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Iowa astronaut Peggy Whitson...ITM Heroes Center..

Reprinted courtesy of The Grinnell-Herald Register April 2, 2009. U.S. astronaut and Iowa native Peggy Whitson will key note the inaugural event of the National Transportation Heroes Center of the Iowa Transportation Museum (ITM), scheduled for May 1 at the high school auditorium. Former Gov. Robert Ray and director of the Iowa Department of Transportation (IDOT) Nancy Richardson, co-chairs of the Heroes Center selection committee, will be on hand for the inaugural event. Chuck Brooke, ITM director, promises there will be “some local people” inducted into the inaugural Class of 2009 in the Heroes Center.

ITM plans call for permanent, traveling and on-line exhibits explaining and interpreting the past, present and future of transportation, Brooke says and a key building block of museum offerings is the Heroes Center. Brook says the ITM has defined three categories of heroes and will induct a new class each year into the center.

Exhibit space at the museum will be devoted to each class, and on-line and traveling versions of the center will arrive soon, according to Brooke. The ITM expects to present the stories of the heroes at the museum and on-line through a mix of personal interviews, videos and written stories. ITM plans call for a traveling version to be available to schools, the state fair, and other venues to celebrate the role of transportation in modern life.

The three categories for heroes are designed to recognize people who have made significant contributions in various sectors of transportation, Brooke says. The three categories of heroes are heroes by example, heroes by of valor, and heroes of industry and technology. Heroes in any category can be living or deceased when nominated.

Heroes by example, according to Brooke, are people working in the transportation industry who have performed their jobs in an extraordinary way. Brooke gives as an example a bus driver who has logged a million accident-free miles.

Heroes of valor are transportation workers who have placed their life at risk while on the job, either willingly or unknowingly. Brooke points as examples to pilots who bring passengers on struggling aircraft to earth safely as the captain who assisted in the dramatic Sioux City landing did.

Heroes of industry and technology have made significant breakthrough contributions to transportation or related industry.

Brooke says he ITM is accepting nominations for heroes of all three types. Nomination forms can be found at the ITM web site, www.iowatransportationmuseum.com.

Ceremonies kicking off the Heroes Center will commence at 10:00 a.m. May 1 in the high school auditorium. The public is welcome.

Ray served as Iowa’s governor from 1969 to 1983 and has held numerous business and philanthropic positions since that time. Richardson had worked for the IDOT for 23 years when former Gov. Tom Vilsack appointed her director in 2003. She has continued to serve as director under Gov. Chet Culver.

Brooke says the ITM is working toward its overall vision for the museum I the old Spaulding manufacturing buildings just west of Hwy. 146 on Fourth Ave. A new sig has gone up on Spring St. Brooke says, showing the goal toward which the ITM is working. Brooke hopes work on the site will be able to be performed this summer. “We’re the only museum going that we know of which honors transportation heroes,” Brooke says.