WAUPUN — The Waupun Historical Society held their annual membership meeting Saturday afternoon, electing the next slate of officers on the society board.
The meeting was held at the Waupun Heritage Museum from 12 to 4PM, and included a social hour, the annual report, and the January board meeting.
Former Society president Zac Dickhut gave an update on the progress of the museum, including explaining some of the processes of how research is conducted at the museum. For instance, over the last several years they have begun recataloging the entire collection and found many artifacts and photos that had no notes attached to them.
One of these was a scrapbook photo album, which included a photo of a man sitting and reading a book, and in the background was a unique chandelier. According to Dickhut, they had found this exact chandelier at a property that was torn down last year, and were able to identify the scrapbook as from the Moul family circa 1915.
They also gave a short update on future fundraisers, expressing interest in hosting another Summer Cemetery Walk sometime around Memorial Day.
Following the report they counted the ballots for the board of directors, and nominated directors as officers of the board, including president, secretary, and treasurer. Steve Biever was nominated for president, as Dickhut would be stepping down from the position this year.
Zac Dickhut presided over the meeting, and handed the gavel to Steve Biever in a peaceful transfer of power.
“I think it’s good for organizations to change leadership,” Dickhut said following the meeting. “My hope is that I’m always staying active in the organization, and it’s actually very common in this organization for whoever’s the president to kind of rotate around. I know Gene Buchholz was president for a long time, Jim Laird was president, Leona Nagler was president. But even in the years that they weren’t in as president, they were still very active in the organization.”
“So it’s whoever’s president really is the agendas, the minutes, and the gavel,” he said. “That’s essentially what it could be and just because we’ve transferred who is the statutory head of the organization doesn’t change in my mind the shared responsibilities that this organization relies on in terms of its operations. So the decision was that the organization needs to have a next chapter and to build upon that progress. So my stepping down, I don’t think changes the momentum at all.”
Dickhut will remain on the Society board.
Pam Garcia, who serves as Assistant Library Director at the Waupun Public Library, was appointed as Society treasurer.
Also in attendance was City Council member Dan Siebers.
