Miranda Dulmage
Miranda Dulmage is a member of the Didsbury & District Historical Society Board of Directors, and has been crucial in the planning and execution of their Haunted Museum event. She is an engaged and active member of the community, always ready to lend a hand where needed. She’s set on making this Halloween’s Haunted Museum event even bigger, aiming to beat last year’s record crowd of 750 visitors.
What makes the Didsbury Museum important to you?
“I have learned so much about the Didsbury Museum, and it is one of the greatest groups of people in Didsbury to work with because everybody is super engaged, they know the community, and everybody respects the history. And what's very funny is that most of us who are on the board didn't grow up in Didsbury. It's not our family's history, but we love the history of the museum and we love that it's focused on the town's history itself. And there are no artifacts in there that didn't originate from somewhere around here. The providence of everything that's in there is deeply researched and established before anything is allowed to be shown, which is amazing. Our archives team is incredible. For being a small town, completely volunteer-run museum with very limited funding, it's one of the best I've ever seen. And it really is a gem; there's nothing quite like it.”
What was it like planning the Haunted Museum event?
“I was up in the craft room in the classroom doing crafts with the kids. And I was looking around that classroom being, like, ‘You know what? If we filled this thing full of dolls, it would be creepy as heck.’”
“We pulled off in three months, the craziest, biggest event the museum's ever held. It was a one-day event. We had 750 people walk through the doors. We had no idea what it was gonna look like and what we were doing, but we scared the pants off of a bunch of people, and people had such a great time. We had 75 volunteers. It was just beyond. It was such a cool experience, especially for a small town. I mean, when you figure that our population is only, you know, we had a sixth of the population walk through that day—that is huge… We had sponsors from all over the place. I think we ended up with 50 different sponsors, and we had so many actors come out, and we had people managing sound, and people managing makeup, just and going and going. And we set up a Facebook group for the main coordinators, and we still talk almost daily with a lot of random ideas of what we're doing this year. So it's going to become a constant, I think.”
How did your experience affect your connection with the community?
“It honestly gave me such a stronger connection with people throughout. That was, yeah, I mean, the community that we've created around this, the buzz, the excitement, even just the number of people who stop me and go, ‘You were part of that haunted museum. You were the one leading that, weren't you?’ And I'm like, ‘yeah, absolutely.’ And they want to know ‘What’s happening next? Where are we going next? What's coming up?’ I love that.”
What goals do you have for the event?
“We want more people, we want more ideas, we want more fun. We're already coming up with some great ideas to scare the pants off of people, so that will be awesome. But we always make it so that there are family friendly hours, 'cause we don't want to traumatize children… But you know what? We had lots of people come in to check it out for the less scary hours and then come back for the scary, and they loved both. So that was really a lot of fun. It won't be anything repeated from last year. We have all new ideas for every room and every space, so we will keep it fresh and keep it frightening. Our goal this year is to get at least 1,000 people through. I would be over the moon if we managed 1,500 over the course of the two days.”
What piece of advice would you give others in the community?
“Get involved. Honestly, It's very easy to get trapped in how divisive politics can be and how different people's views are, and how, especially in a town where there's a really large group of people who've been here for forever, it can be cliquey, you know? Like, if you grew up here, and your mom grew up here, and your grandparents grew up here, and now your kids are growing up here, you're going to sometimes glom onto the people that you've known your entire life. But Didsbury has a significant and growing community of people who are transplants, and those people came here for a reason. People love this town and they want to be involved. And so if they're feeling isolated, yeah, get involved. There's so many great organizations here that are looking for volunteers, and there's so many great people you can meet if you take part in those things.”
