Many in the room remembered the day. Others didn’t live here at the time or were too young to have any recollections.

But now that a display about the way ‘Hometown USA’ got its nickname is up at the Highland Falls Library, all who stop by will have a good feel for what happened back in 1981 when, after 444 days in captivity, 52 American hostages were returned home, and came through Highland Falls.

An exhibit curated by the Town of Highlands Historian Society and Historian Ronnie Coffey and American University student (and Fort Montgomery resident) Grace Suchanyc, and sponsored by the Highland Falls Library, is open through this Saturday, Oct. 5. There are two parts to it – as you enter the library’s community room, the left side of the room features the return of the hostages through Highland Falls, and the right side of the room features the memorabilia collection of former hostage William J. Daugherty.

The opening reception for the exhibit was on September 28. Several dozen people were in attendance as Coffey introduced Suchanyc to speak about how it came to be. It was back in January that she first contacted Coffey with some questions about the ‘homecoming’, and after much communication, this past Summer the two worked on it. Suchanyc originally reached out to Coffey while taking a course called ‘Post Revolutionary Iran’, taught by a professor who escaped Iran during that country’s revolution. For the class, and after talking to Coffey, Suchanyc presented to her class about the U.S. media perceptions of the Iran hostage crisis. She infused her own town’s “local history” into the presentation.

“I want to know more about this time in history and educate people my age – who genuinely know nothing about it – about this huge event that affected my town,” Suchanyc said Saturday. In addition to working with Coffey and sorting through a dozen boxes of Daugherty’s donation to the Historical Society, she interviewed local residents who remembered the event.

“After 45 years, what did I learn that ‘Hometown USA’ stands for?” Suchanyc asked. “It’s for small town Americans who turned out and supported each other and people they didn’t even know.”

After she spoke, Town of Highlands Supervisor Bob Livsey presented Suchanyc with a certificate for her work. Later in the afternoon, Senator James Skoufis stopped by with a similar honor.