INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Ancient farmers learning to cultivate corn probably never imagined the grain barreling down an interstate at 70 mph – whether as cargo for a grocery chain, shucked and stripped for a processor or even in the gas tank.

Corn’s scientific and cultural evolution will be the focus of a new exhibit coming to the Indiana State Museum – but not until August 2009. There is a draft plan for Corn: Powering the World, said Chris Krok, manager of sponsorships and special events for the museum foundation, but the physical exhibit is still being designed at this point.

She explained the public announcement was made Oct. 23 to take advantage of the annual FFA convention in Indianapolis and “to give recognition to the sponsors, as well as to start the ‘buzz’ where it was going to be.”

Such buzz helps the museum when approaching other institutes for the exhibit’s sponsorship, she said, especially since it’s the museum’s first national traveling exhibit, according to Operations and Marketing Assistant Emily Rawlinson.

It will open on the third floor of the museum in nearly two years, available until January 2010. “And then,” Krok paused, letting Case IH Product Specialist Terry Snack finish the thought.

“And then, it’ll travel; get your bags packed,” said an enthusiastic Snack, who attended the announcement to represent his employer as an exhibit sponsor.

Dow AgroSciences is a key local sponsor of the exhibit, through The Dow Chemical Co. Foundation, along with Ford Motor Co. Case IH and National Starch Food Innovation are listed as contributing national support. Museum President and CEO Barry Dressel described the exhibit as “really the perfect expression of our mission.”

He explained it will trace corn from its wild origins through history, especially its role in the lives of Native Americans and their scientific genetic selecting processes, through modern times.

“Corn became the crop that pulled people westward in the United States,” Dressel said, describing the grass as “quite simply, the greatest plant breeding achievement of all time.”

Technology is sure to be a major part of the exhibit.

“As a museum, we’ll tell both sides of the story and let visitors make up their own minds,” he said of the debate surrounding genetically modified varieties, adding the exhibit should “create conversation and spark controversy.

“(I want attendees) never to drive past a green cornfield again and think only of corn on the cob.”

Dow AgroSciences is a major sponsor, said President and CEO Jerome Peribere, partly because a growing global population with higher purchasing power will require more grain-fed meat animals, and corn is the largest agriculture seed market in the world. Dow wants to educate consumers about the use of crop biotechnology because, he said, the company does not see any other way to produce that much food.

“The changes which are required from us … are absolutely phenomenal,” he said.

The Ford Motor Co. Fund, too, has an interest in consumer education about corn – ethanol, that is. James Graham, its community relations manager, recounted how more than 100 years ago, founder Henry Ford used ethanol to power a quadricycle. In 1991, Ford began making flex-fuel vehicles and by 2012, he said the manufacturer intends half its fleet to be able to run on E85 or biodiesel.

The museum tied the announcement with FFA by inviting National FFA Chief Operating Officer Doug Loudenslager to make brief remarks during last week’s ceremony, as well as inviting a National Award finalist in grain production, Scott Guckien, a freshman at Ivy Tech Community College in Lafayette, to speak.

Guckien, whose family has a 2,000-acre corn, soybean and finishing-hog operation in Carroll County, Ind., acknowledged that FFA “has always recognized the importance of corn.” Krok also invited the FFA chapter from Pontiac, Ill., to set up a special biodiesel exhibit of its own (see article on page 3B) for people to peruse following the announcement, while they snacked on caramel corn, corn tortilla chips, corn-infused salsa dip and even Halloween candy corn.