By MIKE CORN

mcorn@dailynews.net

It seems like only yesterday when Reese Barrick took over as director of Fort Hays State University's Sternberg Museum of Natural History.

But he actually started working in August -- nearly three months already.

He's been at a dead run along the way.

"Hectic and busy," he said. "Lots of things to do. Never a dull moment."

His days are filled with meetings -- and talking with people involved in the day-to-day activities of the museum and the Kansas Wetlands Education Center near Cheyenne Bottoms, which is something of an extension of the museum.

While he was excited with the prospect of working at Sternberg, a museum of international significance, he's thrilled to actually be here.

"I think it's a very nice place," he said. "The facility, the building, is spectacular."

The collection -- perhaps the best of its kind in the world -- is no slouch either, he said.

That doesn't mean the museum needs to sit on its laurels.

Barrick came to Hays from Utah, hoping to incorporate the museum into the community, the university and into research and education.

That's what he's aiming far.

Currently, Barrick and others at the museum are developing a new 10-year plan.

The idea, he said, is to bring all the ideas together by January and then move ahead from there.

Even though the plan still is forming, work already has started on some aspects, such as Sternberg's Web site.

"It's not done yet," he said.

But, he notes, it's now easier to find the existing site with a small change that allows people to type in sternberg.fhsu.edu.

"We're spending some money on an outside company to design a Web site," Barrick said. "We hope to have it up and running in December."

And they've updated their mission statement. That is their guiding principle.

Rather than simply spend big money on a new exhibit and hope it attracts enough visitors to pay for it, Barrick said they are looking at sponsorships for future exhibits.

Permanent exhibits also need to be updated.

As well, a driving force for Barrick is the hope to integrate the museum into education -- at the university level and for public schools -- with research and education.

He's hoping the biology and geology department will be working on podcasts and ultimately video to help explain what they do.

There are other changes afoot, such as the museum's membership program, establishing different levels.

"It's designed to get people reinvigorated," Barrick said of getting people involved. "We want to make this area a little more of a destination."

Changing billboards along Interstate 70 might help that.

"So there's lots to do," he said.

Near and dear to Barrick are dinosaurs, and there's some hope that new displays and exhibits will feature dinosaurs.

Not surprisingly, Barrick's favorite piece of the museum are the fossils collected years ago by George Sternberg, former director of the museum that now bears the name of the famous fossil family.

Just down from the George Sternberg re-creation site, there's the famous fish-within-a-fish and a massive mosasaur.

As for Barrick?

"Having a blast," he said. "There's so much here. You don't have to start from scratch. These are great fossils."