Kansas City, Mo. ? Promoters of a new, $26 million World War I museum scheduled to open in less than six months are trying to find a way to get the public interested in a war that took place nine decades ago.

Officials at the Liberty Memorial, the nation’s official World War I monument, are unveiling a new logo and creating a promotional campaign that will highlight the educational role of the new museum and its entertainment value.

Executive director Steve Berkheiser says it will be a marketing challenge to get people excited about a museum focusing on the Great War, especially because there are so few witnesses to the war still alive.

“If we can’t establish relevance to the story that we’re trying to tell, then we’re missing a tremendous opportunity not only to showcase a magnificent collection, but also to understand the message, the impact of that war,” Berkheiser said.

The memorial towers above parkland on a hill south of downtown Kansas City. Shut down in 1994 because of deterioration, the memorial was restored in 2002, complete with an area beneath the monument for the new 30,000-square-foot museum.

The Liberty Memorial was dedicated on Armistice Day in 1926, when leaders from five allied powers – Belgium, Italy, France, Great Britain and the United States – gathered in Kansas City. The memorial’s national stature likely will grow if the Department of the Interior approves a nomination to make the site a national historic landmark.

But given the lack of “brand awareness” it generates, a team of Fleishman-Hillard executives and Kansas City public relations specialist Pat O’Neill are designing the new promotional campaign.

They are calling it “The Ultimate Reality Show.”

The museum’s logo will tout its educational role and its entertainment value, starting with the facility’s walk-in bomb crater, realistic battlefield trenches and a tableau of the scarred earth of no-man’s land.

Visitors also will be able to play computerized war games and engage with other high-tech wizardry centered on World War I.

The museum’s gala opening is Dec. 2. It will open to the public after that.