Dollie Boyd: Helping history put on a good show

Dollie Boyd, city of Moses Lake museum director, is used to the pressure of educating and putting on a good show at the same time.

“I’ve been on stage so many times, and I’ve been in charge of large productions,” she said. “And, you know, if it all falls apart, everybody looks at me and goes, ‘What did you do wrong?’”

Fortunately, things don’t usually fall apart on Boyd. She said she’s had a lot of practice wrangling people and projects into place as a theater teacher in her former career before she got her masters degree and stepped away from teaching. Her production credits include classics like “Beauty and the Beast” and “Fiddler on the Roof” – the latter of which had a cast of around 80 actors.

“I’m very proud of the work that I did during that time, but I also got very burnt out,” Boyd said of the last few years of her teaching career.

Boyd stepped away from theater after the needs of her family and her desire to advance her education became evident. She wanted to leave on a high point, she said, so she went back to school to study history. Over time, she ended up directing the museums of Tusculum University for about a decade. She was surprised to find that her theater experience overlapped surprisingly well with her museum work.

“Theater is all about audience, and so are museums. I mean, if we’re not serving our audience, we’re not doing our job,” Boyd said.

Both jobs are about educating as well. Boyd said she’s been fascinated to learn about the history of the Columbia Basin. While she may not hang out in a classroom as often anymore, Boyd says she’s glad she gets to do community outreach to help area residents understand the history of the region they live in. Connecting the community to its heritage brings her a lot of joy and she believes it’s good for the community as well.

“I think, especially among the older members of town, and those who’ve been around and seen Moses Lake develop into what it is now, there’s a sort of reverence and pride in that pioneer history,” Boyd said.

There are families that came here before the irrigation systems were put in around the Basin, Boyd said. Many of those families were hard-working farmers who did the work of establishing the farms and ranches the area is known for.

“I think there’s a lot of pride in that the people who were able to come here before the water came, and they sort of stuck it out, you know, they became these hardy desert dwellers,” Boyd said. “And then they watched their little town of around 300 people just mushroom when the base opened and the water came and the highway came and all of that stuff.”

The Air Force base made Moses Lake a potential target during the Cold War between the former U.S.S.R. and the U.S. It had a significant impact on the area because people were aware of how the base drew not-so-welcome attention, she said.

“It was extremely conceivable for many years that this town would be a target for Soviet attack,” Boyd said.

There are a lot of similarities between the Columbia Basin and the part of Tennessee that Boyd was born and raised in. She wrote her masters thesis on dams in the Tennessee Valley – a project very like the dams along the Columbia River. Boyd said she can also relate to the area with her mother’s second husband coming from Wilson Creek and several other small pieces of serendipity.

“I don’t tend to be a superstitious person, but it’s like maybe this was meant to happen for all these strange coincidences and parallels between (Tennessee) and here,” Boyd said.

Boyd said she’s still settling in after moving to Moses Lake at the start of the pandemic. She and her family are living in an apartment for now, but she wants to get a place that allows her to do some home improvement projects. She’s also interested in art, television and, of course, she still enjoys the theater when she gets a chance. She also enjoys the architecture of many of the homes in Moses Lake – especially the mid-century modern styles.

“I take walks (and) just walk around the neighborhoods and check out all the cool old houses,” Boyd said.