Mount Pleasant Magazine Sept/Oct 2016

with the Soviet Union that occasionally brought the world

perilously close to a nuclear confrontation.

Burdette, the former Mount Pleasant town administra-

tor, explained that Patriots Point is a museum, but it’s also

a business that must evolve to survive.

“You have to continue to improve your product. There

are tremendous stories to be told here, and, in today’s

world, telling them takes technology. Kids today don’t

want static displays. They want to push a button and

something happens,” he said.

A few hundred feet from the Yorktown, the USS Laffey,

which served the Navy starting in 1943, embodies Patri-

ots Point’s shift to the world of high-tech in the past six

years, as well as its deviation from what might seem to be

its World War II theme. The Laffey’s Combat Information

Center opened in June, giving visitors an up-close-and-

Photo by Brian Sherman.

Mac Burdette has been executive director of Patriots Point since 2010. Behind him

is the USS Laffey, which served the U.S. Navy from 1943 until 1970.