The photos are up, the awards and medals are on display, and a giant cartoon caricature of Marcia Yockey is greeting guests as they walk through the front door of the Newburgh Museum. As part of the Notable Women of Newburgh exhibit, memories of Yockey’s unique and eccentric life are currently on display.
Collected memorabilia ranging from personal Poloraids taken during holiday parades to a television interview with David James in 1986 honoring the local weather anchor known for her wacky evening weather forecasts from 1953 to 1988.
“Most of our special exhibits, about 90 percent of the items are on loan,” says Suzie Byers, the Newburgh Museum’s secretary and display chair. “We had talked to Kay Lant (Warrick County historian), and she had a lot of things on Marcia and it was always in our mind to do something on her. And when we contacted her (Lant) about it, she gave us more names of people to contact and before we knew it, we had a whole exhibit of Marcia.”
The museum had an overwhelmingly positive response to the idea, and many people donated items for permanent use. All of the permanent displays currently in the museum were shuffled to accommodate the size of the special exhibit, and Friends of Newburgh, Inc., donated money for custom display panels so as much as possible could be displayed.
“There were a number of people who donated,” says Byers. “Some of them gave us only one photo and some of them gave us a bunch of things, including a lot of newspapers that we used for reference materials.”
Our Favorite Marcia Story is a binder the museum has set up at the display for guests to write about their own personal memory of Yockey.
“People always say, ‘Oh, I have a great Marcia story!’ so those are coming in and we hope to make it a booklet to sell to benefit the museum,” says Byers.
For more information on the Newburgh Museum, call 812-853-5045.
