Mission
The Emerson Hometown Heroes Experience will bring a unique and engaging experience to communities throughout the state of Missouri. The project will celebrate and honor each community’s hometown heroes by gathering their stories, preserving them permanently in a digital archive, and displaying them to the community and the world.
The primary goals of the project are:
- Demonstrate our respect and gratitude to those who have served our country.
- Create a vivid and engaging new resource for educators and students.
- Build stronger communities by sharing the stories of our hometown heroes.
The Emerson Hometown Heroes Experience
The Emerson Hometown Heroes Experience will be a unique and visually stunning mobile display including prominent sponsor recognition throughout. The custom mobile display will be designed and built to create maximum impact with minimal fabrication and operation costs.
The Emerson Hometown Heroes Experience will visit 40 Missouri communities per year, for two days each. These visits will be promoted in advance with press releases, advertising and other methods. The Emerson Hometown Heroes Experience will provide the following free services:
Emerson Hometown Heroes Museum
This climate-controlled, interactive museum will include touch-screen video consoles which display the entire collection of Missouri Veteran Stories.
The museum will engage, educate and inspire visitors with a vivid, interactive experience. Touchscreen video consoles will allow users to search the entire collection of Missouri Veteran Stories. Users will be able to search by name, dates of service, keyword, or a variety of other methods. These Emerson Hometown Heroes consoles will display the veteran interviews and period photos on high-resolution 50-inch LCD video screens.
Emerson Hometown Heroes Interviews
A Hometown Heroes interview crew will visit each community 30 days in advance of the Emerson Hometown Heroes Experience. The interview team will conduct 20 to 25 interviews with local veterans. The team will also conduct brief interviews with local business and civic leaders about the community and the importance of hometown heroes.
For each community, the interview team will produce a 30 to 40-minute video using clips from interviews with local veterans and leaders, as well as period photographs and film footage from the community. These videos will be premiered 30 days later, when the Emerson Hometown Heroes Experience visits the community.
Emerson Hometown Heroes Outdoor Theater
The outdoor theater will provide a dazzling and engaging experience for visitors, projecting the stories of hometown heroes on a giant screen for groups of up to 300.
In each community, Emerson will host a hollywood-style film premier using the Emerson Hometown Heroes outdoor theater. The entire community will be invited to view a customproduced, 30 to 40-minute video featuring veterans and leaders from the local community (described above) Several screenings will be scheduled in most communities.
Emerson Hometown Heroes Messages
Visitors will be invited to record brief video message to be included in the Hometown Heroes archive. These may be recorded by veterans, their family members or others who wish to express their gratitude or share their memory of a Missouri veteran.