New employees were introduced and dreams presented Thursday evening during the annual membership event by local supporters of the National Churchill Museum.
"It's really the Friends core group who sees the museum daily," said Tim Riley, the museum's director and chief curator at the event at the Fulton Country Club. "They volunteer with their hearts and really make the museum great."
The National Churchill Museum, on the campus of Westminster College, commemorates the life of Sir Winston Churchill, who came to Fulton 70 years ago and gave his "Iron Curtain" speech predicting a threat from the Soviet Union.
"President Harry Truman and Churchill came here and changed the path of the second half of the century," Riley said.
Other world leaders followed in Churchill's path: Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.
"All of these greats have come here to our home and experienced the pride we have in our legacy," Riley said.
A portion of the Berlin Wall was brought from Germany, resting on a piece of lawn near the museum.
And topping the museum is a gem, the Christopher Wren-designed church brought from London where it stood since 1677, toppled by World War II bombs. The first stone of that church was laid in Fulton 50 years ago, another milestone being celebrated this year.
"Those stones were eyewitnesses to history," Riley said.
Upcoming events at the museum include a director's tea on Saturday, anniversary celebrations Oct. 6 and Oct. 13, Winston Churchill's birthday party on Nov. 30 and a Dec. 10 Victorian Christmas celebration.
About 3,000 students pass through the National Churchill Museum yearly and learn what Churchill had to say. Churchill (1874-1965) was - twice - a British prime minister; journalist, artist and writer; Nobel Literature Prize winner; and First Lord of the Admiralty. In 1963, he was the first of only eight people to be made an honorary citizen of the United States.
Churchill inspired lessons in leadership Riley described as "qualifiers of emotional intelligence" and "building blocks of success." Now the museum will take a greater role in taking those lessons into the new age of information, he said.
"I don't know that Winston Churchill would know what to do with Twitter, but we do," Riley said, laughing.
The next few months will reveal more of the museum's new direction.
Riley also will be hosting a Director's Tea on Saturday at 2 p.m. at the museum.
To register, call 573-592-6242.
"As we embark on the next few months and years, you'll hear all of us telling with great pride what happened here," Riley said.
