By Eric Stock
BLOOMINGTON – He’s as much a Bloomington institution as the museum he’s leaving after nearly four decades.
Greg Koos is retiring after 38 years at the McLean County Museum of History, the last 28 years as its director. Koos guided the museum over its transition into its current home at the former McLean County courthouse in downtown Bloomington and transformed it into a nationally-accredited museum.
PODCAST: Listen to Scott and Colleen’s interview with Koos on WJBC.
Koos told WJBC’s Scott Laughlin that accreditation was instrumental in convincing the county that it should move into the former McLean County courthouse in the 1980s.
Koos said he wanted to see its $3 million fundraising campaign to its completion and the opening the new Route 66 Visitors Center at the museum before retiring.
He recalled a time when he started as an archivist at the museum in the 1970s when it accepted anything it could deem historic. He said now with a limited space, the museum has to be more selective and focus primarily on local history.
“Because there’s always a lot of work to do, looking at ‘do you really need this piece?’ It’s a labor-intensive piece. Now because of space isues, you have to look at that,” Koos said. “That’s going to be a challenge for us. How do we collect the 20th century?”
The reutilization of the 1903 courthouse was honored by the American Association for State and Local History in 1993. Koos also curated multiple exhibits on local history and, working with Jack Moody of the County of McLean, oversaw the restoration of the courthouse dome which won the Landmarks Illinois Richard H. Dreihaus Award in 2005.
“Greg has devoted much time and effort to the museum over his 38 years and we truly appreciate that,” Board President Carolyn Yockey said. “He is a walking encyclopedia of McLean County history; we are thrilled that he is writing a book to preserve what he knows.”
The museum’s Board of Trustees has promoted development director Beth Whisman to succeed Koos in April.
“I knew I was taking on a major challenge when I left broadcasting for a job in the museum field. What I couldn’t know at the time was that I’d come to love this place and our amazing staff, volunteers, and donors,” Whisman said. “We have a clear strategy for the future thanks to Greg’s vision and leadership, and I’m humbled to be entrusted with such an important legacy.”
Koos said his isn’t leaving the museum entirely, adding his next project is to write a general history of McLean County.
“We look quite often at local history as if a place is an island and nothing around it really matters,” Koos said. “I want to write it from a viewpoint that things around it do matter, that the things that happen here are a reflection of what’s going on in the larger world.”
Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].
