Guthrie said goodbye to a staple of its downtown area Saturday as the Oklahoma Sports Heritage Museum held its closing celebration after 28 years of operation.
Members of the OSHM Board of Directors gathered inside the museum along with friends, family and the general public to commemorate a cornerstone of Guthrie attractions. The museum’s extensive collection of Oklahoma sports memorabilia is set to be moved to the Oklahoma Historical Society’s Oklahoma History Center Museum in Oklahoma City.
Since first opening in 1996, the museum has blossomed into one of the most prominent sports museums in the United States and has accumulated countless items related to Oklahoma sports history including OU, OSU and OKC Thunder, as well as dedicated areas to professional athletes that hail from Oklahoma like Jim Thorpe, Mickey Mantle, Shannon Miller and Allie Reynolds.
Also present at the celebration were a couple of current and former sports figures with ties to the museum, including San Francisco Giants assistant hitting coach Damon Minor and former Major League player and coach Mark Ryal.
Museum director Richard Hendricks reflected on the museum’s beginnings and expressed his gratitude for all of those who helped him along the way. Hendricks is one of the museum’s original founding members who has spent the last 28 years making it into what it is today, a pillar of the Guthrie community.
Hendricks closed his speech by relating his museum to how his childhood baseball team, the Brooklyn Dodgers, relocated to Los Angeles in 1958 after playing in Brooklyn since the 1800s.
“Every good thing comes to an end,” Hendricks said. “This is not coming to a complete end, more of a transfer. But what we’ve done here over the last 28 years is coming to an end, and like Yogi Berra said: ‘it ain’t over til’ it’s over.’”