First Day in Office for Reagan Library’s New Director

Mark A. Hunt’s first day on the job Wednesday as director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library was a jarring study in contrasts.

Hunt left Kentucky’s cool, moist, rolling hills for the dry heat, wildfire smoke and quaking earth of Simi Valley.

He moved from a house with his wife and two teenage children to a temporary Wood Ranch bachelor pad where he will stay until school year’s end, when they can join him at their new home in Moorpark.

And he gave up curatorship of the national Boy Scouts museum to guide the public archives of one of the nation’s most popular former presidents.

But Hunt, 46, wasted no time diving into the job Wednesday, meeting with upper-level staff members and greeting the volunteer docents who guide visitors.

“I’m very excited about your arrival, and by your Boy Scout background,” said docent Peggy Van Haaften, wringing Hunt’s hand.

“Well, thank you, thank you very much,” Hunt replied, pointing to a little enamel badge gracing her blazer. “Hey, that’s a Life Scout pin!”

And off they went, chatting for a few moments about her son’s bid to become an Eagle Scout and the Scout-o-Rama in Camarillo this weekend.

“He’s a very pleasant person,” Van Haaften confided later.

Hunt’s most recent post was a six-year stewardship of the National Scouting Museum of the Boy Scouts of America, in Murray, Ky.

But his childhood roots and much of his historical experience are in Kansas.

After earning his degree in historical museum studies at the State University College at Oneonta, N.Y., he learned the art of historical curating and publishing during internships with the American Assn. for State and Local History.

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He found his first job as director--and sole staff member--at a small historical museum in Plymouth, Mich.

“I did everything from mopping floors to researching label copy to developing programs for children,” he said. “It was good training.”

After two years, Hunt moved on to become curator of exhibits for the Kansas State Historical Museum in his hometown, Topeka.

In 1977, Hunt was promoted to assistant director. And by 1979 he had earned the post of director. He supervised more than 20 historical buildings and battlefields and a collection of 150,000 artifacts, ranging from iron plows to silk dresses.

Hunt also oversaw construction of a 90,000-square-foot museum for the Kansas State Historical Society

And there he learned a valuable lesson about making history come alive for visitors when the museum assembled a special exhibit on 20th-century Kansas.

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“A grandfather and grandson would walk over hand in hand to look at the things he remembered from his childhood,” Hunt said.

“You saw that current history means so much more to people because they lived through it,” he said. “That was one of the things that appealed to me here [at the Reagan library]. We’re dealing with history that people remember. It’s a way for people to see what they remember from his administration and how this impacted their lives.”

Hunt will work for a while in the shadow of predecessor Richard Norton Smith, who left a strong stamp on the Reagan library before he gave up the directorship in February to run the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Michigan.

But Hunt said he wants to continue improving on the Reagan library’s immediacy by putting visitors in touch with the Reagan legacy.

And he is clearly excited by the responsibility of showing people the still-living history of Ronald Reagan.

“I’m looking forward to being able to continue to make people aware of what was happening during the Reagan administration and the Reagan years,” he said. “This is a president for whom an entire era has been named.”