The Board of Trustees for the Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area on Thursday named Jim Ogle, former general manager for Topeka television station WIBW-TV, as the organization’s new executive director.

Ogle, 58, retired from WIBW in July. He held that position for nine years and worked in journalism for more than three decades.

Jim Ogle

“I left there a few months ago looking for a different challenge, and now I’ve found it,” Ogle said. “I’ve been a storyteller all my life. This is a great job to tell great stories of heritage and how it relates to today.”

Jodi Craig, chairman of the Freedom’s Frontier board, said trustees conducted a nationwide search before hiring Ogle to be the full-time executive director.

Thursday’s announcement came about two months after it was decided Freedom’s Frontier and the Lawrence Convention and Visitors Bureau would establish themselves as separate entities.

Both organizations had been under the umbrella of the nonprofit group Destination Management Inc. since 2008.

Megan Gilliland, the city of Lawrence’s communication manager and interim director of Destination Management Inc. introduced the idea of splitting the organizations. The Lawrence City Commission approved the split in September.

The CVB, now known as eXplore Lawrence, is in the process of establishing its governing board, which will be tasked with naming a director.

Both organizations will continue to work in the Carnegie Building at Ninth and Vermont streets. They’ll also both receive city funding.

Approximately $90,000 was allocated to Freedom’s Frontier for 2016.

The goal of Freedom’s Frontier is to bring awareness to the struggles during the Civil War in Kansas and Missouri. The National Heritage Area covers 29 eastern Kansas counties and 12 counties in western Missouri.

Ogle said he wants to highlight the unique history of the 41-county area. One of his first projects would be to establish signage throughout the area that would help people identify significant sites of the Civil-War era, he said.

“I’d be really excited if at some point we could see that people have a better understanding about what Freedom’s Frontier is,” Ogle said. “Our story is unique and interesting; the border wars, the fight over desegregation, once people hear the story they’re surprised of the kind of conflict that occurred here as people defined who got what amount of freedom where.”

According to a Topeka Capital-Journal article about his resignation from WIBW, Ogle, who lives in Topeka, has previously worked in Florida, North Carolina, Nevada and North Carolina. He was a former president of Downtown Topeka Inc. and is the board chair-elect for the Greater Topeka Chamber of Commerce.

Ogle graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism.