Search for Rogers Historical Museum director continues

ROGERS — The city has started over in its search for a director of the Rogers Historical Museum.

The job was reposted Tuesday afternoon on the city’s website with an advertised salary range of about $53,500 to about $67,000.

Twenty-nine people applied for the job between late May and early August, Thomas Dunlap, the city’s human resources director, said Tuesday.

The top candidates included Terrilyn Wendling, who has worked for the museum since 2006 and is the interim director; Nic Clark, who owns Civil War Tours of New Orleans; Elisabeth Sommer, the director of museum studies and a lecturer at the University of Texas at El Paso; and Heather Wells, the digital media project manager at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, according to Dunlap.

Mayor Greg Hines said about three weeks ago he was wrapping up final interviews. The city offered an applicant the position, and it was refused, Dunlap said.

The museum has been without a director since December, when it opened in the renovated Hailey Ford/ Rogers Morning News building at 313 S. Second St.

John Burroughs oversaw the move to the new building before he resigned. He was director since 2013.

Hines previously said he wants to hire a director who has the management and budgeting skills necessary for the job. Commissioner Kathleen Dickerson of the museum’s board said the museum provides

a “flavor of home” and whoever leads it should have strong knowledge of the area’s history and work well with the community.

The museum’s 2019 budget is about $700,000. Its money comes from the city’s general fund.

The museum opened in 1975 in a rented 1905 former bank building. The Harold Hawkins family donated the 1895 Hawkins House on South Second Street seven years later, and an addition was completed in 1987.

Efforts to expand began in 2006, and the Hailey Ford/ Rogers Morning News building became available in 2015 when Northwest Arkansas Newspapers closed its Rogers office. Northwest Arkansas Newspapers is the parent company of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.