Morthland College gets Gray artifacts

WEST FRANKFORT — Toedy Holley-Gray, widow of the late U.S Rep. Kenneth J. Gray has announced the closing of The Ken Gray Memorial Presidential Museum and the donation of its contents to Morthland College.
“Kenny has had a museum in some form or another since the 1960s,” Holley-Gray said.
The latest iteration opened in Marion’s Illinois Star Centre Mall in 2010. It is filled with photos, letters and artifacts from Gray’s career as a businessman and politician. Gray, who passed away in 2014, served 12 terms in Congress, where he became known as the “Prince of Pork” for the numerous, valuable federal projects he brought to the area including Rend Lake, interstate highways, Post Office buildings and federal housing projects.
Holley-Gray said she cannot keep the museum open and care for the contents anymore, so she is donating the entire collection to the Morthland College Library in West Frankfort.
“Everyone I talked to agreed that Morthland College was the one I should give it to,” she said. “I know Kenny would be very proud to know that Morthland College has it and it will be in his hometown.”
The Morthland College Library will archive and preserve the physical contents of the museum, with an eye toward widening access to the collection. Stephanie Parton, vice president of campus development, said the college is already exploring grant opportunities to digitize the Gray collection and make it available online.
“The trend in preserving artifacts like these is to not only keep the physical artifact, but to digitize it so it can be available to anyone, anywhere,” Parton said.
“We are happy to be able to preserve this history for the community of West Frankfort and all of Southern Illinois,” she said.
Morthland College staff started moving items from the museum location to West Frankfort on Wednesday.