The Northeast Georgia History Center recently named Aura-Leigh Sanders as the new Executive Director and CEO.
Sanders has a history of working as a pin-up model and that hobby led her to the history center.
“I chose this position because it just kind of fell in my lap, like most things that I have done throughout my career, “ Sanders said. “I didn't even know this place existed until about a year ago when I was invited to be a model in a fashion show here for historical costuming. This place is absolutely amazing every single day I uncover some new really cool program.”
Her love for history and historical costuming came from her father who was a historian.
“I'm a pinup model. That's part of, my background and a hobby, my art that I have recently come to in the last few years. I do a lot of fundraising with it. That's how I got connected is our pinup group that specializes in historic costuming, but mostly in the 40s, 50s, and 60s,” Sanders said. “I have a family history of Civil War costuming. This is my father and I doing the reenactment at the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine. He was a huge historian. He loved anything to do with the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. So I kind of was raised with that. I didn't have a choice. I just did it. But I loved it. But I didn't make a career out of it. Until now.”
Sanders was raised in Putnam County on a farm and plantation that has been in her family since the 1840s.
Since being named CEO of the history center Sanders has been getting acquainted with the Hall County and Gainesville communities.
“I'm learning that Hall County and Gwinett County are kind of the same really amazing and wonderful and a rich history and lots of people in the community who want to be involved,” Sanders said “You have got an incredibly booming art scene, which makes me really happy.”
Sanders has lived and worked in Gwinnett County for the past 20 years.
She is learning her way around the 26,000 square feet of the history center and shouted out Director of Archives & Curation Lesley Jones and newly appointed Museum Services Director Katie McGatha for helping her get acquainted with the center.
Sanders discussed the new exhibit they are working on covering the 1936 Gainesville tornadoes.
“We are going to have some pictures. They got a big tornado machine you can press a button and it's going to make a big tornado, and we are going to have interactive TV stuff, and interviews from people whose, ancestors, and family members survived the tornado.”
Sanders discussed creative placemaking and her plan to incorporate her knowledge of the arts into the history center.
“I'm the chair of the Lawrenceville Arts Commission. I want to bring that knowledge and that community building with a focus on arts to the History Center. The concept of creative placemaking has become a really big topic in museums, art centers, and city development, it kind of hits an intersection of all kinds of different areas, and brings it all together,” Sanders said. “The concept is that you draw from all of these centers, art, history, culture, civic development, city government, state government, you pull it all together to create something that community members can really truly enjoy and benefit from.”
On top of the physical location, the history center has an active social media presence. NEGHS posts educational content and updates on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook.
The History Center also runs the Then Again Podcast.
Sanders said the community can help the history center by volunteering and donating money.
“I'm also revamping the website pretty soon too. So go poke around if there's something you can't find, hit the Contact Us button, Sanders said. “And you can donate there as well. But we're going to be doing some fundraisers and events.”
Lastly, Sanders discussed why she believes teaching history is important.
“Having that appreciation of honestly telling the story of history, not sensationalizing it, not politicizing it, because we're doing too much of that right now. Our job here at the History Center is to preserve, protect, and tell Georgia, regional history and Hall County history and all the other counties that we serve accurately and honestly,” Sanders said “But also make it engaging and make it relevant to now we want people to appreciate history, and how it applies to their lives now, especially young kids, and that's why we're focused on our middle school education pretty solidly.”
For more information on the history center click here.
