EEUU: Potato museum overhauling exhibits

BLACKFOOT, Idaho — Idaho Potato Museum staff have begun planning their first exhibits overhaul in years, envisioning a small movie theater, interactive touch-screen technology and new content appealing to a broader audience.

A Blackfoot construction contractor, K2 Building, has also gutted a small, vacant restaurant attached to the museum to start work on an eatery specializing in potatoes.

A train caboose parked on the museum property will be converted into supplemental, outdoor bathrooms, meeting a need for visitors who come on tour buses, and the adjacent park will be made into a children’s play area called Potato Land, featuring toy farm equipment.

The museum, which operates on visitor admissions and gift shop sales, has budgeted $40,000 toward the restaurant and $110,000 toward the renovation, with help from outside grants. Both projects should be completed by spring.

Tish Damen, executive director of the Blackfoot Chamber of Commerce and director of the museum, said the eatery will serve baked potatoes, potato soup and fries. She’s in the process of ordering restaurant equipment and has an application pending with the Southeastern District Health Department.

“The No. 1 request we have from visitors is, ‘Well now we’re hungry. We want to eat a potato,’” Dahmen said.

Lynn Leasure, a Southern Utah consultant hired to oversee the exhibits renovation, said touch-screen videos, images and content will be displayed throughout the museum. One exhibit, for example, will include video of former Vice President Dan Quayle’s infamous gaff, when he instructed a child to add the letter “e” to the end of the word potato during a spelling bee. The exhibit will include a Quayle-autographed spud.

Leasure said the theater will house about 10 seats.

The Idaho Potato Commission has supplied the museum with videos and old promotional materials, including from a promotion depicting IPC marketing staff as super heroes and footage of IPC’s Great Big Idaho Potato Truck tours. Local manufacturers have also supplied videos and photographs.

“I’ve picked out probably a dozen of our more popular (videos) and sent them over to them,” said IPC industry relations director Travis Blacker.

One IPC video features actress Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann on Gilligan’s Island, demonstrating the proper way to peel a potato.

Blacker said the museum is a popular stop for IPC tour groups.

“Their plan is to draw more and more people in there to see what Idaho is all about and how important the overall potato industry is in Idaho,” Blacker said.

Museum visitation has spiked this year, reaching 14,500 people, up from 8,800, due largely to increased Yellowstone National Park traffic, Dahmen said.

Leasure has also suggested converting an old furnace room into a mock potato cellar, which would include interactive displays featuring museum mascots Bud the Spud, Potato Patty and Tater Tot. Another point of emphasis will be adding more information on industry pioneers, such as Simplot, Co. founder J.R. Simplot, who reached a handshake agreement with McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc to supply the restaurant chain with french fries.

New content, such as potato poems and songs, will also target children, Leasure said.