Newsletter

AROUND THE STATE

John Lewis is New Executive Director

     The board of directors of Museums Alaska is pleased to announce that John Lewis, a member living in Anchorage, has accepted the position of executive director, effective February 7, 2008. He fills the position held by Michael Hawfield who has joined the history department faculty of the University of Alaska.

      John, who holds a doctorate in history from the University of Kentucky, has been director of the Appalachian Museum at Berea College and has been active in historic preservation and education for the past for more than 25 years. Most recently he served as director of a state-wide member organization for historical preservation in the state of New York.  We welcome John to our museum community in Alaska and he is looking forward to working with everyone in Alaska’s museums.

           The new Post Office Box for Museums Alaska is PO Box 200392, Anchorage, AK 99520. The new phone number for Museums Alaska is 907 306-3409 and the new fax number is 907 308-0048. Museums Alaska email address is now museums@alaska.net.

Please feel free to contact John, introduce yourself, and welcome him to the Alaska museum community.  

Greetings and Farewells:


2006:

Andrew Goldstein is the newest addition to the staff of the Valdez Museum and Historical Archive. He began work as the museum’s Curator of Collections & Exhibits on Tuesday, February 22, 2006.  Arriving from central Connecticut on February 15th with his wife Wendy, Andrew is quickly making Valdez his new home along with his dogs Jemma and Fredrick.  Andrew’s many responsibilities at the museum include overseeing the proper storage and preservation of the museum’s collections, historical research, the presentation of new exhibitions, and involvement in the museum’s publishing ventures.

      Andrew has been involved in exhibition development for museums since 2000.  Working for the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford, he begun his museum career as the researcher for the society’s award-winning exhibition Heroes, Horrors and Heartthrobs: Celebrating Connecticut’s Invention of the Comic Book.  Since then, he has worked as curator for the Huntington House Museum in Windsor, Connecticut and the New England Carousel Museum in Bristol, Connecticut.  Andrew pursues historical research in a variety of subjects, with a book on the American carousel industry currently in development as the result of a research grant from the Early American Industries Association.

Andrew graduated from Trinity College last May with a master’s degree in American Studies, with a concentration in museums and communities.  Andrew obtained his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1994 from the Rhode Island School of Design, a program that included a semester of independent study of Alaskan Native Art at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1992. 

Scott Neel has joined the Dorothy Page Museum in Wasilla as its new museum registrar. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Anthropology (with an emphasis in archaeology). He then completed his Master of Arts and PhD at the University of Nottingham, Nottingham, England in archaeology. Scott came back to the States and worked archaeological projects up and down the East Coast for a year before Joining the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. Four years later, he transferred to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum Collections Management Division where he was a team leader for the move of more than 1,000 objects, including the Enola Gay, the Space Shuttle Enterprise, a Concorde and hundreds of smaller objects, to the new museum facility at Dulles International Airport. He and his wife decided in April of 2005 to move to Alaska and soon after that decision; he was offered the position at the Dorothy Page Museum as the new Museum Registrar.

      Known to museum staff and volunteers throughout the state as “their man at the State Museum” and “their contact for professional advice,” Ken DeRoux has decided to retire. The happy event (for Ken) takes place this spring.

Ken, who is Curator of Museum Services, has held this key position at the State Museum for nearly ten years, during which time he has become a familiar and friendly resource to all those museums and cultural centers wrestling with various thorny problems of achieving best practices. He has managed the important Grant-in-Aid program on behalf of the State Museum, a program that provides funds for large and small museums to solve problems, advance the institutions, and promote museums for the general public. He has faithfully participated in all our annual conferences, as an advisor, a presenter, a panelist, a resource, an evaluator, and as a commentator, and he has attended nearly all our board and various planning committee meetings for the past ten years.

In addition to his distinguished career working for and in behalf of museums, Ken has an even longer and more distinguished career as an artist. A native Alaskan and graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute, Ken not only began showing his paintings early in the 1970s, but also demonstrated an early aptitude for managing arts and museum organizations. Clearly this aptitude owed much to his warm personality and his keen abilities to guide people in group work. His exhibitions have included solo shows, two-person shows, and the biggest juried shows in the state. He has been regularly recognized with awards and grants for his outstanding artistic and writing talents.

For us in the museum world in Alaska, Ken will be deeply missed, but we look forward to hearing of his new exhibitions and his travels, the first of which will be to Turkey.

The Alaska State Museum announced that Scott Carrlee, formerly the State Conservator, has become the Curator of Museum Services, replacing Ken DeRoux, who retire this past summer. Scott sends word to all that “if you have any questions that you used to ask Ken about museum related topics, you can send them my way.  You can continue to ask me any conservation or collections related questions.  My phone number and email remain the same (907 465-4806)  scott_carrlee@eed.state.ak.us.”

     The University of Alaska Museum of the North announces that Angela Linn, Collections Manager in the Ethnology and History Department, will be on temporary leave until May 2007. Her role will be taken by Candice Smith who has worked with Angela for the past two years at the museum.

      The Sheldon Museum in Haines has announced that Randolph Williams, Jr. has joined the museum’s staff as a new custodian. A Tlingit of the Raven/Coho moiety of Sitka, he is most recently from Juneau. He looks forward also to attending the Alaska Vocational Technical Center to study culinary arts with an emphasis on healthy cooking and baking.

      Out with the old and in with the new.  The Alaska State Museum announced after 20 years of service to the Alaska State Museums Mark Daughhetee is retiring from the position of Curator of Exhibits.  Mark has been planning this move for a while and is looking forward to the quiet life of retirement.  Mark and his wife Kathryn will be relocating to sunny Seattle.

      Ellen Carrlee is the new ASM conservator.  She started in her new position on November 13 after 5 years as the Curator of Collections and Exhibits at the Juneau Douglas City Museum.  Ellen misses her old job sometimes, but is happy to be doing conservation full time which is what she was trained for. Her new contact information is:  907 465-2396 and ellen_carrlee@eed.state.ak.us .


Director Takes The Helm (2005)

The Museums Alaska Board of Directors has offered the position of Executive Director to Michael Hawfield of Homer and he has accepted. To those of you who do not know Michael, please read about him in the following description from the presentation of the Award for Excellence in the Museum Profession at the Museums Alaska conference in September. He will be on the job officially as of January 1, 2005.


Michael Hawfield has served Alaska's museum community in a multitude of roles-as officer, fundraiser, administrator, and always with a genial manner and warm professionalism. He personifies all the qualities of Excellence in the Museum Field.

Recently honored by the American Association of Museums for his exceptional professionalism, dedication, diplomacy and service to the field, Hawfield was one of five museum professionals-out of 122 nominated-selected to receive the National Award for Excellence in Peer Review Services.

Since leaving his position as Director of the Pratt Museum in 2002, he has continued his service to the organization as a volunteer. Among other contributions to the Pratt, he writes and records the weekly radio program "At the Pratt" heard on Public radio, KBBI, each Monday at 9 AM.

He has served our statewide organization, Museums Alaska in many capacities. As a member of the board of directors, he has been elected to the offices of President and Vice President. He has coordinated the conference program as Committee Chair for this Anchorage conference and for last year's meetings in Haines. As unofficial development director for Museums Alaska, he has raised thousands of dollars to support the mission and programs of the organization. For the past three yeas he has tackled the long range goal to improve the sustainability of MA, and brought us closer to enduring fiscal stability. He now serves as the Museums Alaska Administrator for the quarter million dollar Rasmuson Arts Acquisition fund, and has earned the admiration of even the most cynical of curators.

This award is given to Michael Hawfield in recognition of his service to Museums Alaska and to all the museums around our state. There is no aspect of Museums Alaska that has not been improved and enriched by his professional contributions.

Statewide

On October 29 the Pratt Museum received a 2004 Governor's Award in the Humanities for Distinguished Cultural Service. The Pratt's long tradition of nurturing collaborative projects with the Alutiiq/Sugpiaq villages of Kachemak Bay is a strong part of its mission to inspire self-reflection and dialogue in its communities. Through traditional skills workshops, a biennial Tamamta Katurlluta festival, and community-based videos, the Pratt has been a catalyst for connections between peoples of Kachemak Bay. The idea for the most recent project, Kiputmen Naukurlurpet-Let It Grow Back, began in the Native village of Port Graham. In the process of making this community-based video, elders and youth came together to share their stories and create a film. Kiputmen Naukurlurpet gave voice to how their language was taken away, its current use in the village, and ends with the question, "Are we ready to bury it, or can we revive it?"

Community-based videos are the heart of the Pratt's major new exhibition initiative, Kachemak Bay: An Exploration of People and Place . They window out beyond museum walls to contemporary life in Kachemak Bay and bring together storytellers to create documentaries in their personal and communal voice. Each is produced collaboratively from start to finish by the storytellers.



The Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum in Anchorage is on a staff search for two positions, an Executive Director and a curator. Send them your resume at 4721 Aircraft Drive, Anchorage 99502, if interested.



Funding of $600,000 over three years has been granted to the Alutiiq Museum for the Qik'rtarmiut Alutiit Language Revitalization Program. The grant will fund a Master-Apprentice program in the Alutiiq language. "This program is just the start of turning the tide on our language loss," says Alutiiq Language Manager, April Laktonen Counceller. On display at the Museum through January: The Sami:Reindeer People of Alaska .



The Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage has been awarded a project to survey the needs of Alaska's arts and culture from an Alaska Native perspective. The one-year study is funded by the Ford Foundation.

On October 4, the Heritage Center opened its doors to a record attendance of 102 students in guided after-school classes. For two hours a day, five days a week the culturally relevant curriculum will stimulate intergenerational learning in the Alaska Native community. Anchorage School District elective credits are granted to every student who attends at least 120 hours each semester. The program is funded by the US Dept of Education. The US Dept of Education has also funded the Center's three-year language grant of $600,000 to create a culturally driven language program for middle and high school students, targeted at preserving the Dena'ina language. The Center is on winter public hours, open for Celebrating Culture Saturdays with special programs.



The Resurrection Bay Historical Society reports progress on the design of their new building, a shared community center with the library. The Architects Alaska plan places the Museum on the main level with three times the square feet of its present area. Meanwhile the Society continues its work on the obituary index, now numbering 2047 people. Their definition of the area to be included covers Seward, Hope, Cooper Landing and points between.



Hearty congratulations to the Valdez Museum for its recent grant award from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The very competitive "Museums for America" program awarded the Museum $9,258 to strengthen and add structure to its local history education program. Of the 829 "Museums for America" applications received nationwide, only 186 were funded. The Valdez Museum has served over 1000 local and rural students in the 2003-2004 school year. This grant funding proposes to integrate Museum curriculum with the Valdez City School curriculum so that it is more readily available for future use.



The Alaska State Museum's collections are now available in an online database. Go to their Web site www.museums.state.ak.us and follow the links. The database features the entire combined collections with approximately 32,000 objects of which more than 5000 have digital images. Museum Registrar Donna Baron oversaw the project, which began six months ago with financial support from the Friends of the Alaska State Museum. "I'm sure the founders of the Territorial Museum back in 1900 could not dream of how the collection would be shared with everyone this way," Baron says.

The State Museum's biennial photographic art exhibition, Alaska Positive, is continuing its statewide tour with scheduled display through December at the Skagway Museum and Archives then on to the Ketchikan Historical Museum until February 14.



Planning for the Basket Makers Conference Number 2 is underway with coordination assistance from the Southeast Alaska Indian Cultural Center . Please contact Gail Johansen Peterson for more information. The conference will be held this year in Sitka and was a rousing success when held in Ketchikan two years ago.



The Kodiak Maritime Museum is a dream with lots of energy. The physical building is still a vision, but the museum's interpretive illustrated signs along St. Paul harbor already show Kodiak's centuries-old bond with the sea. A new publication Celebrating Our Maritime Heritage has just been released, and was produced by the Kodiak Maritime Museum as a fund-raiser. Email them at kodiakmaritimemuseum@alaska.com for information on how to buy a copy. Congratulations to these lively museum founders, many of whom attended the Museums Alaska conference in September and continue to work on the planning committees for the 2005 conference.



Anvik is celebrating the 10th anniversary of its Museum. Over the 10 years of operation, the Museum has increased its collections many times over and now has items stored in other buildings as well as in every corner of the Museum. Recent acquisitions include a set of masks by carver Clinton Chase, formerly of Anvik. The newest exhibition is of birch bark baskets made by local Deg Hit'an women. The exhibition includes traditional and modern items and illustrates the great variety of size, style and use of these Athabascan artifacts.



The Hope and Sunrise Historical and Mining Museum was open every day this past summer. It was so successful that the Historical Society intends to keep the museum open every day of summer 2005.



The Juneau Douglas City Museum will plunge right into the busy season of museum programs and projects, including the ongoing restoration and exhibition of a basketry style fish trap believed to be at least 500 years old. A new exhibition, Rare and Early Mining Photos , opens mid-December. This collection of annotated local mining industry photos is a recent acquisition made possible by the fundraising efforts of a number of local history buffs and museum supporters. The new year brings a series of displays by private Juneau collectors, and summer will usher in the exciting shipwreck exhibit in collaboration with local divers and salvage experts, featuring artifacts from Southeast Alaska wrecks.

Imaginative programs brought in many visitors, local and tourist. Who could resist "Altered Altoid Tins & boxes" in October or the "Model Train Rally" coming up in December. Summer visitor totals were up 13% from last year, and winter visitors continue to make use of the popular Hands-0n History Room for children, as well as the rotation of temporary exhibits and community-based programs. The rising level of drop-in local and out-of-town visitors is due in large part to the Free Winter Admission policy, funded for the fourth season in a row by several generous local individuals and groups. The Museum is also enjoying a welcome 15% increase in overall revenues and a 46% increase in public program attendance.



On December 21, the Anchorage Museum of History and Art welcomed the return of the monks from the Drepung Loseling Monastery in Georgia for the removal of the sand mandala they created in early October. The exhibition, Tibet: Mountains and Valleys, Castles and Tents from the Newark Museum continues through Jan. 2, 2005.

Through January 9, The Art of Gold will be on view, presenting some of the finest work being made by contemporary American goldsmiths today.

From January 16 - February 27, Sonya Kelliher-Combs will have a Solo Exhibition. Her art can be classified as mixed media and includes the use of many layers of acrylic polymer into which she embeds different materials: thread, string, walrus stomach, sheep intestine, fabric and paper. With these additions are areas of handsewn patterns and beadwork. She has been included in many group exhibitions, most notably the prestigious 2002 Native American Fine Art Invitational organized by the Heard Museum in Phoenix. This is her first solo exhibition at the Anchorage Museum.

Earth, Fire and Fibre will be exhibited from January 16 - March 13. This is the biennial statewide craft exhibition which attracts hundreds of entries from around the state. This year's juror is David Revere McFadden, Chief Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design (formerly the American Craft Museum) in New York City.

Since the Stone Age, shamans have been the conduits of spiritual power for peoples across Asia, Europe and America. The Shamans: Spirit Guides of Siberia traces the fascinating spiritual and cultural history of the shaman, focusing particularly on the tribes of Northern Siberia. The exhibition draws from The Russian Museum of Ethnography's collection of art and artifacts from Northern Siberia and the Far East, which includes cultural material, drawings, and photographs from over 20 ethnicities. The Shamans: Spirit Guides of Siberia examines Siberian shamanism both ethnographically and visually and allows viewers a rare and engaging glimpse into shamanism's external manifestations as well as its profound inner meanings. To be exhibited from May 12- September 18.

From July 1 to September 5, the Museum is pleased to exhibit Light Motifs: American Impressionist Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art -a selection of 27 American Impressionist paintings.



As you prepare for the holidays, Mary A. Flaherty, the Manager of the Oscar Anderson House Museum wants you to take a moment to step back in time to experience what Christmas was like in 1915 Anchorage by visiting the city's only historic house museum. Located at 420 M Street in Elderberry Park (907-274-2336), you may wish to come during the annual Swedish Christmas Tours on Saturday and Sunday, December 4th, 5th, 11th and 12th from noon until 4pm. Admission is Adults, $3 and Children, $1. Museums Alaska members receive free admission with the membership card.

Oscar Anderson, an early Anchorage businessman, was one of the first settlers in the "Tent City," and his home overlooking Cook Inlet was one of the first privately built wood-frame residences completed in 1915 after the auctioning of the townsite lots. Today, the House is fully restored. Each December, the House Museum is decorated for an old-fashioned early Anchorage Christmas, including many traditional Swedish decorations honoring the heritage of the Anderson family.



Aviation aficionados and local history buffs have been enjoying the current exhibit at the Tongass Historical Museum . Bob Ellis, Ketchikan Aviation Pioneer opened at the Museum on October 22nd. The show is entirely devoted to the life and career of Robert E. Ellis, an early Alaska Bush pilot who, in 1936, founded Ellis Air Lines. That airline, with its fleet of green-and-orange Grumman Goose amphibians, became one of Alaska's major regional carriers before finally merging with Alaska Airlines. Bob Ellis began his Alaska flying career in 1929, when he was the navigator on the first non-stop flight from the Lower 48 to Alaska. He went on to become mayor of Ketchikan and a Territorial Senator. He was posthumously inducted into the Alaska Aviation Pioneer Hall of Fame in February 2004.

The Ketchikan Museums , in collaboration with the Ketchikan Area Arts and Humanities Council and the Ketchikan Regional Youth Facility, implemented a multi-art and cultural program for community- and at-risk youth this fall. One component of the pilot program encompassed bringing classes in traditional Northwest Coast Native Arts, as well as dance and movement, poetry writing, beading and watercolor, to youth in confinement at the Regional Youth Facility. A second component of the program engaged youth from the Crisis Stabilization Unit in interpretive field trips to the Ketchikan Museums and local art galleries. A third component provided scholarships to youth from the community at large to attend Basket Weaving and Northwest Coast Design and Carving classes for teens at the Totem Heritage Center. This was the first time most of the students had ever participated in Native or traditional art classes or had the opportunity to visit art galleries and openings. Continuation of the program in some format is anticipated next year. The program was funded by the Revilla Island Prevention Coalition, Ketchikan Museums, and the Ketchikan Area Arts & Humanities Council.



Sitka's Sheldon Jackson Museum and the Friends of Sheldon Jackson Museum sponsored activities throughout November in honor of National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month. Native American Awareness has been celebrated in the United States under congressional authorization and presidential proclamation since 1976.

Tsimshian carver Able Ryan demonstrated woodcarving and well-known Tlingit orator Robert Sam presented a traditional Tlingit story. A student at Sheldon Jackson College, Ryan has been carving for nine years, learning carving and basic Northwest Coast flat design from master carver Jack Hudson of Metlakatla while he was in high school.

According to Robert Sam, the Sheldon Jackson Museum "is the best place in town to do storytelling because of the acoustics." Sam has spent most of his adult life learning and telling traditional Tlingit oral narratives. As a member of the Tlingit performing arts troupe Naa Kahidi Theatre, he has shared traditional stories with audiences around the United States, Japan and Europe.



Does the Disaster Plan MAKE A DIFFERENCE? The recent flood in Nome brought this October exchange on the Statewide ListServ between Ken DeRoux, Curator of Museum Services at the Alaska State Museum , and Laura Samuelson, Director, at the Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum. DeRoux wrote:
"With Laura's permission, I'm posting her description of the recent storm in Nome. In case you hadn't heard, they had a huge storm come in from the sea earlier this week, causing a lot of damage all along the main street. We talk about disaster planning at our conferences, so I think it's good to keep in mind that it's not all hypothetical. I might also mention that the museum in Eagle, which has a number of historic buildings, was seriously threatened by wildfire this past summer. Luck was on their side, too, and the fire was kept away."

Samuelson responded:
"Every single building on the Bering Sea side of Front Street had moderate to severe flooding upstairs and in their basements. The Board of Trade Saloon, which is located next to the Museum, had two walls blown out by logs and surf which then cast like 1-3 feet of rocks and boulders into the building. So guess what? The Carrie McLain Museum, basement location and all had about one half cup of water at the back door. We were bone dry!! This was a severe 30-year storm. 20-foot waves slammed Nome and the back wall of the Museum. I had to move out of my house on the Snake River and also move my dog team. In the Museum we had moved everything from 36" down to the floor upstairs to the library. Seven people helped us through this maneuver.

Now we just have to spend about a week putting the place back in order. I highly recommend concrete buildings! And yes, it's good to have a disaster plan but it's even better to have good luck."

When asked about conditions since the flood, Samuelson replied:
"FEMA just told me yesterday that they intend to use the Carrie McLain Museum as a success story on a National level. They complimented us on how prepared and organized we were."



Editor's note: If you missed this exchange, or the informative series on giclee prints, perhaps you are not subscribing to the Alaska museums ListServ.



The Imaginarium achieved several major milestones this year. They include:
. Providing outreach programs, traveling exhibits or special exhibits to over 90,000 participants from 44 Alaska communities.
. Providing science demonstrations, workshops, and camps to over 50,000 visitors at the downtown Anchorage facility.
. Providing a record-breaking 52 summer science camps.
. Completing major upgrades to exhibits and facilities.
. Enjoying over 700 volunteers.



Geri McCann writes:
"I just wanted to share the good news. The Palmer City Council approved the proposal I submitted for funding the registration project and purchasing U.V. filters for the Palmer Museum ! This is quite a step for Palmer to step up to the plate and put funding into historic preservation. We hope this is just the beginning. This is so timely as the CMAP I will be administering this winter will dovetail in with this project. It has been worth it to hang in there and keep trying!" The Palmer Visitor Center Museum was awarded a MAP from the Alaska State Museum Grant-in-Aid funding.



Up the road in Wasilla, the Dorothy Page Museum is celebrating its new exhibition, Blaze a Trail: Wasilla's Early Pioneers with special thanks to the Fred Meyer Foundation and the Wasilla Knik Historical Society for providing the funding.



This news posted December 22 2004. Please return for updates after March 1, 2005.

People

Brian Davies was named Volunteer of the Year by Museums Alaska at the Annual meeting and conference in Anchorage in September.

Davies donates his time as a board member of the Cook Inlet Historical Society, a board member of the Anchorage Museum Foundation, a member of the Anchorage Historical and Fine Arts Commission, and most importantly, as Chairman of the Museum Building Committee. Wearing these many hats, Davies has been involved with many facets of the Museum for the past six years and has provided outstanding leadership and guidance to the various boards on which he serves.

As a member of the Cook Inlet Historical Society, Brian Davies and his wife Sharon assumed the leadership role in fundraising and promoting the exhibition The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition, which the Cook Inlet Historical Society sponsored at the Museum from February 15 through May 16, 2004. They raised $330,000 to bring this exciting exhibit to Anchorage and brought in an audience of more than 40,000 during its stay.

Although this would have been sufficient in itself to deserve a nomination, it is Davies's dedication and vision as the Chairman of the Museum Building Committee which warrants even more recognition. For the past six years, the Building Committee has assumed the leadership role in planning for an expanded Museum. Davies and other Committee members worked with staff to develop a comprehensive program for the project. Under Davies's leadership, the Building Committee was responsible for selecting both the Architect of Record and the Design Architect and for establishing a financial framework for the entire project. Davies has eloquently served as spokesperson for the Museum Building Committee and represented the Museum Building Committee in important negotiations with the Municipality of Anchorage regarding the methodology of the expansion process. Davies's leadership, his strong communication skills and his ability to work constructively have been invaluable to the Museum's present and future. As we hopefully near the acceptance of a concept design, the staff of the Museum, and the members of the various Museum family boards on which Davies serves, are pleased to recognize him as a way of saying thank you for the many hours of volunteer time and the efforts he expends to make the Anchorage Museum a community and statewide asset of which we can all be proud.

The Kodiak Historical Society Board of Directors is pleased to announce the appointment of Katie Oliver Parker as Director of the Baranov Museum. Parker, a lifelong Alaska resident, has been working at the Baranov Museum since October of 2003, and has served as Interim Director since June 2004. Parker holds a degree in Anthropology from James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, and spent 4 years studying cultural anthropology in rural Australia before returning to Kodiak in 2003. now living in Colorado.

The Alaska Association for Historic Preservation is losing Executive Director Janine Dorsey who is resigning in order to devote her full attention to the completion of her doctoral dissertation. Dorsey has served as part-time Executive Director since February 2003.

Donita Peter is the Dena'ina Language Project Manager for the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage. Peter was raised in Tyonek and is currently an adjunct professor at Kenai Peninsula College. She was formerly the Education Administrator for Chickaloon Village's Education Department.

The Juneau-Douglas City Museum has finally concluded its search for a Museum Director to fill the shoes of happily-retired longtime director Mary Pat Wyatt . Their very own Jane Lindsey , formerly the Curator of Education and Public Programs, who has been the acting director since early last spring, was chosen by the City from a pool of qualified candidates to officially take the reigns of the Museum. The Museum will soon be hiring a new education and public programs person, and also welcomes intern Elizabeth Weinman from the Texas Tech University Museum Science Program.

Victoria Lord , Senior Curator for Programs for the Ketchikan Museums since 1997 left Ketchikan at the end of September to take a Program Associate position with the Rasmuson Foundation, where she is now working with Helen Howarth to administer the Foundation's recently announced 10 year, $20 million Arts & Culture Initiative. "Our Board made a series of significant commitments over the past two years designed to strengthen the arts in Alaska. We are pleased to have Victoria's deep knowledge of the state arts community and considerable program expertise to ensure the Initiative's long-term success," commented Foundation President Diane Kaplan . During her nearly 7-year tenure at the Ketchikan Museum, Lord was responsible for Museum programs, workshops, special events, publications and educational activities and worked extensively with Northwest Coast artists. Previously, she served as Executive Director for the Ketchikan Area Arts and Humanities Council for 11 years, bringing the Governor's Arts Award, 100 Best Small Art Town, and Music Stand Community Arts Award designations to Ketchikan. Lord has a BFA in Studio Art and Art History from California State University, and was an Arts Administrator Fellow with the National Endowment for the Arts.

Cynthia (CJ) Jones is in her last month as Director-Curator of the Sheldon Museum in Haines. As always, she has more ideas for future activities than any ten humans. Her job will be filled by two people (of course, it takes two) with the first hired already. Addison Field will take the reins at the Museum as Director.

Field has a Masters Degree in Museum Studies with an emphasis in Museum Management from The George Washington University in Washington, DC. Most recently he was a member of the visitor services staff at the Alaska State Museum. He has also worked in the Department of Exhibitions and Collections Management at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and interned at the Totem Heritage Center in Ketchikan. Field is newly married, and he and his wife Frances are looking forward to becoming more involved in the Alaska museum community. Blythe Carter has been hired as the new operations facilitator to replace Shori Long . Carter will manage the store and coordinate volunteers. Carter has worked as an aide at the Museum since 2003.

Mya Renken has stepped in to head the Kenai Visitor and Culture Center. She grew up in Kenai, but left to live in Unalaska for the last 13 years. When in Unalaska, she worked for 4 years as the Director of their Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Health needs have required Joe Leahy to end his active involvement in the Ahtna Heritage Museum's design and development of its interpretive programs. He's tolerating his chemotherapy well and offers two recommendations: 1) have regular medical checkups; and, 2) Dance every dance!!

Sharon K. Thompson has joined the Ketchikan Museums staff as Program Coordinator. She came to Ketchikan from the San Francisco Bay area, where she served as executive director of a Habitat for Humanity organization.

June Pardue is the newly-hired curator of education at the Dorothy Page Museum, Wasilla.

Word came during the Museums Alaska conference that Richard Pierce had died at his home in Ontario. Pierce was one of the most productive scholars of the Russian presence in Alaska. As owner and publisher of Limestone Press, he published, wrote or edited more than 60 volumes and monographs on Alaska history, shipping and seafarers. "He was an absolute pioneer in Russian Alaska history, its premier archivist and one of its premier researchers and scholars," said Jennifer Collier, executive editor of the University of Alaska Press, which distributed titles published by Limestone.

Frederica de Laguna , leading early ethnologist and archaeologist died at her home in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania three days after her 98th birthday. In 1975 de Laguna and Margaret Mead became the first women to win election to the National Academy of Sciences. She later served as its president and was also president of the American Anthropological Association. Dr. de Laguna has just finished editing a book on the Eyak of Prince William Sound and had prepared her epic work on the Tlingits of Yakutat, Under Mount Saint Elias for reprinting.


This news posted December 22 2004. Please return for updates after March 1, 2005.