Volunteers At Rogers Historical Museum Help With Operations

STAFF PHOTO FLIP PUTTHOFF Dick Townsend, left, maintenance chief at the Rogers Historical Museum, chats Friday with Jared Pack, center, and John Burroughs in the museum’s maintenance shop. Pack is senior exhibit assistant and Burroughs is the museum’s director.
STAFF PHOTO FLIP PUTTHOFF Dick Townsend, left, maintenance chief at the Rogers Historical Museum, chats Friday with Jared Pack, center, and John Burroughs in the museum’s maintenance shop. Pack is senior exhibit assistant and Burroughs is the museum’s director.

Rogers Historical Museum officials are able to devote their time to preparing for the museum's expansion largely because of the help they get from regular volunteers.

The museum has 12 employees and 23 year-round volunteers, said John Burroughs, museum director. They'll need even more help -- from additional employees and volunteers -- when they eventually expand into a new building with house additional galleries, an auditorium, research lab, more offices, workrooms and a gift shop.

By The Numbers

Rogers Historical Museum

• 23: Volunteers

• 12: Paid employees

• 2: Summer interns

• 9,200: Yearly foot traffic, visitors and program participants

• 4,500: School children visiting annually

Source: Staff Report

"We've had a lot of people express interest since talking of expansion," said Jared Pack, senior exhibit assistant, of volunteer hopefuls.

The cost of the expansion is an estimated $10.5 million, Burroughs said, adding he spends a lot of his time trying to raise the $1.5 million required to receive a $500,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant.

It could be a few years before they break ground, as fundraising for the grant ends in 2017.

"Volunteers enhance what we are doing," Burroughs said.

He said although the museum wouldn't cease operations if it didn't have volunteers, they allow museum employees to focus on other projects.

Additional staff will be needed to man the reception desk, give tours, maintain the new facilities and teach, Burroughs said. About five new staff members will be hired to cover those duties, and more volunteers will be needed to compensate for the expansion.

Museum volunteers vary in age, ranging from teens to retirees. The number fluctuates slightly over the course of each year, as events sometimes require the help of temporary volunteers.

Volunteer jobs include greeting guests, helping with special projects, and even doing research.

Tarun Eisen, 14 of Bella Vista, job-shadowed at the museum early this summer and was invited to stay on as a volunteer. He helped file newspapers and photos and take inventory.

"I like history and museum stuff in general," Eisen said, adding he especially likes American history.

He'll be a freshman at Bentonville High School in the fall but said he plans on volunteering at the museum in his spare time during the school year and next summer. He said he would enjoy working in a museum someday.

The museum doesn't have a structured internship program but it takes in a couple of unpaid interns each summer and during the school year. Interns help the museum with archival work. Some are in high school and are awarded an internship for their interest in history, while others are university students seeking real-world application of their studies.

Kelsey Atwood, a 21-year-old anthropology student at Hendrix College in Conway, is wrapping up her summer internship in the museum's collections. Friday she was taking inventory of some of the museum's 40,000 archived items, work that must be done about every five years.

"I'm from Bentonville, so I came home for the summer and thought it would be great to do my internship here," she said.

The Rogers museum isn't the only Northwest Arkansas museum that has a high volunteer to paid employee ratio.

Susan Young, outreach coordinator for the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale, said the museum makes use of volunteer service, using the help of 25 adult volunteers year-round and about 20 youth volunteers who help with education.

One part-time and 11 full-time employees work the Shiloh Museum. They usually hire one or two interns in the summer and during the school year.

The Clinton House Museum in Fayetteville runs with the help of 40 volunteers year-round and only two paid staff members, said Kate Johnson, museum director. They vary from community members to college students to drug court participants doing community service.

NW News on 08/09/2014

Upcoming Events