The Lewis County Historical Museum is open once more, as it was revealed Friday the Lewis County Historical Society Board of Directors has chosen Doug DeVany to be the museum’s interim director.
“I was born and raised here in Chehalis and care deeply about the Lewis County region and the people who live here,” DeVany said in a news release from the museum. “I am passionate about creating memorable experiences for the visitors to the museum and ensuring our local history is preserved and brought to life for generations to come. It is my honor and privilege to be the current steward of this amazing museum, and I am so pleased to announce we are reopening …”
The museum reopened Friday.
The museum was temporarily closed coinciding with the June 11 announcement of the cancellation of this year’s Chehalis Flying Saucer Party after former Lewis County Historical Museum Executive Director Jason Mattson left for a new career opportunity.
DeVany added the museum will remain open during regular hours throughout the summer until Labor Day. The hours are Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with the museum closed on Sunday and Monday.
“Getting the museum reopened was priority number one, and we will be looking to make improvements to the facility, exhibits and programming throughout the summer. We are very excited to be an active part of this community again, and look forward to seeing everyone at ChehalisFest next month where we will host our annual pancake breakfast,” DeVany said.
The annual ChehalisFest Blueberry Pancake Breakfast is scheduled from 8 to 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, July 25, at the museum located at 599 NW Front St. in downtown Chehalis.
DeVany met with The Chronicle Friday afternoon to talk more about his plans as interim director and speak more about his background.
In his early 20s, he left Chehalis for the Seattle area and did a variety of jobs for around 15 years. Eventually, he found himself going back to school after getting married and got his masters in business administration (MBA) from City University of Seattle.
“And with that MBA, I did what anyone would do — I drove garbage trucks for Waste Management,” DeVany said.
While the work wasn’t glorious, it did pay the bills, and eventually his bosses at Waste Management noticed he had a knack for training. He worked his way up through the corporate ranks and became a driver trainer in Glendale, Arizona.
“I must’ve trained something like 10,000 people individually in the six years I was there,” DeVany added.
During this work, he found a passion for educating. He moved back to Chehalis about a month ago. It was shortly after his return to the Mint City when a Lewis County Historical Society board member reached out to him asking if he was interested in stepping up to run the museum.
Although he hasn’t managed one before, he felt well prepared and has done plenty of jobs that he can apply at the museum — from running a point-of-sale system, to historical research making videos for Lewis County and social media work for the Chehalis-Centralia Railroad & Museum. His first job when he initially left Chehalis was at the Pacific Science Center, a Seattle science museum.
“The tool kit I have seems to be pretty well suited for this place,” DeVany added.
Not only is he a history lover, but he has a fondness for the paranormal, too. While this year’s Chehalis Flying Saucer Party may be canceled, he wouldn’t be opposed to helping get the party going again if possible in future years.
“I’m going to leave that to the board to discuss. I am merely the director, which means I can move things around, but whether or not that event has a future here, I wouldn’t be able to tell you that. I know that it was very popular in the community, and I want to support the community in any way I can,” said DeVany. “I’m willing to participate however I can.”
At the very least, he hopes to ensure the museum — which has a long, haunted history — can still host its annual ghost tours in partnership with the South Sound Paranormal Research group, ongoing since 2007.
Currently, though, his priority remains finishing his initial audit and inventory of the museum’s collection to keep it open throughout the rest of the summer.
The Chronicle also spoke with Lewis County Historical Society Board of Directors President Peter Lahmann on a June 18 phone call.
During the call, Lahmann confirmed Mattson resigned from his position and the board accepted his resignation letter.
While Lahmann declined to discuss details of the resignation letter itself as it related to personnel matters, he hinted the position’s pay might have played a part in Mattson departure.
“Wages and benefits have been an issue for years,” Lahmann said. “We tried the best we could to pay him, and that’s one of the issues the museum’s had for years. We get somebody that’s good, we get them trained up and then they go somewhere else where they can make real money and have benefits.”
According to Lahmann, Mattson was earning $28 an hour, with no insurance or retirement plan options. Mattson officially took over as museum director on July 18, 2017, following interim Director Ted Livermore, who held the position after former Director Andy Skinner accepted a job elsewhere earlier that year.
As for the museum, Lahmann stated the clubs who used it before are still welcome. This includes the Lewis County Model Railroad Club and the Mount St. Helens Patchwork Quilters.
The other current Lewis County Historical Society Board members are: Vice President Doug Peterson; Secretary Liz Agneleri; Chehalis representative John Six; Centralia representative Chris Brewer; Lewis County representative William “Bill” Teitzel; and Board Members Steve Garrett, Van Wedam, Sara Light-Waller and Livermore.
Mattson was instrumental in helping start the Flying Saucer Party in 2019 — a festival that celebrated Idaho pilot Kenneth Arnold’s historic flight on June 24, 1947.
After taking off from Chehalis bound for Yakima to refuel, Arnold observed nine unidentified metallic flying objects flying in a formation stretching nearly five miles between Mount Rainier and Mount Adams. The objects displayed speed and maneuvering capabilities which far exceeded even experimental aircraft of the time.
Upon landing later in Oregon, Arnold described what he saw as “saucer-like” to an East Oregonian reporter who heard about his sighting and was waiting for him at the airfield where Arnold landed.
The East Oregonian article helped coin the term “flying saucer” and sparked the Summer of the Saucers in 1947, where thousands of other reports of UFOs were filed nationwide including the famous Maury Island and Roswell incidents, which together with Arnold’s sighting started modern UFOlogy.
Since the Flying Saucer Party began in 2019, it had grown to host multiple paranormal expert speakers and had multiple events spread across two days including The Northwest Flying Saucer Film Fest, first held in 2023, and the famous “Saucer Drop” event.
The Saucer Drop was an ode to Arnold’s sighting during the old Chehalis Krazy Days festival in the 1970s where small toy frisbees (the saucers) were thrown out to a crowd. The frisbees all came with prizes attached too, usually discounts or free items at local downtown businesses, which the Flying Saucer Party Saucer Drop continued.
The Flying Saucer Party wasn’t all Mattson did at the museum either, as he continued the museum’s partnership with the South Sound Paranormal Research Team for the ghost hunts and organized meet-and-greet events for local authors, among other events.
Being born and raised in Centralia himself, and even a manager at the mall for years before it closed, Mattson was instrumental in helping the museum preserve a large collection of Yard Birds Mall items and memorabilia — including the saving and restoration of the giant Yard Birds statue which stands outside of the museum entrance today.
