Donor support helps finance Othello museum upgrades

OTHELLO – The Othello Community Museum will be expanding its schedule with the help of donations and an Othello business. Steve’s Refrigeration and Heating started work Monday on repairs and upgrades to the museum’s heating and cooling systems.

“We haven’t had an HVAC system,” said museum secretary Molly Popchuck. “They haven’t had one for 30 years.”

The museum opened in 1972 in what was one of Othello’s first churches. Its antiquated heating-cooling system limited its schedule to summer. But even summer use was limited, said Dean Kisler, who grew up in Othello. Museum board members worked to raise money to repair it, a project that benefited from Kisler and his former employer.

The museum, 250 E. Larch St., was built in 1908 as the First Presbyterian Church and expanded in 1913. Othello and the surrounding area were mostly home to dryland farmers and crews working on the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad; it was a growing community for a while, until a change in weather patterns reduced the rainfall and drove a lot of the farmers away. The town’s population stabilized at about 500 people, and there it stayed for decades.

What changed its fortunes was the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam and the irrigation water it provided. Dryland cultivation gave way to row crops and orchards; Othello began raising fruits and vegetables and eventually processing them too.

The congregation kept worshiping at the First Presbyterian Church until the late 1950s. The building was empty for a few years until it was purchased by the Bethel Assembly of God Spanish-speaking congregation, which in turn sold it to the Museum and Arts Society.

Over time, people donated family artifacts to the museum – families who prospered with the railroad, families who busted in the dryland days, families that moved to town when the water came.

“It’s a collection of people’s memories going back 100 years,” Kisler said.

In his opinion, it is a valuable reminder of how Othello grew, and it is important for those items to be preserved and available for people to see and study them.

“It’s so easy to forget how we became a community,” he said. “It was a lot of community-minded people.”

While he pursued a career elsewhere and now lives in Seattle, he maintained a connection to his hometown.

“We all went to school from kindergarten to (high school) graduation. Wonderful town to grow up in,” he said.

The museum is among the projects he supported, he said. Its use was limited, however, in part due to the broken heating-cooling system. The museum is open from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturdays from March to November.

“And that’s about it,” he said.

A broken air conditioner could cause just as much trouble as the broken heater – Kisler cited the case of a lecture on a very hot day. Expanding the schedule was the goal of the heating-cooling project.

Kisler is retired from a career at the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson and had used the company’s charitable donation program in support of the museum. For donations made by active employees to a qualifying organization, Johnson & Johnson would provide two times the donation, up to a specific amount. For retired employees, Johnson & Johnson matches the donation.

The museum’s board of directors started looking into what it would cost to fix the HVAC system and were a little daunted by what they found, Popchock said. The estimated cost was about $18,000.

“When we started, we had no idea it would cost that much,” she said.

She contacted Kisler as part of the fundraising campaign on the advice of longtime museum board member Fay Coats.

“He was excited, and he said, ‘I want to help with that project,’ ” Popchuck said.

Kisler has donated to other historical preservation projects at the museum and the Old Hotel Art Center, she said. The money from Kisler and the Johnson & Johnson match helped the museum board reach its goal.

Kisler said he has supported other projects in Othello, including the Othello Food Bank and the city’s beautification committee.

“I do believe in community service,” he said. “I learned that in Othello.”