Sean C. Morgan
A conversation about her history class in the right place and at the right time has turned into a job for the new volunteer executive director at East Linn Museum, Lana Holden.
“They actually asked me,” said Holden, 50, a history teacher at Sweet Home Junior High School. Last spring she taught a class in Oregon history, and she took her class on a field trip to the museum to learn more about Sweet Home history.
“They had to do a report on a founding family of Sweet Home,” Holden said.
Later, she was at the Chamber of Commerce with her husband, Mark, a junior high science teacher who recently published a fantasy novel called “Innerland.” He is selling the book in the chamber gift shop. While there, she started talking with Arlene Paschen about history and the Sweet Home history curriculum she is helping write.
“She asked me if I would be interested in being director,” Holden said. The museum had not had a director for awhile. Glenda Hopkins had been holding things together there.
Paschen expressed concerns that the museum, run on donations by volunteers, might close, Holden said.
Holden decided to volunteer. She officially became director on Sept. 12.
“I’m so excited,” Holden said. “It’s a great museum, and I’ve got a lot of ideas.”
Among them is changing the hours, she said.” I could never come to the museum because it closes at 4 p.m.”
It has hours on Saturday, but that’s always a busy day for families, she said, so after work, she’s going to start opening the museum Thursday evening, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. in addition to its normal hours, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
She also wants to extend hours on Tuesday, early in the morning or later in the evening, Holden said. Her goal is to make sure families have a chance to hang out at the museum and find out just how much the museum has to offer in terms of knowledge.
“I never realized there are file cabinets with gold in them,” Holden said, and she wants to preserve that gold.
It’s a one-of-a-kind resource filled with Sweet Home’s stories, she said. “If it ever burns, we’ll lose it all.”
Technology has been underused around the museum, she said. Use of technology has been limited. A Facebook page has been out of commission since 2011. She’s turning that around, and she wants to put all of the history online and protect that resource.
Once the information is digitized, it can be published in books through Amazon, and the museum can sell them in its gift shop, raising money to operate the museum.
Holden also wants the museum to take on a bigger role in education, she said. Schools don’t come to the museum any more.
“I’m going to involve the schools,” she said. She has access to all of the state standards, and she can connect museum visits to the students’ classes.
It’s free, and the students enjoy it, she said. “My eighth graders went wild.”
She recalled one of her students telling another, who had missed the field trip, just how much she had missed at the museum. During the field trip, the students also played a treasure hunt game, looking for different items throughout the museum.
Finally, Holden would like the museum to begin hosting special events – not necessarily at the museum. For example, the museum may lead a Dollar Railroad hike and tell its story.
“How I think history should be taught is through stories,” Holden said. It’s through stories people can begin remembering dates, places and names, and stories are fun for all ages.
Holden has lived in Sweet Home for 21 years. She has been a part-time history teacher for four years.
Her passion is the 17th-century Dutch New Netherland colony. She is a member of the New Netherland Institute. She writes a history blog, and she is in the process of indexing files for the institute.
Holden has a bumper sticker that says, “History buff – I’d find you more interesting if you were dead.”
She loves history, she said. “I think it’s the stories and sharing stories with everybody else. I tell the story, and they remember.”
It isn’t always her telling the stories though, she said. She and her class are talking about Roman roads. In the classroom discussion, she asks the students to describe what those roads might have looked like, what the travelers might be wearing, how fast they travel.
Holden earned her bachelor’s degree in education at Boise State, where she met her husband. She earned her master’s degree in world history seven years ago from the American Public University in West Virginia.
Volunteers are needed at the museum for a wide variety of work, whatever people are comfortable doing, she said. Anyone interested should contact her at (541) 409-0997.