Thank you, Jay.
The first time Jay Dishman applied to manage an Indiana state historic site, he was rejected. The job at Wilbur Wright’s birthplace in Millville, Ind., went instead to a candidate with a doctorate who accepted the post sight unseen.
“Then, when he went out there and saw what it was, he didn’t want it,” Dishman said, laughing. “Six months later, I got it.”
That was in 1984. Dishman stayed at the Wright house till August 1988, when he answered an ad seeking a site manager for the Whitewater Canal State Historic Site.
Almost 35 years later, he’s retiring from that position. Today, Feb. 28, is his last day.
“This job ended up highlighting for me where my talents actually laid,” he said. “The career path I had, I thought at first it was going to be more of an administration thing. And yeah, I did my fair share of administration. But I didn’t get trapped in an office. I got to go out and about and play with horses or put hay in a barn. Stuff like that.”
Dishman earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Ball State University, where he studied U.S. history in hopes of working for the National Park Service. He saw himself in Philadelphia, interpreting the Liberty Bell. But he wanted to stay close to his elderly parents in Indiana.
He also entered a tight labor market when he graduated. His first jobs out of college were with a seed company and then a socialservices agency, where he served as a youth recreation director.
Before being hired at Whitewater, he’d visited the site during Canal Days, so he knew the landscape. He didn’t know how to grind corn, but he learned that, as well as
the site’s history to be able to give tours.
“With my mechanical background, and all the things I knew how to do, it worked out pretty good,” he said. “I knew how to operate equipment and fix stuff. And back then, we did a lot of the fixing ourselves.”
Early challenges included getting equipment to maintain the site, which then was 14 miles. They begged and borrowed revamped equipment from state parks and bought tools whenever funding allowed, he said.
Dishman has loads of stories from his time at Whitewater – most of them funny and several involving somebody falling. His favorite is from the time Deb Alvey, his longtime secretary (who died in November 2020), fell out of her chair, resulting in so much noise that it startled a salesman who was on the phone with Dishman. “My secretary came back from lunch,” Dishman explained. “I told her not to drink more than two martinis.”
“You could have fried eggs on Deb’s forehead she was so mad at me,” Dishman said, laughing at the memory.
When that salesman showed up at Whitewater – with long prairie grass to be planted to stop erosion along the canal banks – he said, “I gotta meet that threemartini secretary you’ve got.”
“Deb didn’t speak to me for the rest of the day,” he said, marveling that he and Alvey managed to work together for more than 30 years.
He and Danny Roberts, who handles site restoration, have also worked side by side for more than 30 years, which is one of Dishman’s greatest points of pride. “There’s not too many places where people work
together for 30 years,” he said.
“Jay’s an all-around good guy,” Roberts said. “Most of the time, he’s pretty jolly about things. It’s been a good work relationship. He’s been good to me – and I’ve been good to him.”
Now, those days are ending. In retirement, Dishman plans to do some traveling and take care of home projects.
“Gonna do what the money lets me to do,” he said, adding, “I’m going to be a retiree. I really am. I’m going to enjoy my life.”
The Indiana State Museum’s education programs served nearly 35,500 people in 2022. They’re about to serve another 400.
The museum has been accepted into the GSK Science in the Summer program, a national network that since 1986 has provided out-of-school-time programs for underserved students in grades 2-6.
GSK provides the curriculum and training; the museum’s education staff will be responsible for implementing the program. GSK provided a $13,500 stipend to cover the museum’s expenses. The goal is to reach 400 youth this summer with 3-5 hours of programming under the theme “Be a Physicist.” Education staff will work with children enrolled through Indy Parks and Recreation and the Hawthorne Community Center. Other organizations may participate as well.
“This is an opportunity to reach out to groups we have not worked with in the past and open up the doors to new partnerships,” said Vice President of Engagement Bethany Thomas. “Our team will facilitate some of the activities and programming, and we also train other organizations’ educators to implement the programming and provide all the materials for them.”
As a participant in GSK, Thomas and her team gains access to a network of museum people who are doing these programs nationally, so they can train with them virtually. They also get access to GSK curriculum from previous years.
“For me, it’s a win-win because everything’s provided to us, including finances to help make this happen,” Thomas said. “We just have to identify the right partners and work with them to facilitate the programs.”
GSK is just the latest outreach partnership for the education staff – Thomas, Brittney Basaran, Sheree Cooper, Amanda Wollenweber and Nicole Rife. They have contracts to work with Pike Township schools, the John Boner Neighborhood Center and Brookside Community Play that takes them out of the museum throughout the year. They’re also out at community events such as the Indy Pride Festival, Earth Day, Celebrate Science Indiana, Eastside Juneteenth Celebration and back-to-school festivals.
In addition, the early childhood programmers – Dru Corliss and Anna Pedigo – do Head Start programming for toddlers and preschoolers in 25 classrooms every semester.
“We’re in the community as much as possible to benefit children but also to get our name out there and represent our institution, and share what’s going on,” Thomas said. “A lot of times, people can’t get here, so the only way we’re ever going to serve them is by going to them. By building that trust and these relationships at some point maybe they’ll start coming here.”
