Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 24, 1995 TAG: 9506260022
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RICK LINDQUIST STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
Ironically, it was a lack of interest, not money, that led to April's DiscoveryWorks board vote to shut the museum's doors for good. A $2,400 Virginia Commission for the Arts grant for 1995-96 will be returned, said Patty Manor, board president.
"All of us gave it our all. We're very comfortable with this decision," she said of the board's move to call it quits.
In January, DiscoveryWorks went into hibernation while a restructuring committee tried to find ways to keep at least some of the museum's programs alive.
"That did not work out," said Jerry Hutchens, co-chairman of the restructuring panel, who explained the committee was unable to find others in the community willing to guide the museum into the future.
Hutchens blames that in part on what he sees as a generation gap. The families in the Radford community who potentially could move the museum forward have very young children who aren't quite ready to benefit from the types of programs DiscoveryWorks offered, he said.
Among those who had hoped for a different outcome is Lane Ducker, DiscoveryWorks' former education director who stepped down last fall.
"I had really hoped that they would just continue one thing," she said. "When you dissolve something completely, it's really hard to get it started again."
DiscoveryWorks began in 1987 as an all-volunteer organization calling itself the Council for Community Enrichment, an ambitious effort to bring innovative arts and educational programs to New River Valley youngsters, often at their schools. Manor said "a real unique group of individuals" started the organization, but now there's no one to take the baton for a younger generation of families.
"I definitely think it was a unique idea, and it was energized at the time," she said.
During its restructuring effort, Manor said, the museum's board had hoped to enlist someone to continue some performing arts programs in the schools, even on a small scale, much in the same vein as its early efforts.
"That person was not out there," she said. "With the funding there, somebody could have stepped in."
Manor and others familiar with the museum's history believe things began to unravel when the organization hired staff members, including an executive director, education director and marketing director. The paid part-timers "ate a good deal of our budget," Manor told the board in January.
Hutchens, on the board for about two years, agreed. "There was not the same level of enthusiasm" with paid staffers, he said.
The task at this point is to dismantle what remains of DiscoveryWorks, Manor said. The museum already had closed its headquarters in the Norwood Center, but has not vacated the site. Exhibits and items on loan to the museum are being returned, the museum's own displays will go to schools, and the Radford Heritage Foundation will inherit DiscoveryWorks' pictures and scrapbooks, she said.
The Radford Recreation Department, the Women's Resource Center, the Radford Public Library and other community agencies are to get what's left of the office furniture.
There's also a little money, perhaps $200, Manor said. The board has not decided on a beneficiary.
Hutchens was philosophical about the museum's demise. "[DiscoveryWorks] had a good run. They did something no one else could do, and did it for a decade," he said. "They left the scene with no debt."
Ducker seemed to take the loss harder. "It breaks my heart that's happening," she lamented.
by CNB