Photograph by Kevin A. Roberts
In late December, Doug King resigned his post as president and CEO of the Saint Louis Science Center to take the reins at Seattle’s Museum of Flight. Shortly before he left, SLM caught up with King for an hour-long conversation whose topics ranged from controversial exhibits to the Cardinals.
On the Museum’s Ever-Changing Nature: “If you went back and looked at the early exhibits, the ‘gee-whiz’ in almost all of them had to do with computers. Now, all of that gee-whiz, almost every kid’s carrying around in their hands.”
On Controversial Exhibits: “Overwhelmingly, visitors think we should [host such exhibits], though there’s always some people who disagree—and that’s OK. We did the Darwin exhibit earlier this year…and we’re going to do climate change [in early 2011]… We’re not telling visitors what to believe; we’re just telling them about the best science available.”
On His Biggest Disappointment: “The St. Louis Public Schools situation… We always expected that once we really knew how Compton Drew [Middle School] worked, we’d be able to take that model and help all of the other middle schools in the district do something similar.”
On What He’ll Miss Most: “My brother-in-law sent me this email, and all it said was, ‘Say goodbye to the bunt... You’re going to an American League city—with the designated hitter, you’ll never see another bunt.’ I said, ‘I don’t care about bunts; I’m going to miss Albert’s home runs!'”
