Anaheim Museum Director Resigns to Go Back North

ANAHEIM — Herb E. Pruett has resigned as director of the Anaheim Museum, effective Nov. 2, to return to his home in Northern California’s Mendocino County. His assistant, Rita Robinson, will manage daily operations until the museum’s board finds a new director.

Pruett became the museum’s second director in September, 1985, when it existed in a small Anaheim office “with two desks,” he said. The institution now occupies the city’s former library, a historic landmark built with funds from the Carnegie Foundation in 1908.

“I came down here in 1985 to work in the museum field in Southern California, and I feel like I’ve accomplished the goals I set and it’s time to go back,” Pruett said. “Mendocino is my home.”

Pruett, who was previously founding director of the Mendocino County Museum, said he plans to do museum consulting and develop other “outside interests.”

The Anaheim Museum focuses on the history of Anaheim and north Orange County. It has changing exhibits, a permanent collection and a children’s hands-on gallery as well as a gallery at Anaheim Plaza shopping center. Its main site is open four days a week.