Moving on - Man to close museum trove of Bedouin artifacts

LONE JACK, Mo. -- Paul J. Nance sat in front of his Bedouin tent, which is bigger than a living room and woven of black goat hair.

Peering through bifocals, Nance hardly gave a hint that he lost most of his eyesight after a stroke. After decades, he knows every inch of his little museum near Lone Jack, where the tent is the centerpiece among about 2,500 Saudi Arabian artifacts.

In the tent, beaded and embroidered garments are draped on mannequins. Woven rugs cover the floor. The tent is strewn with food bags, camel saddles, harnesses -- all from nomadic Bedouins.

During a 31-year stay in Saudi Arabia, Paul and Colleen Nance started collecting hundreds of items for display in their home. Instead, they created a museum since seen by 10,000 children in the Kansas City area. Paul Nance's traveling exhibits have taught 1.5 million people a little something about the Middle East.

The collection is the largest of its kind on exhibition in the United States, said Amber Clifford, an instructor at Central Missouri State University, the collection's curator.

But soon, a 10,000-year-old water vessel, a curved dagger and other pieces will be packed and taken to Central Missouri State. The Nances have decided to close their museum.

"He kept the kids enthralled," said Wanda Hartter, a Lee's Summit teacher. "They came away feeling like they had flavor of the Middle East. ... They'd been in that tent."

Few nomads today

The Bedouin way of life nearly disappeared with the rise of Arabia's oil economy.

Paul and Colleen Nance were there to see momentous changes.

Paul Nance, a Kansas City native and graduate of the University of Kansas City, left to become an executive for Aramco living in Saudi Arabia.

At one time he was director of policy and planning for Aramco and worked directly for the chief executive.

Nance said his job gave him the opportunity to see more than 300 museums and monuments while overseas.

"I very early was interested in the culture and the people," he said.

When he arrived in the country in 1952, Nance said, about half the people lived as nomads. He said only about 5 percent continued that lifestyle today.

"And those have a pickup truck, generator and television," Nance said.

He said he understood the importance of preserving the clothes and tools he had collected and had considered donating the pieces to a museum.

But in 1978, after attending a convention of museum directors in Kansas City, he decided to start his own exhibitions.

"We had knowledge; we had a collection. Its full value would only be realized if we shared it," Nance said.