Dennis Medina is curator of the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum in Abilene. After more than four decades on the job, Medina will retire next month. He began his job on March 28, 1969 — the day Dwight D. Eisenhower died.

Salina ? Four decades ago, Dennis Medina’s knowledge of Dwight Eisenhower consisted of watching his 1953 inaugural festivities on television and reading newspaper stories about his presidential visits to Colorado, where Medina lived at the time. That was it.

Medina will retire next month as the curator of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum knowing much more about the 34th president.

“I had to do a lot of reading,” said Medina, who started work at the Abilene facility in 1969.

Before that, he was the exhibits director for the Colorado State Historical Society and wasn’t looking for a job, particularly one in Kansas.

“I wasn’t really interested,” Medina said. “That year, the governor cut the budget and I had a lot of projects that got shelved.”

Suddenly, a job change seemed more appealing.

“I met my former boss (of the Eisenhower Library) at that time at a museum meeting. He offered me a job, and I turned it down.”

Medina called back later and asked whether the museum job was still open. It was.

“I was only going to stay five years,” he said of the Abilene posting. “And here we are, 41 years later.”

The Eisenhower facility and the Abilene community hooked him.

“I loved the collection, the exhibit work,” Medina said of his reasons for staying as long as he has. “The Eisenhower family has been good to me over the years. And the local people. They are all very friendly, very interested in what’s going on at the museum. They’re great supporters of our public programs.”

Medina said he chose his profession because of his fascination with objects.

“I get to hold history in my hands,” he said. “You get to view it. We get to hold it.”

Besides handling — with protective gloves — the museum’s holdings, Medina over the years has come face to face with countless national and foreign dignitaries, which he said are among the most memorable of his experiences.

“Meeting some of the people who were very important in American politics and the military, having that ability to take them on a tour of the Eisenhower legacy,” he said.

Moving from a state job to one administered by the National Archives and Records Administration wasn’t that different, once he familiarized himself with the subject.

“There, you’re dealing with a broader range of history,” he said. “Here, we’re dealing with one individual.”

But that didn’t stop Medina from expanding the collection.

“We’re fortunate that Eisenhower was a complex individual. He had lots of careers. He was a military man, an artist, sportsman, educator — he was president of Columbia University. All those careers.”

The collection also includes items from the Eisenhower era.

Although Medina jokingly describes himself as the “head duster,” his job is more involved than caring for a here-it-is-come-see-it static display.

The collection doubled during Medina’s tenure, and he’s directed educational outreach programs.

“We have over 26 million pages of manuscripts, we have close to 77,000 artifacts associated with the Eisenhower legacy,” he said.

The collection is not complete, and may never be.

“There are a few diaries written by Eisenhower that are still out there,” he said. “Also, papers from associates, Cabinet members, we don’t have.” Some gifts Eisenhower received during his presidency also are in the wind, and the family gave away many belongings from their Gettysburg, Pa., farm.

Although he would have liked to, Medina never got the chance to meet President Eisenhower, who died March 28, 1969.

“I started the day he died.”