After more than five years of silly antics, loads of confetti and dance parties, the Mascot Hall of Fame will close its doors in September.
BP Whiting recently launched an effort to purchase 41 parcels to house campus-style office buildings and green space for its employees along Front Street and 119th Street near Oil City Stadium.
“It is with sadness in our hearts that we must announce that the Mascot Hall of Fame will be closing in Whiting for good on September 14th,” according to a July 22 statement on the Mascot Hall of Fame’s Facebook page. “We have made quite a family in the 5+ years since we opened our doors. We have had the pleasure of sharing in hundreds of your special days and birthdays. We’ve had thousands and thousands of students visit for field trips. We’ve been able to fill gaps in the community with free and reduced programs, food banks, blood drives, backpack giveaways, sensory days, reading programs, and so much more. It has been an honor.”
The Mascot Hall of Fame will go out in style at its Grand FURnale on Sept. 14. For more information, check out https://mascothalloffame.com/event/mascot-mayhem-the-grand-furnale/.
The Mascot Hall of Fame was the brainchild of former Phillie Phantic mascot David Raymond, who started honoring the entertainers online and at live events in 2005. Whiting approached him about transforming his idea into a bricks-and-mortar museum in 2014 and the $18 million, 25,000-square-foot facility opened on Dec. 26, 2018.
“I got a phone call from Whiting (officials) about turning it into a brick and mortar museum — I thought I was being punked,” Raymond said Thursday. “(Former) Mayor Joe Stahura was a dynamic human being and I appreciated his vision. The building had already been designed; it was originally intended to be an African American baseball museum. As the idea grew, we decided to use the whole space.”
Raymond said a feasibility study launched before the museum opened was a sobering report.
“Only about 1-5% of these museums geared toward kids ever get to sustainability,” Raymond said. “Nothing sustains these places except partnerships, donations, rentals, memberships and events. The smallest slice is actually attendance.
“But Mayor Stahura hoped to get us to sustainability. It’s a beautiful small town right next to an oil refinery — The Little Silly Wacky City that Could.”
Former Whiting Mayor Joe Stahura speaks at the Oil City Stadium while Reggy (the mascot) has some fun in the background as school children and city and county dignitaries gathered to break ground on the new Mascot Hall of Fame project in downtown Whiting, IN., on Friday, Oct. 21, 2016. (Mark Davis / Post-Tribune)
It held its first induction ceremony on the weekend of June 14, 2019, which included Chicago Blackhawks mascot Tommy Hawk and Chicago Bulls mascot Benny the Bull.
Raymond said he was disappointed but not surprised that the museum was closing. The museum was open for only about a year before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down most non-critical facilities to the public.
“I think it was working until the pandemic hit in March 2020,” Raymond said. “It was a miracle we didn’t shut down then and there. But they had a great and dedicated staff to keep it going. I look at it kind of like when you hire an artist to make a sculpture in a public place. No one is ever going to interact with it exactly the way you thought.”
When the pandemic waned, morale was a bit low, Raymond said, but in just the last year, things had started to pick up again.
“But when BP says they will be purchasing the property, that’s not an offer you can refuse. You’ve got tax revenues coming in for the next 50 years,” Raymond said. “I’m disappointed but not at Whiting. They were rescued from what some people may have called a folly.”
David Raymond, creator of the Mascot Hall of Fame, beams while in the entrance lobby of 17 giant floating sports mascot heads as one of his favorite highlights of the Mascot Hall of Fame Museum in Whiting in this 2018 file photo. (Philip Potempa/Post-Tribune)
In May, Whiting’s Redevelopment Commission issued a request for proposals to purchase 41 parcels, including the Mascot Hall of Fame. Current Whiting Mayor Steve Spebar said the city-owned museum structure hadn’t generated money for the city in the last few years.
“There’s a significant bond issue that’s tied to the building that the purchaser would have to compensate the city for,” Spebar said in June. “If the mascot museum was sold, it turns the mascot museum from a non-tax-paying budgetary item to a tax-paying property. That’s an immediate financial gain.”
BP submitted the only proposal for the properties, which was opened at a June Redevelopment Commission meeting, and the city has entered discussions with BP to complete the purchase.
The statement indicated that the Hall of Fame is looking for a new physical location: “Until a new location is secured, the MHOF will continue online as it has always been.”
Raymond said he has two events lined up to present Houston Astros’ mascot Orbit and Jacksonville Jaguars’ mascot Jaxson De Ville with their Hall of Fame rings in front of their hometown fans. He also wants to pass on the stewardship of the Mascot Hall of Fame to someone younger to take it into the future.
“I think the world could do with more brilliant stupidity or serious fun,” Raymond said. “In the last few years, we’ve learned a lot about valuing fun during hard times.”
Spebar said in June that officials from other towns have reached out to city officials as possible future destinations for the museum. Raymond said they’ve had interest from officials in Indiana and the Philadelphia area.
“The city was so supportive throughout,” Raymond said. “It’s easy to say that it may have been a silly idea — as we did have concerns with the feasibility — but I think people undervalue fun and silliness.”
Alex Kukulka and Phil Potempa contributed to this report.
