ASHLAND, Neb. (AP) - For years, the Strategic Air & Space Museum near Ashland has been known simply as “the SAC museum.”
Later this year, the museum’s name will officially include a direct reference to the Strategic Air Command, the Air Force unit that made its home at Offutt Air Force Base from 1948 until 1992 and gave the museum its start in 1966.
The museum’s board recently approved a plan to change the name after a survey of 800 people found overwhelming support for the change, the Omaha World-Herald reported (https://bit.ly/1z0zU4E ) Saturday.
The museum, which focuses on U.S. Air Force military aircraft and missiles, was dedicated in 1966 at Offutt as the Strategic Aerospace Museum, then an outdoor display of U.S. military aircraft. But to the public, it was the SAC museum because of its close proximity to the command.
The museum was officially renamed the Strategic Air Command Museum in 1992. With some of the aircraft deteriorating outdoors, the museum was moved 25 miles west in 1998 to a 300,000-square-foot complex just off Interstate 80 near Ashland. Three years later, the name was changed to its current one without advance notice.
Many museum supporters believed the name change loosened its connection to the Air Force command and its historical significance.
“My vote has always been to put ’SAC’ back into the SAC Museum,” former museum Chairman Bill Doyle wrote in a letter to the World-Herald.
Museum officials will work with an advertising agency to come up with as many as five ideas for a new name and logo that will reflect the museum’s connection to the Strategic Air Command.
The choices will be presented to the museum’s board in June.
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Information from: Omaha World-Herald, https://www.omaha.com
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