Museum hires full-time director

The Mountain Home Museum has hired a full-time executive director to administrate the museum's programs and curate its collection.

Josh Newby-Harpole, 23, has experience working at several museums in the St. Louis area. He holds a bachelor's degree in history, focusing on western history and the fur trade.

"We're real excited for him to be here," said Laurice Bentz, who has been one of the volunteer directors of the museum's programs over the last decade, during which the museum expanded its hours considerably and greatly improved and organized its collection.

Newby-Harpole position has been funded through a partnership between the city and the museum. The museum is contributing $10,000 a year to his salary, with the city picking up the rest and providing benefits. As part of the arrangement, the museum has three years to become self-supporting. Newby-Harpole will be listed on the city books as its "preservation officer," and will serve as the museum's executive director, reporting to the museum's governing board.

"We feel we've crossed another mountain," in the historical society's efforts to improve the museum, Bentz said.

"They've done a lot of good things here and I have to admire what they've done," said Newby-Harpole, who said he hopes to expand on the offerings of the museum.

"When I see 50 people turn out for a museum event (such as the First Thursday luncheon lectures), and the money they raise at the pie social, and combined with the fact it's all volunteer... that's a good base to work on."

He said one of his first duties will be to evaluate the current operations and get to know the community "to find out what it desires that the museum should be." He'll also evaluate other museums in the area and then "develop a master plan to guide us for the next ten years."

He's looking forward to the job. "It's a big undertaking," he said.

He intends to keep the current hours, and re-evaluate them, "but it will never be less, it will only open more," he said. Currently, the museum is open Monday-Friday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on Saturday from 1p.m. to 4 p.m.

Newby-Harpole will be making use of the new "Past Perfect" software purchased by the museum to catalogue every item in the museum's collection. He'll also be expanding the depth of information provided in the displays, "and things that need to be preserved better we'll be using proper archival methods to do so," he said.

He also was impressed with the effort the historical society has made to prepare publications based on the oral histories members have been collecting. "The publications they've done have been very successful. I think with me here it will free up more time for some others to complete additional works.

Newby-Harpole said he had always had an interest in moving west to be closer to the interest he developed in western history as a result of his studies and work in the St. Louis museums.

"That's one of the things that attracted us to Josh," Bentz said, "his area of interest."

"The West is newer history," Newby-Harpole said. "So much is more recent. But the problem is not a lack of history, but too much. There's no limit to what I can do."