Museum of the Gulf Coast planning renovations to Sports Hall of Fame

One of Southeast Texas’ hidden gems is getting another facelift.

The Museum of the Gulf Coast will soon receive some major modern renovations to its sports section on the second floor.

“I’ve got Kendrick Perkins’ 2008 championship ring from the Boston Celtics, but I can’t get it on display,” museum director Tom Neal said. “I thought we could do some tweaking. We’e going to go through and this whole place is going to have a rethink button.”

The decision to renovate the sports section comes on the heels of modernization of other museum exhibits. The Music and Notable People Halls of Fame recently underwent changes to add new lighting, displays and interactive features. The same goes for the special exhibit on artist Robert Rauschenberg.

Neal wants to bring the same changes to the sports hall, which is the last Hall of Fame to be updated. Renovations are expected to take around 10 months.

The plan is to tweak current display space to accommodate the numerous Sports Hall of Fame inductees without glass exhibits. For now, these honorees have large placards honoring their achievements, but Neal wants to ensure everyone gets the respect they deserve.

Neal also wants to add music, and interactive video boards that will provide museum-goers the best learning experience possible. These 46-inch touchscreen displays are already in use elsewhere in the museum.

“There’s so many ways to input information so somebody gets something out of it,” Neal said. “It’ll make a real difference.”

The museum director has been working to find funding for the projects through grants and received the final one out a month ago. He plans to again rely on the group who did the original building layouts.

The Museum of the Gulf Coast is located at 700 Procter St. in Port Arthur. It is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

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