FERRIDAY, La. – The Louisiana Bond Commission on Thursday approved $100,000 for the Town of Ferriday to buy and help renovate an old post office building to be used as the town’s museum.

&uot;That’s great — we’ve been counting on this money,&uot; said Chris Vaughn, president of the Ferriday Chamber of Commerce, which is working with town officials on the project.

&uot;With this money, we’ll be able to attract a lot of people to Ferriday, because these (musicians) have a lot of fans all over the world,&uot; said Mayor Glen McGlothin, referring to the area natives whose memorabilia will be featured in the Ferriday Music Museum.

The town will use $60,000 of the state capital outlay funds to buy the building from the Ater family of Ferriday.

The building will then be transferred to a nonprofit foundation the chamber is forming to manage the new museum. The remaining $40,000 will be used to help renovate the facility.

The 60-year-old Louisiana Avenue building is already being painted as part of the renovation project’s first phase, which is being paid for with a $40,000 grant the chamber received earlier this month from the State Association of Museums.

The rest of the first phase, which has to be completed by the end of December under the terms of that grant, will also include replacing the building’s floors and countertops and, if money and time allow, to prepare some display cases.

Since May 1995, the town’s museum has been housed in a building Concordia Bank owns on E.E. Wallace Boulevard, but volunteers have said the museum needs the additional space the 5,000-square-foot post office building could provide.

The museum now features memorabilia from Ferriday natives Jerry Lee Lewis, Mickey Gilley, the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart and Leon &uot;Pee Wee&uot; Whittaker — all musicians — journalist Howard K. Smith and Ann Boyar Warner, wife of movie mogul Jack Warner.

Music will be the new museum’s main focus, and McGlothin expressed hope that eventually, musicians from throughout northeast Louisiana, such as country star Tim McGraw of Rayville could be featured there.

Town and chamber officials hope to make the facility the ninth museum operated by the Louisiana Secretary of State’s Office — but that plan will have to get legislative approval next spring.

The museum foundation and the Secretary of State’s Office would actually operate the museum together, Vaughn said.