Great Southern Bank renews History Museum educational sponsorship

The History Museum on the Square in downtown Springfield announced yesterday that Great Southern Bank renewed its sponsorship for the 2025-26 school year of the museum’s Traveling Exploration Trunks.

The educational program reached over 14,000 southwest Missouri students and adults last year, the museum said in a news release. Officials added that Great Southern’s sponsorship funding means the Traveling Exploration Trunks remains available to local educators at no cost, “helping break down financial barriers to hands-on history education.”

Sean FitzGibbons, History Museum executive director, told Springfield Business Journal yesterday that Great Southern’s sponsorship this year was valued at $7,000, as it was last year.

He said that Great Southern’s sponsorship has enabled the Traveling Exploration Trunks program to keep up on maintenance of the frequently used trunks and the educational items they contain. The bank sponsorship funding has also allowed the museum to add an eighth Traveling Exploration Trunk to its original lineup of seven history education trunks. The eighth trunk covers civics and citizenship education in connection with local history, FitzGibbons said.

He said Great Southern’s sponsorship has enabled the museum’s trunk program to greatly expand in reach. When a fee was associated with renting the trunks, the museum was able to get them out to roughly 2,500 students, according to FitzGibbons.

Since the sponsorship originated, Traveling Exploration Trunks have been used by 13,510 students and 918 adults, FitzGibbons said.

“We went from maybe somebody borrowing a trunk a couple times a month to a trunk out every week,” he said.

According to past SBJ reporting, trunks in the program feature source material and educational aids for a variety of topics aligned with Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education learning standards. Topics include Indigenous and pioneer life and art and social history, according to the release.

“This initiative aligns perfectly with our mission of building winning relationships within our community,” said Andrea Brady, community outreach and development manager at Great Southern Bank, in the release. “By providing students with hands-on experiences that connect them to our rich local history, we can empower the next generation to appreciate their heritage and cultivate a lifelong love of learning.”

The sponsorship began last year, according to past reporting, and the trunks in the program are used by local students, community groups and homeschool families.