COLIN HOPE
MULTIMEDIA JOURNALIST
WEST PLAINS DAILY QUILL
Reporter | March 2014
Local artist Bill Dugan is no stranger to the lofty realm of painting and sculpture but this week he has taken steps to the basement of the Harlin Museum on Worcester Street in West Plains. He is organizing the museum's many treasures in preparation for a museum yard sale from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 11, 12 and 13.
While the museum's mission is to collect items that tell a story about the Ozarks region, sometimes there are duplicate -- even triplicate -- parts of the tale. The basement is abuzz as Dugan sets aside some repeated artifacts for the sale. He hopes the History of West Plains Exhibit's doll collection, antique sewing machine and World War II uniforms will make a solid contribution to restoration efforts to the Harlin Museum.
Dugan and others are giving the museum a makeover following extensive water damage done to both floors of a section of the building in early January. New carpeting, pegboards and painting are the order of the day, but the original house built in 1889 remains untouched. The culprit for the damage was a leaky pipe to the water fountain.
Dugan has been a member of the Harlin Museum Board for five years and is currently president. This will be the first time in recent memory the museum is shedding some of its collection through a sale, Dugan said.
"That's the thing about museum boards: we'll serve for a number of years, then leave, and new people come in with new ideas," Dugan said.
Click here to read the personal profile of Bill Dugan.
The women who helped build the airplanes that took the fight to the skies in World War II were known collectively as “Rosie the Riveter.’’ Among them was Ruth Wicker, the daughter of Fred and Della Hardcastle Wicker. She grew up on a farm south of Caulfield in Howell County and now lives in Corpus Christi, Texas. She is 88. Her husband, Dwight Mustion, died in 2008. He was a first cousin to Dan Cargill of West Plains and it is Dan’s wife who brought to The Quill the book “Rosie the Riveter Stories – The Legacy Lives On,’’ published in 2012 by the American Rosie the Riveter Association.