Rebecca Phipps enjoys working behind the scenes.

But the new director of the Watkins Community Museum of History acknowledges that soon she’ll need to move squarely into the public realm, seeking displays of public support for a historic institution that went without a professional leader for 15 months.

“Ideally, within a year, we’ll do a massive fund-raising campaign,” said Phipps, who started work at the museum Feb. 18. “There are a lot of things to be dealing with, and they’re varying in size, significance and priority. Any place that’s been without a director for this long will have a lot of issues that have not been dealt with.”

The early weeks of Phipps’ tenure have been spent tending to procedural, organizational and personnel-related tasks, the kinds of basics that need attention before charting a new course for the museum at 1047 Mass.

But if recent history is any indication, Phipps figures she’ll be able to count on dozens of people from across the community to lend a hand when needed.

“I’ve had a lot of people call me, a lot of letters from people welcoming me to the community,” said Phipps, who came to Lawrence from the Carroll House Museum in Leavenworth. “People have been really excited about making changes and the future of the museum. It’s just been real positive.”

The attitude represents a chance for Phipps and others to heal divisiveness generated during a tumultuous couple years for the museum and its volunteer leaders, who run the Douglas County Historical Society.

Calls for change

In November 2001, board members grappled with budget deficits and other problems by demoting Steve Jansen, the museum’s longtime administrator, to historian. Another employee, Judy Sweets, also had her salary cut and responsibilities curtailed.

Rebecca Phipps, right, the new director of Watkins Community Museum of History, and Rachel Saalweachter, a museum studies graduate student at Kansas University, look through photographs and memorabilia on file at the museum.

But pressure mounted for further change, culminating in an ultimatum last year from members of the Douglas County Commission, whose annual tax-supported contribution of $58,000 accounts for more than a third of the museum’s annual budget.

Their message to Phil Godwin, president of the society’s board: Either forge new leadership or risk losing the money.

“The people who get you into trouble are not always the ones to get you out of trouble,” Commissioner Bob Johnson told Godwin during budget discussions in July.

By October, board members were encouraging Jansen to retire, and his departure a month later freed up $32,000 for board members to seek out and hire a professional administrator — one with at least a master’s degree in museum administration, experience running an organization and the ability to raise money.

Phipps, who had been working as curator and assistant director of the Carroll House, fit the bill.

“She has high standards, she’s a professional, she’s a workaholic and she has the energy of youth,” said Mark Bureman, her boss in Leavenworth. “She has high standards, she’s a professional, she’s a workaholic and she has the energy of youth. You can’t beat those characteristics.”

New direction

Jere McElhaney, a Douglas County commissioner, is pleased with the society’s move. He intends to fight for the museum to retain its county financing this year, even as the county’s available revenues are constricting.

“I’m glad we’ve gotten off center ground and are moving in a new direction,” McElhaney said. “It’s going to take time, but there was a need for change. It was only obvious. And now we’re definitely headed in the right direction.”

For her part, Phipps spent her first few weeks in Lawrence tending to matters not easily noticed by museum visitors. Among her first orders of business was to retool the way materials are filed.

Take the internal filing system. Before Phipps arrived, finding materials about a particular insurance agent in the past few decades would have required looking in a variety of different files: under the agent’s name, the company’s name or a particular topic, such as medical insurance.

“Now, the filing system is more by subject,” said Phipps, who oversaw and managed a vast collection of 36,000 photographic prints and negatives. “Now anything dealing with insurance of any kind is under a general topic: insurance. That’s something people may not notice, but the way it sets up now ensures that every document pertaining to insurance will be in one location, instead of three or four.”

Phipps said she also was busy revising the museum’s “outdated” policy for handling reproductions of photos, documents and other materials. The museum’s basement-level community room also will get a fresh coat or two of paint within a month or so, helped along by donated materials and labor.

Phipps knows her to-do list will continue to grow, and she welcomes the challenge.

“There are a lot of issues that have been placed on hold, waiting for a new director,” she said. “There are lots of expectations for things to be accomplished and to be handled immediately. It’s not frustrating. It’s to be expected.”