11 Oct 2010<\/p>\n
Murfreesboro firearms manufacturer Ronnie Barrett was honored earlier this year by the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville through and exhibit that paid homage to Tennesseans whose lives and legacies have contributed to the rich and storied history of the Volunteer State.<\/p>\n
According to Ronald Westphal, a curator at the museum, the exhibit, \u201cTennesseans: A People\u2019s Legacy\u201d, used artifacts to tell stories about outstanding personalities from the 1700s to the present. \u201cIt was designed to give a sampling of the richness of Tennesseans who have over the centuries made our state what it is today.\u00a0 Included among the artifacts was the Ronnie Barrett designed rifle, Model 82A1, that was used in the desert war, Operation Desert Storm.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barrett designed his first .50-caliber rifle back in 1982 in his Murfreesboro garage.\u00a0 While the rifle was used in Operation Desert Storm in the early 1990s, it was officially adopted by the United States Army in 2002 and named the M107.\u00a0 The rifle was recognized in 2005 as one of the Top 10 Great Inventions for the United States military.\u00a0 Barrett rifles have also been fielded by over 50 American allied countries around the world.<\/p>\n
Westphal said, \u201cThe rifle was joined by artifacts representing many other personalities, including the Medal of Honor given to World War One hero Alvin C. York, the Red Cross cap of Mrs. C.A. Craig, the binoculars of early naturalist Emma Bell Miles, the portrait of John Sevier by Charles Willson Peale, an early postman\u2019s wagon from DeKalb County, and recognition of Sarah Childress Polk, a native of Murfreesboro who became the first lady of both Tennessee and the United States as wife of Governor and U.S. President James K. Polk.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
11 Oct 2010 Murfreesboro firearms manufacturer Ronnie Barrett was honored earlier this year by the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville through and exhibit that paid homage to Tennesseans whose lives…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[56,57,37,58,59,47,60,40,53,61],"class_list":["post-15938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-56","tag-artifact","tag-barrett","tag-desert-storm","tag-history","tag-m107","tag-museum","tag-ronnie","tag-state","tag-tennessee"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n