In 37 years with the museum, Libby Hartfield kindled the spark of curiosity in thousands of students. She helped teachers in classrooms statewide connect the minds of their pupils to tangible realities they could touch and see and understand. Most of all, she made them wonder at what they found, and imagine what more there could be. They gave her their attention, and she gave them the world.
Hartfield earned bachelors and masters degrees in biology in Hattiesburg from the University of Southern Mississippi, going to work first as a high school teacher in Jackson. She then spent a decade as the museum's education coordinator before becoming the museum's director, a role she would cherish for three decades.
Beginning as she did in education, Hartfield made the establishment of a direct connection between the museum and the classroom her first priority. She built connections with classroom teachers through the Mississippi Science Teachers Association, then coordinated museum programs with the curriculum teachers were using in elementary, junior high, and high school classrooms.
As museum programs and attendance grew, planning began for the complex the museum now calls home at LeFleur's Bluff. "The new building, which opened in March of 2000, allows us to take what we are doing to a whole other dimension," Hartfield said. "It is a bigger place and has an outdoor area that is now home to a great deal of outdoor education. It allows us to expand our research area and we now have more than one million objects in our scientific collection. Specimens from the museum go all over the country for research projects."
In 2013, Hartfield was asked to step into the role of director of state parks, which she enjoyed, and she retired from service to our state in 2015. The wider scope of service capped a career dedicated to education and sharing, a mission Hartfield firmly believes will continue, coordinated through a facility of which all Mississippians may be proud.
"One of the things the museum staff focused on in the planning of the new building was the firm belief that Mississippians deserved a museum as good as any in the country," Hartfield said, "and I feel like we've done that.
