BY Karen Bryant
Contributing Writer, Delta Business Journal

  Richard Bolen knows well the value of relationships. Bolen, who is Director of Marketing and Development for the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, had hoped to establish some mutually beneficial relationships when he planned a Buddy Guy concert in the fall of 1998. What he got was more than he expected. The relationships established as a result of that concert, held to celebrate the dedication of the new location of the Museum and the naming of John Lee Hooker Lane in downtown Clarksdale, have formed the foundation for a whole education community that the Delta Blues Museum is developing for the Northeast Mississippi region. Those relationships have also partnered the museum with a group of prestigious national music and cultural heritage-related organizations that are networking with the museum and helping it achieve its goals.
  "We were lucky," says Bolen. Though he didn't know it when he booked the concert, Bolen discovered that Buddy Guy's managers had also managed Muddy Waters and were the executors of the Muddy Waters Estate.  Buddy and his managers were so overwhelmed by the V.I.P. treatment they and their performers got in Clarksdale, they have since become a highly influential partner and staunch supporter of the Delta Blues Museum and its efforts.
  The museum is focusing its efforts on outreach and education programs to serve an area within an hour-and-a-half drive of Clarksdale (school field-trip range) that will not only touch the lives of those living the community but will also help the museum achieve its financial goals. That, in turn, will allow the Museum Board of Trustees to do accomplish its mission to complete the museum's new permanent collection. The Delta Blues Museum is funded through a small annual contribution from the city of Clarksdale and through sales from the museum gift shop. It must rely on private donations. A museum's financial success, explains Board member Margaret Holcomb, is directly related to the success of its community service programs. In today's world, particularly when a museum is not a state or federally supported institution, the way to drive it financially is through support of what the museum does. What it will be is important, but what it does is serve the community. Being a partner of the community is key to its success," she says.
  Delta Blues Museum Board Chairman, Bill Gresham says, Our goal is to develop a world-class museum that will also have a positive impact on our local children. The Delta Blues Museum's community initiative combines existing programs with new ones that are currently under development. The program, explains Gresham, "is an ongoing, staged implementation, starting with what's available now."
  The foundation for the program is creating an educational community between the museum and local teachers in the North Mississippi Delta, an area representing 46 school districts, 253 schools and 116,000 K-12 students. The museum is modeling its program after a successful one implemented by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio (a partner in the Delta Blues Museum efforts).
  The Museum also wants to expand its field trip programs.  Visits to The Museum may include performances, tours, lectures, handouts and branding opportunities, with a future possibility of giving away product samples to field-trip children as they leave The Museum. The Georgia Music Hall of Fame Museum, for example, gives a free Coca-Cola to every student visitor.
  Another component of the plan is to provide adult education to include credited continuing education programs for teachers. Out of this will come proprietary programming and curriculum. As the continuing education program is developed, teachers will be involved in sharing their skills worldwide. In order for teachers to get their continuing education credit is required for them to develop a lesson plan.  Those lesson plans become free, distance learning [curricula] worldwide, all put out on the Web. "Our program is going to be based on using the assets and resources of our partners and developing the assets and resources shared by all of our partners," says Bolen.
  Partnering with the museum are entities whose assets and resources are considerable. Partners are the Southern Poverty Law Center in Alabama and its "Teaching Tolerance" program; Clarksdale City Schools; Coahoma County School District; Lee Academy; the Georgia Music Hall of Fame; the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum in Cleveland, Ohio; the Fender Museum of Music and the Arts in Corona, Calif.; and the Muddy Water Estate Foundation in Chicago and Los Angeles. The museum is also aggressively pursuing a partnership with Delta State University and The Center for the Study of Southern Culture at Ole Miss and is encouraged that these universities will soon join its ranks of partners.
  The Museum also gains support from the National Music Museum Alliance, formed in Cleveland, Ohio, just last year as a consortium to strengthen the pursuits of its members through the sharing of knowledge, information, challenges and common goals. The Delta Blues Museum's membership puts Bolen in such heady company as the Smithsonian,  the Experience Music project (opening in Seattle this summer), the New York Library for the Performing Arts, the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame, Graceland, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Country Music Foundation, the Grateful Dead Museum, the Motown Museum, and a host of others including Bolen's partners in the Delta Blues Museum's community education initiative.
  "What that means is that we have successful people helping us who have solved our problems before," says Holcomb. "This is our think tank. All the major players will be here at our April 20 education conference."
  Bolen points out that to be solvent, a museum is an arts institution that must operate like a business. What is paramount, he says, "is not only what the museum is gong to be; it's what the museum is going to do, and that is community outreach and education."
  It is through successful outreach and education that the museum will attain financial success, enhance tourism and earn its highest reward. Says Bolen: "To be able to reach kids and make a difference, to find kids and take them out of risk, that's wonderful stuff."