Published: January 24, 2008 10:05 am      

EHS Director enjoying new role

EDMOND — Jena Mottola has found there generally are two types of people living in Edmond.

“Transplants, which I call them, or people that have been here their whole life. They just never left, ” said Mottola, the new executive director of the Edmond Historical Society & Museum. “And so there is so much history here, that it’s important for us to keep it alive for those transplants that come in.”

Mottola fills the vacancy left by Gregory Zornes, who had served in that capacity for two months before leaving the position on Sept. 29.

“My first focus is going to be to get some kids in here and to redo the children’s section,” Mottola said. “Edmond is so full of wonderful things to do and we need to be one of those stops families know about. ... If you get kids in here, you’ll get the grown-ups in here. And then you get the buy-in of the younger generation to want to keep it going.”

Edmond has more to offer than fine dining experiences, she said. “That’s not the important things in life,” she said.

Mottola compares Edmond to Lexington, Mass., a city with a culturally rich heritage marked by its beginning of setting some cultural cornerstones. For example, Edmond has preserved the legacy of Oklahoma Territory’s first school house.

“It’s important for us to know that we have history, too, and it doesn’t just stop at the (89er) Land Run,” she said. “History is being made every day.”

Mottola would like to help create exhibits that branch through Edmond’s decades, such as EHS’s current exhibit on family owned businesses. Edmond’s role in the civil rights movement of the 1960s would be interesting, she said.

Her own history began in Norman where she was born. Mottola’s mother moved her family to Boston when Mottola was in fourth grade.

She earned her undergraduate degree in sociology at Regis College in Weston, Mass., and then a master’s degree in management with a certificate in negotiation and conflict resolution from Cambridge College.

Mottola and her husband Robert moved from Boston to Edmond last year with their 2-year-old son and daughter, 7. “We just said, ‘You know, we need to slow down a little bit. It’s getting crazy, and we moved down here,” she said.

Robert is a clinical social worker in Oklahoma City. Moving to Edmond allowed Mottola to be “happy wearing sweat pants” at home with her children for several months.

She said her husband consistently encouraged her to apply for the executive directorship at EHS. She had worked for almost 10 years in Cambridge, Mass., as a special projects manager and grant writer at the Child Care Resource Center, a nonprofit resource referral agency advocating for children’s issues.

“Nonprofit is my life,” she said. “And nonprofit is my language.”

In two weeks, Mottola already has received matching grant funding for Dr. Gary Gray’s upcoming March 1 impersonation of the late Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater to be at EHS.

Exhibit Director Iris Muno is working on “A Wall of History: Edmond — A Photographic Journey Exhibit” in March.

“It’s a collage of photographs per decade,” Muno said.

Mottola said she is interested in hearing suggestions for future exhibits. A fly fishing exhibit is a possibility being discussed, she added.

“We’re always open to even borrowing things for exhibits,” she said. “We do take donations.”

One visit to EHS is not enough because the museum always is changing, Mottola said.



jcoburn@edmondsun.com |

341-2121, ext. 114