New York Mills Herald
Staff Reports
Lina Belar, director of the New York Mills Regional Cultural Center as well as the History Museum of East Otter Tail County for the past 4 1/2 years, has been granted a four month leave of absence from the Cultural Center so that she can work full-time on the exhibits for In Their Own Words, the new veterans museum in Perham scheduled to open July 4 of this year.
Belar was the designer for the History Museum, which opened in 1998, has worked at the Cultural Center since August of 2001. Wearing two hats has been a rewarding challenge.
I love the arts and humanities, Belar says, and really enjoy doing all I can to make cultural opportunities available throughout the area.
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The Cultural Center was founded in 1993 by John Davis who envisioned it as a way to bring big city cultural opportunities to rural Minnesota.
The mission of the center is very much my own, Belar adds. The Center has some wonderful staff people as well as very committed board members and volunteers.
In her absence Arts Retreat Coordinator, Lynn Kasma, has been named Interim Director. Another current staff person,Youth Arts Coordinator, Mim Maas, was also Interim Director several years ago when then director Jolie Sasseville was killed in a car accident. Belar says shes confident that both the staff and the board will continue to provide the remarkable support for the arts that the Cultural Center is known for. At the same time, shes looking forward to being able to concentrate more fully on the exhibits for the new museum.
Most of her waking hours these past years Belar has been an administrator; raising money, writing grants and organizing. For a few months shell get to be an artist herself.
(More on the In Their Own Words veterans museum in Perham, page 3.)
