Aug. 2—When Isabelle Monk was offered an opportunity to intern at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, she said it wasn’t a question of if, but a question of when she could start.
The University of Idaho junior has spent the summer working at the museum based in Cooperstown, N.Y. The Hall of Fame, a repository that houses more than 40,000 baseball artifacts, has preserved the sport’s history since opening in 1939, all for the sake of the game.
The museum is Cooperstown’s hallmark. Monk said tens of thousands of baseball fans, and numerous Hall of Famers, wait in anticipation for the annual Hall of Fame Weekend Induction Ceremony that happened to take place last weekend.
“(The) most mind-boggling part of it all,” Monk said. “(is how) a town of about 2,000 people with one stoplight … gets probably 30,000 or so people at the induction ceremony.”
Monk was able to meet several baseball legends during what she describes as an “unforgettable weekend.”
She said there wasn’t much to do other than sports growing up in Genesee. Monk said she fondly remembers her dad and papa’s major league games playing in the background, and trips to watch the NAIA World Series in Lewiston.
Coming across the internship is a story that Monk said boiled down to being at the right place at the right time. Last winter, she impulsively took a trip to Scottsdale, Ariz., with her mom, Kim Monk, who serves as the Idaho state director for the Make It With Wool program.
It was there she struck up a conversation with a Hall of Fame curator, who sent Monk a link to apply for the Steele Internship Program a week out before applications were due.
Monk, a marketing and public relations student at UI, landed a special events internship at the museum. A big part of the role was planning and coordinating for Hall of Fame Weekend, which meant she was able to interact with all the living Hall of Famers.