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American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Museum in Wellsburg Sees Upgrades

Photo by Warren Scott Jim Brockman, executive director of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Museum and Educational Center, and Merilee Madera, an independent computer consultant, view a new website Madera has developed for the museum.

WELLSBURG — Visitors to the Brooke County Public Library may have noticed a new handicap-friendly entrance and brighter lights inside.

Those improvements and others are the result of a collaboration between the library and the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Museum and Educational Center, which is inside the library’s building.

Jim Brockman, the museum’s executive director, estimates that about $60,000 in improvements have been made using funds allocated by the boards of the entities.

He and Alex Eberle, the library’s director, said the money includes private donations as well as a $5,000 grant awarded to the museum by the West Virginia Division of Culture and History.

Brockman said handicapped patrons now are able to press a large button to open the front door and a side entrance, which is used by those attending meetings after the library’s regular hours. He said the devices, found in most hospitals and many other businesses, operate on microwave technology with no wiring between the button and door.

The changes are part of an ongoing collaboration between the library and museum that has included a 4,500-square-foot addition that was completed earlier this year.

Brockman said since the May 5 dedication for the addition, many individuals and groups have visited the museum, which began in 2002 with a donation of materials by Ed and Henrietta Jackfert, a former prisoner of war and his wife. It evolved into a museum with hundreds of artifacts, photos and writings donated by other American POWs and their families.

Many learned of the museum through the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor veterans group.

In an effort to further spread word of it, Brockman has worked with Merilee Madera, an independent computer consultant, to create a new website for it.

The new site has a more direct web address, adbcmuseum.com, with photos of the museum’s events and displays, a calendar of upcoming events, links to related websites and a means for people to make monetary donations.

The museum also has a Facebook page at American Defenders of Bataan & Corregidor — ADBC Museum WWII.

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