It is the season of big changes at the Innisfail and District Historical Village.
Two longtime members are leaving.
Longtime board member Dale Mather, 64, the town's former chief administrative officer who served from 1986 to 2010, is moving to Lethbridge.
And 68-year-old Dean Jorden, who has been the village's curator for the past 10 years, is retiring.
“Dean has been a real asset to the village and has worked there before I came in 2003. He has headed up a lot of projects, both him and his wife Wendy, and helped out on others,” said Lawrence Gould, board treasurer. “Dale was the liaison between the town and the village until he retired from the town, and he has been on the board for a great number of years. Both will be hard to replace.”
Mather said he leaves Innisfail with fond memories of both working for the town and his long-standing involvement with the village.
“I have always enjoyed Innisfail. It has been a great place to live, Its potential is very, very good” said Mather. “The potential for the historical village is also enormous. It has got all the services and a great location.”
Jorden, who will officially leave the village at the end of October, said he and his wife have now been freed up from other responsibilities and they now want to travel more and spend more time with family.
“The curator's job takes time. It is a large museum with over 8,000 artifacts. We have done a lot of projects,” said Jorden. “We have two sons in Calgary whose families are growing and we want to spend more time with them and more time away, so it is not possible to devote quite the time it takes to do that job.”
Jorden said he will leave the historical village with a sense he and Wendy made important contributions to the village that will take it confidently into the future.
“Combining with the Bowden Institution work crews we did about two fairly major projects a year, and that would be either re-exhibiting and moving some of the artifacts to different locations,” said Jorden, adding that examples of his work include clearing out the freight shed in the Bowden station, and helping construct that train display. “We have added some things over the years but the basic grounds, buildings and collections were there, so it is not like anyone recently did all this. It was just expanding on what was there and hopefully improving it.”
Jorden said he was also proud to see the grounds of the village evolve into a park where locals and visitors are now able to relax as well as take in the museum and its thousands of artifacts.
“I would also like to see that continue, but I would also like to see the village promoted a bit more and the school program expanded,” said Jorden.
In the meantime, Jorden said he will help staff and the board during the transition period of hiring and training a new curator, which has not yet been announced. In the future, Jorden said he will also consider working as a volunteer board member if he is asked to do so.
“I will take a break for now, but whatever the board decides to do I will be willing to help in the interim,” said Jorden.
