Historical Society names Ex Dir

"Today we are making history," declared Paul Normandin, president of the Laconia Historical & Museum Society, as he introduced Judith Livingston Loto as the organization's first professional executive director.

The appointment of an executive director marks a key element in the strategic plan fashioned by the directors after the Laconia Historical and Laconia Museum societies merged in 1998. A drive, chaired by Rodney Dyer and Shiela Weeks, succeeded in raising funds to support an executive director for "at least three years," said Assistant Treasurer Bob Holbrook.

Loto's arrival heralds the expansion of all aspects of the society's activities. For lack of resources, the museum has been closed for some time. Normandin said the museum would be reopened, making its collections accessible to the public. Existing programs, like the "Our Yesterday's column in The Citizen, the newsletter "The Laconia Historian," and presentations to schools would continue while new initiatives would be undertaken.

"I love history," Loto said, "and being the person who can bring history alive for others."

Born and raised in Hampton, Loto graduated from the University of New Hampshire in 1997, where she majored in early American history. She also completed the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture at the University of Delaware, graduating summa cum laude. At both UNH and Delaware, Loto studied Shaker communities in the nineteenth century, writing her theses on education and industrialization at Canterbury Shaker Village and stereographs of the Mount Lebanon Shaker community in New York.

"History is not only the written word, the papers and documents," she said. "It is also artifacts or objects. They can tell a story," she explained. "Objects can add to the written word or speak for themselves when the written word does not exist."

Loto has worked at Canterbury Shaker Village, served as curator for the Litchfield Connecticut Historical Society and most recently managed education at the Strawberry Banke Museum in Portsmouth. While studying at Delaware she was a fellow at the Henry Francis duPont Winterthur Museum, where she assisted with publications, tours and education.

Loto works from an office in on the second floor of the Gale Memorial Library where she can be reached at 527-1278 or through the library switchboard, 524-4775, extension 28.