STATE

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finishers shared in a cash prize. The turtles race down a sixty-foot course toward a finish line that was lined with slices of watermelon.”

Officials said at the time the first event brought nearly 4,000 people to Lepanto and is expected to bring between 2,000 and 5,000 people to the town this year.

In addition to a display on the Terrapin Derby, the museum also features several other displays that honor residents, former residents and the town and area’s history.

A section of the museum honors military veterans from Lepanto and nearby towns for their service. Among the veterans honored is Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Jimmy Hendrix, who passed away in 2002.

Hendrix served in Gen.

George Patton’s Third Army during World War II and also served in the Korean War.

The museum features a video interview from Hendrix about his service and has several military uniforms from other veterans on display on the second floor.

Just feet from the military display, there is a small replica of a prisoner of war camp, done by Claude Easton, that was located near Marked Tree during World War II.

Kim Emery, who has worked with the museum, said Easton created the replica of the camp from memory and the replica was donated.

Emery said World War II helped to strip the area of men to work in the fields to plant and chop crops and that the POW camp helped with the issue. Emery said many of the German POW’s, who were among the meanest and sadistic soldiers in the German Army, helped to build the old Lepanto gym but saw it as beneath them to work in the fields. She said her mother, who was German, would sing a German lullaby to the soldiers each Sunday when her mother and father would visit the camp. The museum also honors five members of a sixman football team from Lepanto in a section called “Saga of the Shoe.”

The five members, who each went off to World War II, took a cleat from a shoe with them when they went to war as a remembrance. When they returned home, they put the cleat back in the shoe with the shoe on display at the museum.

The museum has a display honoring the town’s sports heroes as well, including Malik Monk, who plays for the Sacramento Kings and the Fires family of horse racing.

Slack said the reopening of the museum during the Terrapin Derby will give more people an opportunity to learn about the town’s history.

In addition to the event, several area school districts host class reunions while EPC is scheduled to host McCrory Oct. 4 in a high school football game. Slack and others said they are also hopeful that the museum will give the town a boost after facing some difficult days.

She said she remembers a town that was bustling with a cotton gin, busy streets, farming and a theater for residents to enjoy. Now a lot of older residents in the Poinsett County town have either passed or moved away, leaving a lot of the buildings downtown empty.

Emery said there has also been a push to revitalize the town, especially among the town’s young people.

Recently five or six new businesses have opened in the town; and Emery said young people made the move after being tired of being embarrassed by the downtown area. Lepanto is within driving distance of both Jonesboro and Memphis; and is about 25 miles away from the steel mills in Mississippi County.

Emery said investors are also looking at building new houses in the town, with city officials being inundated with calls about housing.

However, Emery said a major need right now is land.