By Patrick Baron

BLOOMINGTON – Red, white, and blue flowers on the four corners of the McLean County Museum of History have been dedicated to Illinois’ bicentennial celebration.

Museum Executive Director Adam Lovell said the museum wanted to do something special to commemorate Illinois’ 200th birthday.

“We’re dedicating this as the Illinois bicentennial garden,” Lovell explained. “We always do some sort of garden landscaping every year. We wanted to up the game a little bit this year so we have the red, white, and blue theme to symbolize McLean County’s contribution to Illinois’ and America’s history.”

Lovell noted the flowers will be on display all summer. He took a moment to recognize a few people who played an important role in getting the flowers put in the ground.

“One of our board members, Russel Francois, he was really instrumental,” said Lovell. “We had our master gardener, Bob Bradley, and he organized a group of about a dozen volunteers, and they were here last Saturday right in the middle of the farmer’s market, right amongst all the chaos.”

Flowers and pots for the garden were donated to the museum by Owen Nursery and Florist in Bloomington. Even with all the hustle and bustle of the farmer’s market going on around the volunteers, Lovell explained the planting was completed in a few hours.

“It was really a community effort to come together, we really didn’t get any outside funding, didn’t use much of the museum’s resources, it was all done by volunteers,” Lovell said.

Lovell also said the museum staff was thrilled to see their institution included on the list of Illinois’ best museums earlier this week.

Patrick Baron can be reached at [email protected].