TEXARKANA - Two more events hosted by the Texarkana Museums System have a distinctively 1970s theme: a table tennis tournament at the Ace of Clubs House this weekend, plus a "Mischief at the Museum" mystery party at the P.J. Ahern Home next weekend.
The TMS will hold the ping pong tournament at 6 p.m. Saturday, accompanied by a post-tournament showing of the movie "Forrest Gump" on the lawn. The BYOB affair will include concessions, and attendees are encouraged to bring blankets and lawn chairs. Tickets are $5 for the movie with tournament play for free.
A pre-tournament demonstration of how to play table tennis is included. First Presbyterian Church donated the ping pong table for the event. The movie connection? Forrest Gump plays ping pong while stationed overseas. In 1971, the year the TMS was founded, an American table tennis team also traveled to China to play matches against the national team there.
The TMS also hosts a mystery party at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 29, with a catered dinner. The theme? The Texarkana Historical Society will open Texarkana's first museum in 1971, but someone is sabotaging the exhibits. Who's going to help? Well, the Scooby Doo crew will search for the dastardly vandals.
The admission price is $40 per person or $35 for TMS members, couples for $70. Tickets must be purchased in advance with May 27 as the registration deadline. The TMS staff encourage attendees to wear '70s-themed vintage clothing.
"It's not based on a real event," said TMS Curator Jamie Simmons in a statement about the event, "but the mystery is set in 1971 when TMS was working hard to open the first museum in Texarkana."
In an interview, Simmons said there's no murder in the mystery, but attendees will play characters and solve the mystery. The Scooby Doo connection stems from its popularity in the late 1960s and '70s, she explained.
"This is going back to our 50th anniversary. We're trying to do things that have a '70s theme and, when possible, in particular a 1971 theme," Simmons said.
The fictional mystery itself is connected to the Museums System's founding, so it's set at the time they were striving to open the museum.
"The mystery is we have someone trying to sabotage our opening, and we keep having these accidents. That's the mystery to solve," the curator said.
The TMS has some vintage clothing they can lend, local resource suggestions of where people can purchase a vintage outfit and a Pinterest board with ideas.
"It's totally optional for costumes, but we do find that it is a lot more fun if people will kind of lean into the theme and dress for it," Simmons said.
(For more information or to register for the ping pong tournament, visit TexarkanaMuseums.org/events, call 903-793-4831, or email [email protected]. For more mystery party details and for tickets, visit the P.J. Ahern Home Facebook page or TexarkanaMuseums.org/events, or you can email [email protected] and call the phone number above.)