Lost City Museum Names New Director

By GWENDOLYN WEILER

Moapa Valley Progress

Mary Beth Timm, a resident of Las Vegas, has been named the director of Lost City Museum in Overton. She has been with the museum since 2016 as curator and served as acting director for a time in 2017.
“That, together with her previous experience dealing with diverse collections, populations, archeological and anthropological collections, has her well-prepared to lead the Lost City Museum into the future,” said Peter Barton, administrator of the Nevada Division of Museums and History.

Janie Shakespear, an administrative assistant at the museum, said, “Since Mary Beth has become director, she has been able to smoothly transition and meet the needs of the museum.”

Timm specializes in southwestern archaeology—specifically of Southern Nevada. She said she enjoys the work she does at the museum because the facility itself is so unique to both Southern Nevada and to Moapa Valley. “We are on the National Register of Historic Places because we were constructed in 1935 in a Pueblo revivalist style,” Timm said. “Anyone who walks in the front door can recognize that we are a special museum and have good stories that are worth knowing.”

Timm grew up in Chicago and Washington before earning her BA in anthropology and Spanish at Beloit College in Wisconsin and her MA from Western Michigan University. She moved to Las Vegas in 2009 and attended PhD courses in bioarcheology at UNLV while working at Lake Mead National Recreation Area as an archeologist/museum technician.

In 2013, she moved to Barrow, Alaska to work at the Inupiaq Heritage Center before returning to Southern Nevada in 2016 to join the staff at Lost City.
“You have people here who have such a strong emotional connection to Overton itself and to the museum,” Timm said. “It’s iconic. People have come here since they were kids.”

Timm says her long-term vision for the museum is to continue its current programming schedule, have events focused on educating the public about archaeology and local history, and to build its presence throughout the community. By doing so, she also hopes to draw in more volunteers.
“The more volunteers we have, the more things we can offer the community,” Timm said.

Timm is currently busy preparing for the full schedule of events for the fall, including a presentation on Choosing Transition Trees on Sept. 8, Kids Day on Sept. 29, and a presentation on Pictographs and Petroglyphs on Oct. 6.

“There are a lot of really excellent employees and docents here,” Timm said. “We wouldn’t be able to do any of this programming if we didn’t have such strong support already. Everybody’s been willing to step up and help, and that only allows us to be better.”