Article and Photos by Linda Charlton
The Bison Needs A Name
The Presidents Hall of Fame has a bison, and museum manager/curator Tommy Candido would like help naming it. The life-size bovine replica is not in the museum proper, it is outside in the picnic area, right by the replica of Mount Rushmore. The bison arrived Saturday from the warehouse of Jack and Randy Zweifel. The two Zweifel brothers have their own events company in Orlando, so having an “American buffalo” just lying around is not that big of a stretch.
The bison is not the only change at the museum, but it is so far the most obvious.
Randy and Jack are among the six children of Presidents Hall of Fame founders John and Jan Zweifel. Jan died on June 2 and John died on December 30, leaving their children in charge, both of the Presidents Hall of Fame and of the perfectly scaled White House replica inside it — a replica which all six children helped create.
As Jack recalls, “We were all in school. A lot was built in our back garage. A lot was built in a warehouse in Dr. Phillips.”
And as John would frequently brag, son Jack personally carved many of the miniature pieces inside the White House.
The museum/attraction is undergoing a facelift, partly due to the pandemic, but mainly due to the deaths of the founders.
I want these to survive,” Randy says, referring to the museum and the replica. “The one thing we keep hearing is ‘I drove by it and I didn’t know what’s inside.’ We need people to know what’s inside.”
When it comes to the museum, John and the Zweifel children were on the same page with one important point: all recognized that there was way more “stuff” than could properly be displayed inside the relatively small museum. John’s approach was to make plans to enlarge the building to three times its size.
“Up to his dying day, John was still drawing sketches and talking about it,” Randy recalls.
The next-generation approach is to de-clutter and re-focus what they already have, and to make more use of social media to promote the attraction. Expanding may or may not be in the future.
“Tommy (Candido) has done a good job,” Randy noted, “but he needs some help.”
Refurbishing the attraction started when it was shut down. Candido painted Mount Rushmore, painted the sidewalks, repaired/replaced some aging brickwork, installed the fence at the picnic area, and re-established the parking lot sign, all in time to re-open on July 1.
“Business has been surprisingly good,” he says, noting that with travel restrictions and capacity restrictions at the larger attractions, people are looking for things to do.
Since John’s death, the three Zweifel brothers have already repainted the build’s exterior. On Saturday, Jack and Randy and sister Janet Bittick were busy working on the gift shop, installing curtains, and removing some of the stock.
“We’re streamlining and refreshing our museum,” Janet said.
“He (John) thought more is better,” Randy noted. “Sometimes it’s not. What we’d like to do is start to put together vignettes depicting presidents, telling stories.”
“We’ve talked about rotating displays,” Janet added. “We don’t know everything that he was working on. Eventually, we’ll get to uncover all of his plans. It will be exciting.”
About the bison: The bison is a boy!
Tommy Candido asks that interested persons submit names for the bison either via the Presidents Hall of Fame Facebook page or in person at the museum, located at 123 N Hwy 27, Clermont, in the shadow of the Citrus Tower.
To learn more about the museum and the educational replicas, go to PRESIDENTS HALL OF FAME.
Visit their website, HALL OF FAME for information on business hours, group sales and directions.
