Some local museums already open, others will stay closed for year
The Old Hotel Museum and Art Gallery in Othello, shown here, was able to reopen when Adams County reached Phase 2. Other spaces like the Othello Community Museum will remain closed through the rest of the year.
The Sun Tribune file photo
OTHELLO — While the Old Hotel Museum and Art Gallery has been open since early June, other museums won’t be opening at all this year.
Museums were closed, along with almost everything else, in March to combat the coronavirus outbreak. State officials announced a phased reopening plan in May, and museums were barred from reopening until Phase 3. But Gov. Jay Inslee announced Aug. 20 that museums could reopen at 25 percent of capacity.
“We’ve been open for quite some time,” said Old Hotel director Jenn Stevenson, opening its doors at the start of Phase 2. Since the Old Hotel is a gallery as well as a museum, it was considered retail space, Stevenson said.
The museum continues to host the Artist of the Month exhibits, and for August that’s Ashley Raduns. Raduns is the art teacher at Othello High School and has six oil paintings on display (and for sale) at the museum. It’s located at 33 Larch St., Othello.
But the Othello Community Museum will stay closed for the year. Its board of directors and most of its volunteers are at high risk for complications from the coronavirus, Stevenson said, so it was and will remain closed.
The Wanapum Heritage Center at Priest Rapids Dam and the visitor center at Wanapum Dam are still closed. Both are owned and operated by the Grant County PUD.
Utility district public information officer Ryan Holterhoff said the museum reopening plan is relatively new guidance from the governor’s office and as a result, it’s being reviewed by the PUD’s incident management team.
Pat Witham, director of the Grant County Museum and Village in Ephrata, said the museum will stay closed for 2020. “We won’t be reopening until next May,” Witham said.
The Grant County museum normally is open from May to September, and getting it ready for visitors is a substantial undertaking, Witham said. There are 38 buildings, all requiring winterization each fall and preparation for reopening each spring.
That process takes about six weeks, Witham said, so by the time the museum opened it would be time to close again.