Kewanee woman chosen as director of Cape children's museum

Pansy Glenn believes with her experience in marketing and fundraising she can help the Discovery Playhouse grow as its new executive director.

Glenn, of Kewanee, Mo., will be the children's museum's second executive director, replacing Jennifer Mullix, who resigned in May to pursue graduate studies in St. Louis.

Working as the director a children's performance group called The Live Wires in New Madrid, Mo., inspired Glenn to look for other opportunities to work with children, she said. She coordinated several shows each year with children performing.

"I absolutely loved working with those kids," she said.

Her first visit to the Discovery Playhouse was with her grandchildren who live in Cape Girardeau.

"I love a win -- and this is a triple win," Glenn said of the children's museum. "Not only do the businesses that put displays here get recognition, the Discovery Playhouse grows, so it gets bigger and better, but the best part of it is the kids benefit from everybody working together."

Glenn most recently worked with Madden Media to promote Missouri tourism through advertising in statewide publications. She is a former executive director of the Sikeston-Miner Convention and Visitors Bureau, where she worked for seven years. During that time, she doubled the organization's budget as a result of successful grant writing, said Jeff Brune, Discovery Playhouse Board president.

"We were pleased to find exactly what we were looking for in Pansy Glenn," Brune said. "We are fortunate to have recruited someone with such extensive and relevant experience and are excited for the facility's future growth opportunities."

Glenn said she is making the transition to her new role and will begin officially in the next couple weeks.

"When I got the list of job duties, I went through and checked off every single one of the things I had done in the past. It was like this is meant to be. Everything on there I had done somewhere in my lifetime," she said.

As executive director, Glenn will be responsible for the development and maintenance of the facility and its exhibits, fundraising, public relations, grant writing, special event programming and establishing relationships within the region to promote the museum and its programs.

She will be relocating to Cape Girardeau, where her son and daughter-in-law, Jeff and Tracey Glenn, also live.

Glenn said she is most excited about the opportunity to help Discovery Playhouse develop its second floor, which is empty.

"It's just an open slate," she said.

Other priorities include recruiting more volunteers, improving internal organization of the museum's inventory and finding new grant opportunities.

She worked as a grant evaluator for the state of Missouri reviewing applications for tourism grants.

"I read grants from every city in the state that applies for tourism funding. That helped a lot because it gave me insight on how they do their businesses and how they market their areas," she said.

More than 60,000 people from Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky have visited the museum since it opened in 2010.

mmiller@semissourian.com

388-3646

Pertinent address:

502 Broadway, Cape Girardeau, MO