up evenly between the four of us,
because there's four of us working on it. And it
(02:22):
was a lot of going on places like j Store
and the Archives and Library of Congress and going through
and coming through documents and research kind of getting a
general understanding on the topic and then figuring out how
we can take that topic and make it apply to
the people of southeast Missouri. So for Suffragettes, which is
(02:43):
what I worked on, I went through and I learned
about different suffragette movements from like Saint Louis South and
wrote about those so people can see that it's not
just a global thing, like it wasn't just happening in
DC or whatever. This is something that is very close
to home, like is something that they could very easily
relate to. We were very lucky to have community members
(03:06):
of the southeast Missouri area, the Syxton area who I
don't remember her name, but she was a very sweet
old lady and her like great grandma, was a part
of that movement, specifically the temperance movement, the anti alcohol stuff,
and she was like so kind to let us use
her documents and tell us her stories. And it's just
a lot of figuring out people's stories and whose story
(03:28):
we can tell to really make people connect.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
That's awesome. I love how much history, especially in a
place like Cape Girarda that is so historic, how it
just interweaves and comes back around as you know, years
keep going. Anything else you want to highlight. I love
to open the floor to my guests and let them
highlight anything about either this or like your student experience
that you just want to talk about.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, So first and foremost, if you're ever in psychs
and you should go check out Day. OK. They do
a bunch of community programming and they were just in
amazing group to work with, just on the building of
the exhibit a little more, there's a little bit of
struggle because we had to find artifacts. Artifacts are weirdly
hard to come by for someone like Wayne krets. But
(04:12):
there's also like the aspect we had a face of
like we had to be careful with our wording. They
are a community outreach organization, so like the guys were like, yeah,
write whatever, But there's also the aspect of but we're
gonna look over it because we don't care. But the
people miss very will right, and especially with someone so
like polarizing as Wayne Crits, I don't know if you
(04:32):
know his story, but things like that where we had
to like be very careful with what we said about
him because there's people in the area. Some people really
like him, really support what he did. Other people don't
like him as much. This is something that I think
our program does really well in the museum's classes, is
you have to present the history, but you cannot tell
(04:52):
people how they feel about the history. But I think
our program did a very good job preparing us for
something like this, and we we are incredibly blessed with
the opportunity. I'm getting to build another exhibit for the
Reynolds House in town on Canion Mills, which I'm very
excited about. I don't have to do the research this time,
which is not my favorite part, so very happy about that.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Well, that is awesome. We're about out of time, so
thank you again so much for coming in and talking
with me. Thank you for listening to Arrow on the air.
I'm your host, Ella Tinsley. Thanks again for listening, and
we will see you next time.
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