Hello everyone, and welcome to then again I am Liba Beecham, the now director of Operations at the Northeast Georgia History Center here with our lovely staff and of course our new executive director, Greg Payne, who I am very excited to introduce used to all of our listeners. Why don't we go around the table and we'll save Greg for last. But again, I'm Liba Beecham.

To my left we have Marie Barlett, the Director of Ada, may Ivester Education.

Center, leslie Jones, the Collections and archives.

Manager, and Greg, of course. Greg, we are so excited to have you here. Welcome to your first podcast episode. Yay.

Thank you. I'm excited to be here.

So this is a great opportunity for our listeners to get to know you, your passion for history and history education and what led you to being interested in the position in the first you know, I think listeners will quickly pick up. You don't have much of a Southern accent now, do you?

No.

Now, let's start from the very beginning. Where did you grow up, Greg?

So? Born in Portland, Oregon, and lived there the first four or five years of my life. My father had started a business while he was a master's student at Portland State University. Got that business up off the ground and then it was acquired by the Louisville Courier Journal. And we moved to Louisville, so mid seventy s to the late seventy s. I was in Louisville, Kentucky, and then from there we moved to Springfield, Virginia, just outside the Beltway. So did most of my growing up in Northern Virginia where you couldn't swing a cat without hitting something of historical significance.

Right.

And yeah, so that was kind of the transition from West Coast to East Coast.

Yeah. And while you were on the West Coast, you ended up studying history. But where did your interest in history begin for you?

Right, I think it started with even going back into Kentucky. So some of the family field trips around were going to places like Lincoln's birthplace and checking some of those places out. Also going to some of the other historical significant areas. Fort Knox, especially for a young kid that, I mean, here's tanks, a lot of them are moving and they do reenactment battles there. So you see Shermans and Tigers like shooting guns and then afterwards the kids can go climb all over the tanks and stuff. So absolutely love that. But then in Virginia, really getting into the elementary school program. So we were studying Virginia history, of course, which is a lot of the colonial history. I mean, starting out with Jamestown, the founding of that, Williamsburg, how Washington and Jefferson did all this surveying in Washington especially, as well as a number of the early leaders of the country from that area, was just interesting. And part of it was interesting because it had to be interesting because that's what they were talking about and teaching us, and there were quizzes. But then also moving into middle school, I had an awesome teacher. So middle school history teachers, if it looks like everybody's zoning out and couldn't give two rips about what you're doing, there's actually a few kids out there that are getting impressed and influenced by you. And I had this professor, Mr. Applegate was his name. He was 7th or 8th grade teacher, I think he was 7th. And he really talked about bringing the periods of history that we were studying at that time to life when we would go in. And he was definitely an artist because we would go in and if we started into a chapter of the 50s, he would have the blackboard that went from one end of the room to the other end, just decorated with hot rods and all sorts of things associated with the 50s. Right. So Monday morning, you come in, and you've got this blackboard, that's colorful chalk and all these things, and then we'd get in and start talking about it, and he would talk to us about even what it meant at that time to have heart. If you were from a neighborhood, let's say in New York or Boston or big city, right? And that block, that neighborhood was your neighborhood, and you kind of fell into protecting that neighborhood. And you stayed within that neighborhood for whatever reasons, but talking to us about how important it was that you had heart, and that was one of those things that the other kids in the neighborhood would respect. And it was like, okay, we're not talking about Dan Ben Fu. We're not talking know Elvis. We're not talking about this thing. It was somebody sitting there going, hey, if you grew up here, you had to have heart because everybody had to know they could rely on you and you could rely on them, and the ones that didn't became outcasts, right? So, wow, that's different because that's not name dates and places. That's something else. And then, of course, our field trips growing up, I was so lucky to grow up as a kid in that time, that place, because our field trips were National Archives. We were going to the Capitol on a regular basis. We were going to Mount Vernon. We were going to Gunston Hall. We were going to Manassas or Bull Run, depending on if you're north or south, you figure out which one you want. We were going to these different places, and this was just our normal field trip, where maybe kids down here go down to the world of coke or something. I don't know.

People inquiry.

I went to Amma.

Oh, the cyclorama.

I didn't do any of that. I went to a box factory.

A box factory?

Who takes children to a box factory?

I know.

Hey, those are hard.

We got to see how boxes were made, you guys. It's the best.

Well, I mean, that does speak to you. It makes me think about like that is a very unique experience for a child, especially. And like you said, Virginia has so much history tied to our national history. I mean, Marie, Leslie, have y'all been to any historic sites in Virginia or the capital yet?

My 8th grade class actually took us on a field trip to Washington DC.

What was that like for you?

It was amazing. So in 8th grade, we were seeing Georgia history, but also it was just our school's policy of like, we do a big overnight multi day field trip and we're taking all of these 8th graders to Washington DC. We're going to go and we're going to go look at of course, we actually sat through a thing of Congress. They actually asked us to leave because most people were falling asleep and they're like, if your class is going to just sleep, could you leave? And we're like, we are the only ones here listening to this very boring speech about I'm not even sure what, I don't remember. But we went to the Library of Congress. They actually took us to the White House. And I got to see Obama's dog, Bo. He was going outside to use and I got to see the dog. It was very exciting. And so that was really cool, just getting to walk through the White House. And then of course, they took us to all of the monuments paraded us.

What kind of impression did that make on you as a young, Marie? Already interested in history.

I was having a great time. I got to see the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution up close. They took us to the News Zeum, which has since close, I figured out, sadly, but it was a museum all about news and like, the history of news. So that was really cool. But yeah, no, I was just having the best time ever, just getting to be like, oh, my gosh, this is where it all happened. This is our us. It was just amazing.

I've never been to Washington DC. I know. We get staff field trip.

We can go to all the Smithsonians. They're free.

Yes. That's the best part about it.

Yeah.

I mean, close to the best part, but leslie, have you been to DC.

I've been there a couple times when I did shows, I used to travel to Comic Cons and I did go there a couple times when I was a kid. I was into history, but I pretended I wasn't because it wasn't cool. So I wasn't really that invested until I got older. Yeah, but I've been there many times.

And Greg, was there something that really stood out to you about one of the museums there? Or was it just the whole experience kind of leading you on that path to studying history?

Yeah, well, different interests. So the aerospace museum, of course, as a kid, a little boy that walks in, and you have these huge planes suspended from the ceiling. And I'm talking the one that's downtown, not the one out in Dulles. That one's great. But for me, I'm old, and that's the one that I remember, but just get you excited about airplanes and jets. And then also, too, I think it was again going back to professors. So when I graduated from school, high school, I went to community college for a couple of semesters, and we're taking history courses there, and one of them was a Civil War history course. So we would have meet Tuesday, Thursday, or Monday, Wednesday, Friday, whatever it is, and then the professor would take us to a little out of the way battlefields.

Oh, cool.

So we would go to Brandywine. We would go big cavalry engagement there, and we would go to these different places on Saturdays. And it was all volunteer. It was not part of it, but we would walk the grounds, and we would learn a little bit. I think now there's even a specialty in history or archaeology that talks about geological features. So we would learn things like when they sat down and said, hey, when you hear me start to attack in all these cannons and rough muskets going off, then you got to start your attack. Well, sometimes that didn't happen because there's a big hill or mountain in between, and so people couldn't hear that the attack had started. And so that delay either works for you or against you. But I had that going on. And then also, too, with a lot of World War II history at that time. So that led me into the two periods of time that I really enjoyed. And even though Civil War and World War II is like, okay, be more of a cliche. Greg for me, it's even the events leading into and coming out of those. It's it's when I went back to Portland, Oregon, and was at Portland State myself and doing history, portland, Oregon, evidently is not a huge place to go to study the Civil War or Virginia or Southeast history. Sure, for some reason they're focused on the Northwest and other aspects of history. So I got in and I studied my senior year, did a lot of focus study on Weimar Republic, which fit perfectly. It was the lead in right when we got into the Spanish Civil War, and we got into why Germany did certain things, why the British and the French and the Americans, and people did certain things in regards to relations to Germany, the whole thing with the outcome of the Russian Revolution and all of that. So you start to put pieces together. So you realize people didn't just wake up one day and decide to go invade another country like, oh, it's Tuesday. I'm bored. I think I'm going to invade Poland. There are some things that lead up to that. And so as a young man, I'm starting to put some pieces together and going back to the connectivity that even Mr. Applewhite had. Right? It's, what's going on? What are the feelings? What's the background here? So I enjoy learning as much about the warfare stuff, and, yeah, I can totally blow an entire Saturday watching the old History Channel documentaries on World War II, but I love what's going on leading into it. What are the mistakes that are going on, and then what's the outcome, and how do you navigate that and how we get to where we are?

Yeah, I mean, it makes me think about how, in our time, we want news and answers immediately with all of the historic events that are happening in our own lifetime. But I think the appeal of history is that you get to see the whole timeline and make those connections yourself, and it's still very exciting to see the cause and effect relationship of it all. But you also spoke to just learning those really interesting, smaller details that, from my perspective, as someone who's not a historian but very interested in history, mentioning that hill, for instance, on the battlefield, and how just that alone could lead to certain causes or certain effects, and that's the kind of nuance you get from studying history. Is that really human side where it's like, well, we just couldn't hear each other? Is that kind of what drew you all in as well? I mean, what was it with history education or museums that do you have a specific moment or story that's like, that's when I became a history nerd and I knew that I was hooked, or did it kind of grow from your childhood?

I'm not sure if there's a moment that I can say, like, this was the moment that I decided, but I always just had an interest of history. I always liked watching, like, Liberty Kids on PBS. That was always really fun. I always had my American Girl dolls. So I think what drew me in was releasing the human side, the story side of history, because I don't know why we continue. And I say we as in big general history. We not. We as in the History Center, because we do a good job here of not just doing names, dates, and facts.

Right.

We try to tell the full story. We try to have the humanity. I think that's one of the great things about living history is that you get the human side immediately because it's a person and you're talking to a person. So that's why I love living history and using that as an interpretive tool to talk about history. Yeah, I think it's just seeing the human side of history and the story side of it that makes me like, oh, my gosh, that's so interesting. And also, you can kind of place yourself into their shoes a little bit better and think about, what would my life have been like if I was born in XYZ time.

Yeah, I think that's what reading offered me with the My America. Is that?

What? America? There is my America and there's dear America Those are two different series. Very similar, though.

Yeah. The ones I read were, like, these diary entries of fictitious characters or even real characters, but of course, the content is still fictitious, like Marie Antoinette.

Oh, those are royal diaries.

Oh, the royal diaries. Yes. And I remember reading one about girl who was in the south during the Civil War. That when the think so I think, you know, it was like those were to me, those were just exciting stories as a kid, and I never really connected the dots of, like, oh, I should study history or pursue it academically. But having a theater background, I was always drawn to cool stories, and it was like, oh, wow, this is even cooler because it happened alludes to things, experiences, like you said that happened. Leslie, what about you as a young, Leslie? You said you tried to keep it cool and not let your history nerd heart shine. But, I mean, when did you allow it to shine? When did you get really into it?

Not till my 20s. But I always loved museums, especially historic houses. Those are my favorite. Even as a kid, I at least admitted that. And I knew I always wanted to work in a museum. It was basically either that or archaeology. And I did not want to teach, which I do now, but I didn't want to at the time. So it was either history or I just as you guys know, I love Biltmore Mount Vernon's, one of my favorites. I absolutely love historic homes. So I think that's what attracted me for.

I mean, you have this pretty awesome childhood full of great opportunities to appreciate history, to go to the nation's capital, see all these awesome museums, but you end up taking a pivot in your life toward business, but you've returned to history. But how did you keep that connection to history in your own life? How did you sort of enjoy that passion of yours?

Yeah, so great question. I think what I enjoyed with that was being able to teach and explain things to other people. I love the fact that when we had company, wherever we were, I did grad school in North Carolina. So we have Fort Macon, which is not too far away, is constructed 1840s, and it's a seagide coastal fort defending North Carolina. And we would go over there, and then we would both learn about it, but then take visitors over and talk to them about it and find out what life was like and find out how the flaws in the construction when you're building things so close to the sea, stuff tends to erode faster than planned. So you had some of those types of opportunities. And then also I enjoyed being able to talk to my sons about different things when we had opportunities, for example, to be up in Virginia or be around and being able to take them and show them some of these opportunities to touch, see, smell history. And there was never any intent to make them love it as much as I did. But the intent was to show them this stuff and let them determine the level of coolness and what lessons they might derive from it. Because we think about, like, Monticello or, you know, even places down here. Not everybody gets to see them. And so a lot of people talk about, oh, I'd love to take a trip to Monticello and see where Jefferson built his home and did all these things, and being able to go, hey, I took my kids there. They saw this thing, they experienced it, and being able to then they can talk about it in the I just I loved sharing that experience, sharing that knowledge. And, yeah, I probably bored a lot of people with greg's, fun facts, different parts of history and culture. And, you know, I just kind of kept that alive and then kept that interest, buy books, read different things, read part of Churchill's history, read part of this person's history. And then also, I think, with the Internet explosion and being able to get programs like Time Team, I'm a huge Time Team nerd.

I don't know what time team is. What is this?

So Time Team is a BBC program that started in England in the 90s. It lasted for about 20 years. It's since come back through crowdfunding and what it was, a group of archaeologists would get called onto a site, and they did this program in a compression of three days. So you had Friday, Saturday, Sunday, essentially, we're going to a castle, we're going to this place because somebody found a Roman coin, somebody found an Anglo Saxon spearhead, somebody found whatever they go and they dig it up. And that particular program is both focused on the archaeology and digging stuff up, but it's also based on understanding what was going on at the time in the environment. And they would often have interpretive archaeologists, living archaeologists, I don't know what, but they would have people that would be there as part of the program sometimes to go through about how pottery was being made and building a kiln and going through what the local clay and how you do these different things. And then at the end of the program, they might also have wrapped up, like, oh, here's all of the discoveries. But then you also learn, like, well, this is how shearing the sheep was made, and then this is how we spun it into yarn that then somebody in the 13 hundreds could then produce into some kind of a garment or rug or tapestry or something that's really cool. So they focused in on both the archaeology, like, the wow factor, like, oh, nobody knew this was here. And then they also focused in on that human story factor. Right. The everyday person. What was life like for the people that lived in the Roman villa that weren't necessarily the owners of the Roman villa? So programs like that, as well as other programs, you can find this stuff and you just kind of scratch that itch, right?

Yeah. It makes me think about a lot of the stories that we share here at the History Center are very much those stories of everyday people. Much of our archives is full of objects of everyday people. So, Leslie, is there an item from our archives that kind of speaks to that? It's invaluable to us, and it can tell us a lot, but ultimately it's not something that is going to be worth millions of dollars or protected by glass in the Smithsonian.

Well, there's something that's priceless to Gainesville, and that's the prescription pad from Lotley's Pharmacy. It was on the square from the 1910s to the 1960s. And we have a prescription pad, and it has multiple prescriptions. I know we have one of Garland Reynolds, he's an architect here. Libba interviewed him a little bit, but we also have one from EE Butler. Marie could definitely elaborate on him a little bit, but there isn't much about him anymore. There isn't much that people know. And just seeing his prescription and for somebody who was a white gentleman that he saw at the doctor's office, which was also fascinating. So it's like really interesting history that only Gainesville or local history that they would care about.

Marie? Yeah. Give us a little context for any listeners who aren't familiar with EE Butler. For local listeners, you may recognize the name EE Butler from E, e Butler Parkway here. But who is Dr. E. E Butler?

Yes. So we are located right off of the road that is named for E Butler. There's a historical sign that some people may have stopped and read. I think it's basically kind of in the region's parking lot right next door to us. But we decided to do a chautauqua about healthcare heroes in 2021. And I wrote the script for E Butler and have since done even a little bit more research about him in presentations. But he is an incredibly fascinating individual. And he was not born in Gainesville. He was born south here, kind of closer to Macon, in a small little town that probably no one's ever heard of, but it's close to Macon, travels around the south a bit. He goes to Mahari Medical School in Tennessee and then goes to a tuberculosis clinic and then basically ends up settling down here in Gainesville and opening up his practice and working at a hospital here. He is an African American in a time when segregation is still pretty much the rule of the south. But as Leslie was saying, he was writing a prescription for a white patient so it shows us, and from the stories that we've heard and also artifacts that we have, that he served a clientele that was African American and of Caucasian descent. So it's a very interesting race relations in Gainesville. Shows us how things were perhaps not as segregated as you might think, but also that there still definitely was segregation.

And the prescription is from the 1930s, so it is a very segregated time. And he still saw white patients.

Yeah, he was very well respected. Also E Butler, of course, he's known as being a very good doctor, but he was also known for his public service within the African American community, organizing voter registration, very much involved in Fair Street athletics, their band. And he was named to the school board when they were trying to integrate the schools and was one of the first African Americans, him and one other gentleman on the school board trying to integrate the school board to then integrate schools. Sadly, he died rather young of cancer, so he didn't really get to see the dream fulfilled of desegregated schools here in Georgia, because that came even way later than the Brown versus Board of Education Supreme Court decision. But he was very much on the leading lines of trying to make a more integrated you know, just it just.

Speaks to the kinds of connections that we can make with those kind of objects. I mean, that really speaks to me, and I don't know, greg, are those types of artifacts, have those also kind of spoken to you, those everyday items of the past before when you've seen them?

Yeah, absolutely. I think as a kid, I would go to the local Army Navy surplus store and I would be buying web gear and ammo pouches that I'd use for a bunch of different things. But as I started to get in my teenage years, I would be thinking in terms of the people that might have been using it now, like any other red blooded American boy in the 80s, these were guys that were single handedly fighting off the Communist Chinese coming over the border in Korea. Right. You take an artifact and you blow it up. As you get older, you can start to appreciate now this is probably a 20 year old that was scared peepee list.

Yeah.

And had all sorts of fears, all sorts of hopes. Was hoping someday to come home, marry his high school sweetheart, or whatever that story is. You can start to kind of put that into place. And you think about that, and you think about everyday items. Right. And going back to the time team. And some of the things that I've seen is when you start to see how tough things were like for miners and laborers and mule skinners up in the appalachia working in those lumber camps, and you start to get an appreciation of how difficult things were and really how extraordinary the ordinary person was is kind of incredible.

Yeah, absolutely. I like the way you put that. I think that's a lot of what we can introduce to a lot of families and kids and visitors here, because one of the activities that the kids love is just doing laundry.

Talk to us about doing that.

No, talk about what kind of equipment you use and what they have to do, because I think it speaks to that kind of like they get the experience of like, are you kidding me? You had to actually go get the water. I mean, how do you explain it to the field trip?

Yeah, so for one of our most popular field trips is just daily life in early America, which means that we're going to be doing chores that you would have done in your little log cabin. And we'll take them out there, and sometimes they get to choose whatever from our list. And sometimes I want a lottery demonstration. It's like, all right, so we're going to talk about how we're going to go, and we're going to fetch the water. We're going to fill giant tubs. I do think they have fun. Just like sticking their hands in the water and splashing. Exactly, which is very fun. We're about to do that for our home school day about the American Revolutionary War. I'll be out there teaching the kids how to do laundry. We have our washing dolly, which is like the ancestor to the washing machine agitator. We have our wash boards, we have our soap. And it's just kind of interesting for them to see something that, of course they are familiar with in their everyday lives. Maybe they help around with the laundry at their house. So to be able to see, like, oh, I don't just throw it in this big machine and press a button. There are steps to this. It's far more labor intensive.

And then when they do wash their clothes, I'm sure they're now thinking about that experience. And that's kind of like you were speaking to before. They don't have to walk away with the name and dates or whatever, the very specific information. What you're doing is you're planting that seed of curiosity and giving them that perspective that they can carry with them from that experience. But it's also fun to splash around in the water and do the laundry, especially with these older textiles or examples of the types of fabrics that would be of the time.

Because we also talk about what are we going to be washing most? Why are we going to be washing? They always think it's funny because I hand someone pantaloons. I'm like, okay, you have to hold it up and see. And it's kind of fun. But the pantaloons, the undergarments, the shirts, those are what's going to be washed the most. I'm going to try not to wash my dress that has all the fabric unless I absolutely have to.

We're.

Probably going to spot treat that. But the things that get the most sweaty and icky are the things that we're going to be washing the most.

Yeah, I mean, you introduce them to just what would you consider as a child of the time? And it's anything like those everyday experiences to me that I think that's what drew me into those Dear American diaries, too. Of course, I loved reading the Royal Diary of Maria Twinency, what her daily life was like, but to know a person of status equivalent to mine or lower in a sense, that's just that everyday American of the past really means a lot. I think that's what we kind of bring out through our living history. And speaking of living history, Greg, have you experienced living history? Mean, are we your introduction to living history?

Yes and no. Okay. So long time ago I worked at the National Capital Area Council's scout Reservation Goshen Scout camps. And I worked on what we called the Trail camp. And the trail camp was different activities, all spaced out five to 10 miles apart. And you'd have the scouts with full packs go to each location and somebody might sign up for rock climbing. And then you'd hike over to Mountain Man, and then you'd hike over to Foxfire and then you'd go to Caving. So the idea was to walk the kids around this reservation, which was quite large, and one of the outposts, because I was an NRA instructor for black powder, I would be called in to go work at the Civil War camp. And so when I went up there to work because somebody had the day off, sometimes I got a program where it's like, hey, here's what you need to do. And then other times when I would volunteer, they didn't tell me what the program was because I was working at what we call a base camp. So I was a regular dining halls, all that kind of stuff. So I'd go up into the hills not too far away, but up into the hills to the Civil War camp, put on my Civil War garb, welcome, let's say anywhere, eight to twelve young men to the camp. And then I'm a person from the Civil War that's there to greet them and would have to set up the backstory. Right. We're in a listening outpost, essentially a listening outpost, and I don't know if they even called them that in the Civil War, but essentially, like a little outpost, like, we're keeping an eye. We're trying to see if the Union are coming down through the Blue Ridge Mountains, going to threaten Lexington, Virginia, and then we've got to send word to Stonewall Jackson to march down here and fight them off. But we're just here to kind of keep an eye on things. And I would induct them into the army and then I would also start to go through a manual of arms with them so we would get the black powder rifles and put those around, and then I would give out some of the wool uniforms and have them. And this is Virginia in July, and it's hot and it's sweaty, and all of a sudden, these kids are now putting on wool uniform. I'm giving them 14 pound rifles, and we're marching around a little bit to practice some of that. Left turn, right turn, forward, back. Essentially, I'm doing a box step with a bunch of kids, trying to make it sound like I'm giving them orders, like a drill instructor. Then we would go over and we would shoot the rifles, right? Because all the kids want to do is make the rifle go boom.

Right.

But we would go over there. But, yeah, I would get into a character to make that experience even more. And it wasn't always that we were doing guns and all that stuff. Sometimes we would also, because I'd have them for the whole day, we would do camp life stuff. And I know baseball wasn't necessarily a Southern thing, but we would start playing baseball and start doing some other things laundry, talk about Civil War medicine, how to take care of yourself, grooming, some of those things. Also, some of the things that they didn't know about, like, hey, maybe we shouldn't put the latrine right next to the creek where we get the water from.

Yeah, right.

Some things like that. But you talk to the kids about that, and then they would get more of an appreciation, right. It wasn't just, hey, here's the battle of Second Manassas. Here's why it's strategically important. Here's what's going on with the south. Here's where they're coming in from the north. We're not just talking about that. We're talking about the individual person, and we're involved in that. So I have done that. And then I've also done a little bit of other stuff in supporting some plays and some other types of things, but not to the scale you all do. I mean, you guys take it to another level. You're practically method actors up. You're out there studying everybody's movements and how they do. They say, like, women in the 19th century would move their hair to the left or move their hair around by going to the left. It was only in the 19th century they went to the right. You get on to all those details. Yeah.

Well, it's cool that you kind of intuited that style of education. I was only introduced to living history outside out of college when I volunteered at a local museum and got introduced to it. And I was a theater major at the time. Leslie, when was your introduction to living history? Was it not until the history center?

No, actually, one of the times I went to DC. I went to the Betsy Ross Museum, and there's a woman in the basement that plays Betsy Ross, and she's completely in character. And she's just so in the flag, and you could ask her. I just it was really interesting. I actually stayed with her for a little while just because I'd never seen yeah, yeah.

I'm sure she made a good impression for living history on you then. Yeah. Well, that's awesome. So you clearly kept a passion for history alive in many ways after you get your undergrad in history, but you got your graduate degree in business, which has been great for us. Now, I wonder, did you think you would eventually pursue history as a career, or was this sort of first, let's talk about how you pursue business, and then we'll get to how you got to the History Center.

All right, well, so my senior year of school, I met this woman, Karen Mangum, and she had two little boys from a first marriage. And this is why you should never really date when you're in school. Definitely have some flings. Keep it casual. I did not take that advice. So my senior year at Portland State, I met Karen two little boys, and then we got engaged. As we were getting engaged, I had a V eight moment where you slap your forehead and go, oh, this isn't going to work. And that was pursuing history. Right. Because history is not what you go into to make any kind of money.

Yeah.

We've learned that we are not for profit.

Yes, indeed.

So I was smart enough at that point to know that history doesn't pay, but I was heading down the road. I was already applying to grad schools to continue with the master's and PhD because I wanted to teach the world Doesn't Need the 500th book on Abraham Lincoln. I wasn't interested necessarily in a lot of research or publishing and stuff, but I know that's the game. Met this woman, got married, two kids. Yeah. One day I'm single, I can sleep on a friend's couch. The next day I'm family of four, and I was like, oh, okay, well, now I need to go. Let me do something and go the business route. So my last semester at school, I'd started taking some organizational behavior classes. I started taking some other business classes, and there are some things where, okay, I can enjoy this. I should probably go ahead and get my MBA because we're already poor. We can't be much poorer. So I'm not losing income. It's not like, oh, I'm making $100,000, but I'm going to have to give that up for a couple of years to focus full time on doing yeah, there wasn't that. So we moved to North Carolina, where I went to ECU, got my MBA, and then spent oh, boy, it must be like the last 20 something years. Working primarily in logistics, so implementing software, working with customers, doing all that sort of thing, work for a great company here in Atlanta, Ups. So want to give them a plug, and if you guys want to donate to the History Center, please reach out. But love my time there, but I was still getting restless. And so all this time it's watching documentaries, it's reading books, it's still boring people with fun facts. And I think there was a great program at the History Center a few years ago that dealt with maybe the Civil War medicine or something along those lines, where came out, checked it out, had an experience like, so many people, like, wow, I had no idea you all were here.

Right?

Had a good time. And then I think there was a couple of other programs that came out, too. And then my wife nudged me and was like, go, why don't you volunteer? They've got weekend programs. You can come help set up tables. You can do that. You can lift a table. Greg, go set up a help. Help out. It'll be adjacent to your interests and your passions. So I started doing that for a couple of years, and then I think we ended up finding out about the opportunity for the executive director position, and I was like, closed my eyes, filled out the resume and cover letter, and then shipped it off and was like, let's see what happens.

Yeah. And we're very glad that you did. It was really exciting, and it's a great opportunity to have had you as a volunteer, especially, so you got to know the programs, but you're also, of course, one of our stellar and most dedicated volunteers over the past few years, and that's been really awesome. And to have your business skill set, your passion for history and the knowledge that you've acquired over the years. It was a really great, well rounded set of skills. And especially with the logistics and project management and just being able to represent us so well, you really stood out and shown for that. And so, so excited to have you on the team. I think that I'd love to have a conversation just about especially for our listeners, since we don't get to talk about the History Center in depth all that much. But it's a really exciting time at the History Center. There are challenges, for sure, but within those challenges, I see so many opportunities. I mean, like a lot of nonprofits, we were definitely affected by the pandemic, and we're still recovering from that. So building our membership base, reaching more people like our homeschool, families, and our teachers, and of course, just letting folks know that we exist. Like you said, there's still very much this hidden gem quality to us, and there's so much opportunity here. I'm kind of curious to know what excites you about that opportunity with the History Center, if you have any hopes to share about for next year to look like, especially as next year is a big year for us, it's going to be our 20th anniversary of the Northeast Georgia History Center. Yeah. What are your daydreams right now as executive director.

Oh my. Okay, so to your point about the challenges is I think that's just part of life. It's challenges and opportunities. Everybody in every institution has their own unique challenges. I mean, you could go to the biggest corporations and look at the challenges they have to the smallest one person business and they've got challenges and opportunities. What excites me here is the staff, especially because the staff number one, they care about what they do. They're friggin awesome about it. If I can say friggin in a podcast, I think. So are we going to end up with the Joe Rogan rating?

Yeah. Right.

And those two things is a foundation you can build off of that. Right. And so part of what the opportunities that I see before us is to make sure that the community of North Georgia knows what kind of a premier history center we have here and what we have to offer. Because we can support individuals extremely well in their understanding of their communities, how things are the way they are, as well as so many businesses. I mean, there are some great stories yet to really be tapped into from all the business people and the businesses in North Georgia that I think we've got an abundance of riches when it comes to material to help people understand how awesome North Georgia is. And so I'm looking forward to finding ways for us to really maximize the skill set that we have that's already in place, the foundation that's been here way before I got here, and then really be able to make sure the community can take advantage of what we have to offer as well as knowing what we can offer the community.

Yeah, thank you so much for saying that about the staff. I have to say that we feel like a very tight knit team and I think a lot of people may not realize how small of a staff we are because you see this big building on a college campus since we are at brunell, but we are a staff of well, we got 123456 full time. Oh, no. Five full time, three part time. So we're a staff of eight total. And we do know awesome volunteers and occasional interns during the academic year. But for an eight person team, you look at other larger institutions, and from my perspective, we're really offering, like, a high quality of standard for such a small team to really accomplish. If you're in the area and you're able to visit us on our homeschool days, our homestead days, our chautauquas, our special events throughout the year, or just coming in to visit us to see the awesome artifacts that we have on display in our galleries. The White Path Cabin, the White Herod Blacksmith Shop, our Folk Art gallery, the NC White Collection. You can even get an archives tour. There's so much that we have to offer that, you know, Greg, you coming in and offering us those logistics and that structure to a very creative, enthusiastic, very driven team, I think it's just going to lead us on a path to success. But part of that path is also, like you said, reaching the community and making sure that folks know that we are here and that there is so much of worthy know. We've got our Gainesville Reads program, for instance, so that's part of our educational mission, offering free one on one tutoring with excellent volunteer tutors once a week for our children in Hall County who are struggling with their reading skills, especially after the pandemic. If y'all haven't gotten to know us by coming here, we highly encourage you to come here and stop by, swing by and say hello, enjoy our exhibits, check us out on one of our special events. But we want to hear from you what you would like to see and how you can contribute your time, talents, and perhaps even your treasures if you are able to do so. The best way to support us is, of course, by making a donation or becoming a member. But if you are a business owner, there's also excellent opportunities for sponsorships here, especially since we have so many great events that are very well attended. Our last homeschool Day just last week, we had over 320 homeschool visitors and it was a blast. That also brings to mind if you are a performer, an actor, someone who's got the theater bug, then we have a lot of opportunities for living History interpreters. You can audition with us and check out that process by just emailing us, but if you want to help us in any way offer your skills, then we are an email or phone call away. Greg, thank you so much for hanging out with us today, letting our listeners get to know you. Is there anything else you would like to share with our listeners?

I think just one thing that pops to mind is also wanted to make sure that folks know what an awesome board we have.

Oh, yeah.

How much support, how much knowledge we have from the board. And so I don't want to ever forget them as part of what goes on here. But, yeah, we're looking forward to the future. This is going to be awesome. It'll be a scary, fun experience, and I can't wait until we're starting to talk about the 25th anniversary, everything that's going on, and how much more of an impact we've had on individuals and the community. It's going to be hard work, but it's going to be a fantastic ride at the same time.

All right, folks, we'll see you next week for another episode of Then Again. I'm liba and we've got Marie here and Leslie. And now our new executive director, Greg Payne. See you next week. Bye.

Then again is a production of the Northeast Georgia History Center in Gainesville, Georgia. Our podcast is edited by media producer Juada Rodriguez. Our digital and on site programs are made possible by the Ada May Ivester Education Center. Please join us next week for another episode of Then Again.