Sam M. Sicard Hall of Honor unveiled as part of U.S. Marshals Museum

Fundraising for the U.S. Marshals Museum received a much-needed boost with Friday’s (March 13) news that First Bank Corp. added $500,000 to its donation and is 60% toward a goal to raise another $1 million for the museum to honor the late Sam M. Sicard, who was president and CEO of First Bank Corp.

Sicard was elected president of the large regional bank holding company in 1977 and eventually added the title of bank board chairman. During his tenure, the bank saw remarkable growth. In 1989, the Fort Smith-based bank was formed into a holding company — First Bank Corp. — and acquired National Bank of Sallisaw, Citizens Bank & Trust of Van Buren, Bank of Rogers and Brown-Hiller-Clark & Associates.

He died August 2011 after a sudden heart attack. Prior to his death, he was an advocate for the museum with the bank first donating $500,000 in 2009. At the time it was the largest single cash donation to the museum.

More than 100 gathered Friday at noon at the Blue Lion in downtown Fort Smith to hear the announcement and to learn about new designs for the museum’s gallery space.

Sam T. Sicard, the late Sicard’s son, and who was 35 when his father passed, made the announcement about the bank donating another $500,000, and raising another $1 million to honor his father. Speaking to The City Wire after the event, Sicard said he was approached by a friend of his later father about raising the money in honor of his father as part of a move to name the museum’s planned Hall of Honor the Sam M. Sicard Hall of Honor. The hall is being designed to serve as a memorial space for U.S. Marshals who died in the line of duty.

“We are excited and humbled by the generosity of First Bank Corp,” Jim Dunn, president and CEO of the U.S. Marshals Museum, said in a statement. “They are a major part of this community and for them to capture the vision of the Museum and the effort to bring it to reality speaks to the momentum the project is gathering.”

In less than 30 days, $600,000 of the $1 million goal has been raised, Sicard said.

The elder Sicard was famous for his desire to avoid recognition. So what would he think about this honor?

“In the past, when someone would want to do something for him, he would say, ‘You can recognize me when I’m dead,’ So I’m taking that as permission,” Sam T. Sicard said Friday.

The Marshals Hall of Honor announcement comes just days after U.S. Marshal Josie Wells was gun downed near Baton Rouge, La., while trying to execute an arrest. Wells, 27, was married and his wife is expecting their first child.

The Marshal’s name connected with Sicard. He said one of his father’s favorite movies was “The Outlaw Josey Wales.” He liked the movie because it spoke to him about “courage, fearlessness and taking adversity head on” and service to others.

“And that is a reflection of this young man (Josie Wells) who was killed in the line of duty,” Sicard said, adding that he hopes the child of Josie Wells is one day able to come to the museum and Fort Smith and “see his father’s name here.”

Officials with Boston-based Brent Johnson Design presented their design concepts for the museum’s Hall of Honor and the three permanent exhibit galleries —Marshals Today, Frontier Marshals and A Changing Nation. (See the photo carousel box for images.) Their talk included how the exhibits would connect with the planned educational programming with the museum.

In January 2007, the U.S. Marshals Service selected Fort Smith as the site for the estimated 20,000-square-foot national museum. The museum is to be built on 15.9 acres along the Arkansas River that is being donated by the Robbie Westphal family.

The planned $53 million museum's construction is a three-phase project, starting first with site work before moving to building construction and finally design and installation of exhibits to be housed at the museum celebrating the United States' oldest law enforcement agency. A ceremonial groundbreaking was held in September, and museum officials hope to have the facility open by late 2017.