Got some reaction on Sunday's Editor's Desk column about my conversation with Ernie Dollar re the Chapel Hill Museum ("Does Chapel Hill care about its history?)
One reader thought it was particularly strong. That surprised me since all I said was that spending $16 million on a bigger library and not $49,000 on the museum didn't seem to make any sense. I was going for a thought piece that got at the broader issues Ernie was depressed about, which is that Chapel Hill is a hard place to sell history.
Today a reader e-mailed this comment:
I read your article on the Chapel Hill Museum which I found interesting. I must admit, although I have heard of the Museum and know where it is located, I have never visited it and most of the people I know have never even heard of it.
I think it is fine if the Museum continues, even with town dollars, but I can't help but think, at the same time, of the human needs that go unseen and unheard of and unfunded in our community.
The reader, Marywinne Sherwood is on the board of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Eastern Piedmont-Orange County Club. She says the group has hired a director, will open its first club in Siler City on Wednesday, June 30, and is working toward opening a club in the Pine Knolls community of Chapel Hill. I pointed her to last Wednesday's story about the local Juneteenth celebration that reported on the Boys and Girls club effort here and asked her to keep in touch.
To be fair to the town, I asked staff writer Dave Hart and staff writer Jesse James DeConto if in their reporting on the museum they had understood the museum was to be absorbed into town government some day. Town Manager Roger Stancil said he could find nothing in writing to that effect. Neither Dave, Jesse nor I remember that from our various stories in the museum over the years either. Not to say that's not the case; just that none of us remembers it.
