Reece Barrick, the director of the College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum for the last six years resigned from his position earlier this week, according to an email from CEU Interim President Mike King.
“Reece has worked hard during his time here at CEU to improve and advance our museum,” stated King. “We appreciate his efforts and successes.”
Reportedly Barrick has take the position of director at the Sternburg Natural History Museum on the campus of the Fort Hays State University in Fort Hays, Kansas.
Barrick came to CEU in the fall of 2003 after working in North Carolina for some years. A native of Iowa, Barrick came here with big plans and hoped to see a new museum facility put up during his tenure. The plans for that new building and the Mesozoic Gardens on the bluffs above west Price are still in the works.
Barrick took over a museum that had been started 33 years before by the locally well known college professor Don Burge and a group of rock hounds in 1960. The museum, originally housed on the second floor of the Price City Hall eventually got its own building when a gymnasium connected to the city has was remodeled and then later in the 1980’s an expansion project doubled its size. Burge directed that growth and the the growth of the museum collection which began with a bunch of rock specimens and a few indian artifacts and when he left had grown into a world class accredited museum.
Barrick, a trained paleontologist, had expanded the work on dinosaur and ancient fossils, and had expanded the staff during his tenure reaching out to many parts of the community. He had also worked with Mark Bingham, a former resident, who donated the ground to the college for the new museum site.
King says an annoucement concerning a search for Barrick’s replacement will come in the next couple of weeks. What that search looks like, how it will be organized, or even if a new director could be picked before next year when the legislature considers the recommended merger between CEU and Utah State University remains to be seen.
Barrick resigns from museum
"Reece Barrick, in the fall of 2003, just after taking the directors job at the CEU Musuem, at the Price River quarry working on a dig for dinosaur fossils."