photo by: Submitted photo

Articles from the career of hometown football hero Marvin Kellum are now on display in the Territorial Capital Museum in Lecompton. The museum reopened Wednesday after a COVID-19 closing of nearly three months.

After nearly three months, the Territorial Capital Museum in Lecompton has reopened with a display that celebrates a local sports hero.

The museum, 640 E. Woodson Ave. in Lecompton, reopened Wednesday after closing in mid-March because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is now open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, said Cynthia Breitenbach, a docent at the museum.

The museum’s reopening coincides with the opening of a display celebrating the football career of Lecompton’s Marvin Kellum. That may seem an odd choice for those who associate the museum with the history of the Bleeding Kansas era from the late 1850s through the Civil War, when Lecompton was briefly the state’s territorial pro-slavery capital, but the museum celebrates all of Lecompton’s history. That history includes a wing dedicated to the defunct Lecompton High School, Breitenbach said.

The display traces Kellum’s career from his accomplishments at the local high school to his association with one of collegiate sports’ biggest tragedies to his beating the odds to shine on pro football’s greatest stage, said Paul Bahnmaier, museum curator.

Kellum was on the last football team Lecompton High School ever fielded. The year after he graduated in 1970, the high school closed with the opening of the new unified Perry-Lecompton High School. The 1969 fall season was also the year the state introduced postseason football playoffs, and the Lecompton High School Owls were one of four teams chosen to vie for the eight-man state championship.

Lecompton’s state semifinal game against Lucas ended in a tie, but Lucas was ultimately awarded the victory via a complex tie-breaker method that has not been used since.

Kellum continued his playing career at Wichita State University, although he arrived on campus without a scholarship, Bahnmaier said. As a walk-on, Kellum did not make the fateful Oct. 2, 1970, trip to Utah with the team. During the flight, one of two planes carrying the Shockers crashed into a Colorado mountain, killing the team’s head coach and starting players. Thirty-one of 37 people on the plane did not survive.

The rest of the Wichita State season was canceled, but Kellum was a member of the Shockers when the team played its highly emotional first game a year later, Bahnmaier said.

“His first game was against Arkansas University in Fayetteville on national TV,” Bahnmaier said.

After his college career, Kellum beat the odds to make the Pittsburgh Steelers roster in 1974 as an undrafted free agent, Bahnmaier said. He joined a team that would go on to win four Super Bowls with stars such as Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Lynn Swann, Joe Greene and Jack Lambert.

Kellum would play on two Pittsburgh championship teams. In the 1975 game against the Minnesota Vikings, Kellum shared the headlines with his legendary teammates for his fumble recovery of the second-half kickoff. The recovery set up a touchdown in a game the Steelers would win by a score of 16-6.

“We remember that around here because the TV announcer said ‘Kellum, who played Kansas eight-man football in tiny Lecompton, just recovered a fumble in the Super Bowl,” Bahnmaier said.

Kellum played with the Steelers through the 1977 season before ending his NFL career with the Arizona Cardinals, Bahnmaier said.

Kellum, who still lives in Pittsburgh, has worked with the museum on the display for months, Bahnmaier said. It includes numerous newspaper articles from Kellum’s career, a golden football the NFL gave him for the league’s 50th anniversary, his Steelers jersey and reproductions of his two Super Bowl rings.

“They aren’t the real thing, but they are very impressive,” Bahnmaier said. “We are going to display his helmet, but it hasn’t arrived yet.”

The display will remain at the museum for an indefinite period, Bahnmaier said.

Museum visitors are required to wear a mask and are encouraged to use available hand sanitizer upon entry, Breitenbach said.

The museum has had only a few visitors since it reopened, but Breitenbach expects traffic will pick up once word gets out that it is open and Lecompton’s other museum also opens. Constitution Hall, 319 Elmore St., is scheduled to reopen Wednesday, she said.