Lynnette Young Overby’s career has included work as a grade-school physical education teacher, doctoral student, college professor, author, researcher, national advocate for arts education, choreographer, performer and mentor to numerous students and young faculty members.

“Advocacy is very important to me, and so are mentoring and teaching, research and service,” said Overby, professor of theatre and dance at the University of Delaware.

“But at the center of everything has always been dance.”

Overby’s prolific and wide-ranging career is formally recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO).

Growing up in Dover, Delaware, Overby began piano lessons at age 5, but when a new dance school opened several years later, she pleaded with her mother to let her take classes there.

Read more about Lynette:
https://www.cas.udel.edu/news/Pages/overby-lifetime-achievement-dance.aspx

The Delaware Historical Society (DHS) has selected an expert in African American and Native American history as the next director of the Jane and Littleton Mitchell Center for African American Heritage, located within the Delaware History Museum.

Stephanie Lampkin, who most recently served as the Museum Collections Manager at the Science History Institute in Philadelphia, has worked as an historian and museum professional for more than eight years, formerly serving as an educator and Curatorial Assistant at the George Read House & Gardens, which is owned by the DHS. She begins her post in late April.

“On behalf of the board and staff of the Delaware Historical Society and the advisory of the Mitchell Center for African American Heritage, I am delighted to bring a person with Dr. Lampkin’s skills, expertise, and experience to be the Director of the Center for African American Heritage,” said Dr. David Young, DHS Executive Director. “We conducted a wide search and spoke with many promising candidates, but Dr. Lampkin’s scholarship and familiarity with Delaware’s diverse history makes her the ideal choice to continue the Center’s work to bring African American history to wider recognition and educational impact.”

Read more about Stephanie:
http://dehistory.org/current-news-top

The Delaware Historical Society was founded in May 1864 for “the elucidation of history, particularly such portions as may refer to Delaware.” Over the next 15 decades, the organization refined its stated purpose to reflect both a changing society and the evolution of the public history profession. 

Initially the Society was located in a single rented room in the Wilmington Institute. But, as collections grew, they moved into the Masonic Temple, then the Grand Opera House, and later the First Presbyterian Church, before acquiring a permanent home in historic Old Town Hall in 1916. But the onset of the World War I crippled fundraising efforts to pay the remaining debt on Old Town Hall, so it was rented to the Red Cross from 1917 to 1919, before falling into disrepair in the early 1920s. Several wealthy Wellingtonians paid off the debt a few years later and Old Town Hall was restored in time for the Society’s grand re-opening in 1928.