DuPage museum director quits

As the DuPage County Board deliberates the fate of the DuPage County Historical Museum, the building's director has already decided his future.

Jody Crago's last official day at work was Friday. He'd been the executive director of the museum in downtown Wheaton since 2003.

His new job will be to build and administer the creation of a new museum in Chandler, Ariz.

"It's very hard to leave," Crago said. "I think of DuPage County as my home. But for my career, it was just too good of an opportunity to pass up."

Crago's departure leaves only one educator as the staff at the museum. Volunteers and curatorial staff will help run the show until a new director is found.

That search may not even happen if the county board closes the museum. The potential closure has been a threatened budget casualty for the past three years.

That's why DuPage County Historical Museum Association President Veronica Porter said she's not surprised to see Crago leave.

"When he called and told me, in my heart, I was very sad," Porter said Monday. "But I thought, 'I can't blame you.' Jody was an absolute treasure and the most knowledgeable person I've ever met about DuPage County."

Porter is in the process of showing county officials that closing the museum would cost more than keeping it open. She said the closure would mean documenting the rightful owners of every artifact in the museum before a decision is made on what to do with the items.

That can take up to 10 hours per item, at an expert cost of $40 to $100 an hour, Porter said.

With more than 45,000 photos and artifacts to document, Porter said a conservative cost for the process is $2.25 million.

Porter also said the covenant on the museum building itself requires the property to revert back to ownership by the association -- not the county -- if it is no longer used as a museum.