The Journey Museum Executive Director Ray Summers says, "Museums have multiple roles in a community. Our role first of all is to tell the story of the 2.5 billion year history of the Black Hills. We're unique; especially we're unique because how we tell that story is we host four separate museums in the Journey Museum."

Those four museums showcase the geological formation of the Black Hills, early humans in the Black Hills, the world renowned Sioux Indian Museum and the Pioneer Museum. And as the Journey Museum continues to tell its story of the Black Hills, museum workers plan to do so with a new executive director and a new agreement with the City of Rapid City.

At a Legal and Finance Committee meeting Wednesday, a Memorandum of Understanding was approved to give the museum more independence to appoint board members. The city is now limited to appointing five directors instead of all 15.

Summers says, "This more accurately reflects the relationship that we do have with the city and it gives the board some autonomy of some ability to kind of plan for the future, to have people on the board that may want a stake in the future of the museum because they're a big donor, so it provides an important new tool for the Journey Museum."

Summers is retiring in May after leading the museum for more than a decade. The museum is accepting applications and will make a decision early spring with the new executive director starting in April. Summers says times are changing at the Journey Museum.

Summers says, "The museum has in fact developed a strategic plan that looks at least five years into the future and trying to define specific goals and objectives we will be working towards. The new director will have the opportunity to implement much of that strategic plan."

Summers says that strategic plan looks at ways to enhance and continue existing programs and then looks for ways to add new ones. He says two major components of the plan would include added storage space to accommodate traveling exhibits as well as implementing a dome theatre.

So although the Journey Museum will see some internal changes, Summers says the public can ensure the same story will be told about the Black Hills well into the future.

Tessa Thomas