Our Moonshots: Dreaming Boldly for the History We Shaped

Every organization needs practical goals—projects that can be planned, funded, completed, and measured. But I also believe an organization should have dreams so ambitious that they challenge people to imagine what could be possible.

At the Eugene and Beverly Stradwick Heritage Foundation, we call those dreams our moonshots.

Our moonshots are not promises that everything will happen immediately. They are long-term aspirations that give direction to our work. They represent what we hope to build with the support of families, educators, historians, cultural institutions, community partners, donors, volunteers, and people who believe this history deserves to be preserved.

They are bold because the history we carry is worthy of boldness.

A Small, but Mighty Museum

Our first moonshot is the creation of a Small, but Mighty Museum of African American Heritage and History in Wheeling and the Upper Ohio Valley.

The region’s African American history is rich, but much of it remains scattered among family collections, churches, schools, newspapers, libraries, archives, photographs, institutional records, and the memories of community elders.

We envision a welcoming physical and virtual space where this history can be brought together and presented with dignity, accuracy, and imagination.

The museum may be compact in size, but its impact could be enormous. Visitors could explore photographs, documents, artifacts, oral histories, interactive displays, touchscreens, and digital exhibitions. Children could encounter stories that help them see themselves in the history of their community. Residents could discover people, places, and events they may have passed every day without fully understanding their significance.

A museum would give this history a visible home—a place where the community could gather, learn, remember, reflect, and celebrate.

That is why we describe it as small, but mighty.

An Immersive Oral-History Experience

Our second moonshot is an Oral History Immersive Experience that brings history to life at the places where it happened.

Imagine standing at a historically significant location in Wheeling, raising your smartphone, and encountering a virtual storyteller who shares a firsthand account connected to that exact place.

The voice might belong to a artist, former athlete, an educator, a veteran, a church member, a neighborhood resident, a community leader, or an elder remembering an experience that might otherwise be lost.

Through technology, the city itself could become an open-air classroom.

This experience could connect generations while allowing people to engage with history beyond the walls of a traditional museum. It could encourage residents and visitors to explore Wheeling with fresh eyes and to recognize that African American history is not separate from the city’s history. It is woven throughout it.

Technology would not replace the human story. It would help the human story reach people in a powerful, personal, and memorable way.

A Walking Tour of Interpretive Markers

Our first moonshot is a Walking Tour of Interpretive Markers of African American Heritage and History.

Throughout Wheeling are places connected to African American education, faith, business, military service, culture, civic leadership, family life, and community achievement. Some of these places remain standing. Others have been changed, repurposed, or lost entirely. In many cases, nothing visible tells residents and visitors what happened there or why the location matters.

We envision interpretive markers placed throughout the city to recognize the people, institutions, neighborhoods, and events that contributed to Wheeling’s extensive history.

Together, these markers could form a thoughtfully researched walking tour. Residents, students, educators, descendants, and visitors could move through the city while encountering stories that have too often remained unrecognized.

The tour could also include maps, photographs, archival materials, recorded stories, and digital resources accessible by smartphone. It would make history visible within the landscape and remind us that African American history is not confined to a single building or neighborhood—it is present throughout Wheeling.

The Heritage Scholarship Endowment

Our third moonshot is the creation of a Heritage Scholarship Endowment—a perpetual fund supporting students who research and preserve local history.

We envision something larger than financial assistance alone. The program could connect students with mentors working in history, ancestry, archives, museums, education, preservation, and related fields. Students could conduct original research, record oral histories, study local institutions, develop exhibitions, or help identify and preserve endangered historical materials.

Most importantly, this moonshot would help develop the next generation of historians and cultural stewards dedicated to understanding the African American experience in Appalachia.

Preserving history cannot be the responsibility of only one generation. We must prepare young people to inherit the work, expand it, question it, and carry it forward.

An endowment would allow that investment in students—and in the future of our history—to continue for generations.

Why Dream This Big?

Some may wonder why a young Foundation would begin with goals this ambitious.

My answer is simple: because too much history has already been lost.

Every year that passes places more photographs, documents, artifacts, and personal memories at risk. Every story left unrecorded may disappear with the person who carries it. Every young person who grows up without seeing their community reflected in local history is denied part of their inheritance.

We cannot recover everything that has been lost, but we can be courageous about protecting what remains.

Our moonshots give us something toward which to build. Each photograph preserved, each interview recorded, each partnership formed, each student engaged, and each contribution received moves us closer.

We know these ambitions will require time, expertise, technology, funding, trust, and extraordinary collaboration. The Foundation cannot accomplish them alone—and we were never meant to.

These moonshots belong to everyone who believes African American history in Wheeling and the Upper Ohio Valley deserves to be preserved, experienced, studied, and shared.

Help Us Reach for the Moon

I am proud that the Eugene and Beverly Stradwick Heritage Foundation is willing to dream boldly. We are building carefully and responsibly, but we are not limiting our vision to what seems easy today.

We can imagine a child walking into our museum and discovering a story that changes how they see themselves.

We can imagine families hearing the voices of their elders preserved for future generations.

We can imagine visitors standing at historic sites and experiencing the past in ways that feel immediate and alive.

We can imagine students receiving the support and mentorship they need to become the next generation of historians, archivists, educators, and cultural leaders.

Those are our moonshots.

They are ambitious. They will take time. They will require many hands.

But they are possible—and they are worth reaching for.

-T