The Museum of the Mississippi Delta expects to have a new management team in place by the end of the year. In the meantime the museum is not going to miss a beat, says the president of its board.
“We are open for business. We are looking for new exhibits. Come visit,” Rachel Goldberg said following her presentation Tuesday to the Greenwood Rotary Club.
The museum has been regrouping after its executive director, Katie Mills, suddenly resigned in early August, as did two of its other three employees.
Mills is now the director of development and operations at another Greenwood cultural institution, ArtPlace Mississippi.
The staff resignations led also to departures by several members of its volunteer group, Friends of the Museum. “They were upset when Katie left,” said Goldberg.
Goldberg said, however, that she understands some of the Friends have since returned. She also made an appeal for new volunteers.
The Friends staff the front desk and welcome volunteers. They save the museum, which operates on a tight budget, more than $40,000 a year in labor costs, according to Goldberg.
She said that they have been helpful in filling in during the current transition.
Charles Ditto, the lone staff member who did not resign, has been managing museum operations in the interim.
The museum’s next exhibit, to open in early 2023, will be by Church Goin’ Mule, a local artist, Goldberg said.
Mills’ departure was believed to be at least in part over a disagreement with the L.B. Jones Trust, which has loaned to the museum for decades a prestigious collection of more than 30,000 artifacts that date back to as far as 10,000 B.C. The artifacts were accumulated by Jones, an amateur archaeologist from Minter City who helped start the museum. They were housed at the museum while he was living and have remained there since his death in 1995, through an agreement with the trust.
Goldberg said the board continues to move forward with a longstanding plan to completely renovate the museum’s archaeological history room. The archeology exhibit will be “in-depth, relevant and educational for all ages,” including artifacts collected by Jones and other local archeologists, she said.
“We will be working with local tribes to make sure it is respectful and inclusive and will tell the stories of the Native Americans that inhabited the Delta.”
- Contact Tim Kalich at 662-581-7243 or tkalich@gwcommonwealth.com.
