The Paul R. Stewart Museum located in Miller Hall is actively under renovation as part of a process to keep improving the exhibits. Rea Redd, a graduate of Waynesburg College in 1974 and current director of the museum, highlighted one of the major additions. 

“We found a way through the Library of Congress on how to flatten black and white photographs. It is really simple. You don’t have to put it in a press to do it. It has to do with really hot water and two containers, and it works. We have the containers, and we have the hot water, so we’re flattening and identifying all the black and white photographs taken for the yearbooks,” Redd said.

Another key renovation being worked on is a display in honor of the late Waynesburg professor, James D. “Fuzzy” Randolph, who was also the founder of the Lamplighter Choir. He also worked as the museum’s curator until his passing in 2016, and the display for Randolph is one of the focal points of the museum’s continuous updates.

Redd, who also serves as the director of the Eberly Library, went into detail on how the library and museum correlate.

“It correlates on several different levels. One of which is the room that we have upstairs (in the Eberly Library) that we have called ‘The Trans Appalachian Room,’ which when the building was built in the 1950s, certain money was given as an archive for regional history. So, we have a lot of that (in the museum), and we also have history of the college and university in there,” Redd said. “I know we have a copy of each yearbook from 1931 through 2023.”

Waynesburg University’s only museum is constantly identifying old collectibles, various geological findings and even class photos from the 1900s. The museum has artifacts from Native Americans, glass and pottery, minerals, fossils, documents relating to Waynesburg University and documents that hold international importance. In fact, according to the people who work in the museum, maybe the most intriguing part is the museum itself. 

Retired West Greene school teacher, Frank Hunter, is heavily involved with the Paul R. Stewart Museum. Hunter is passionate about what the museum has to offer, and he was direct about what he wanted students to understand. 

“That we are here. Do you know how many kids I go up on campus to and say ‘Hey, you do you know you have a museum here?’ And they say ‘What?,’ and I say ‘Yeah, Miller Hall, right down the stairs,’” Hunter said. 

A couple Waynesburg students that are involved with the campus museum are Anamarie Lipinski and Lydia Otto. Lipinski expressed why she thought people should visit.

“The reason people should go to the museum is because there’s a lot of history on the campus for students, faculty and staff, as well as information about the general Greene County area,” Lipinski said. “It is quite fascinating, and people don’t know about it. We think Waynesburg is just this small little town, but there is also a lot of historical significance that has kind of been out of the common knowledge for quite some time. We try to showcase that.”

Waynesburg student Lydia Otto had a similar response in a written statement.

“I never really knew that there was a museum on campus. When I had toured the campus, the museum wasn’t on the tour,” Otto wrote. “I guess you could consider the museum a little Easter egg on the campus. It’s something that can be worth checking out, but not many know about it.”

The story of Waynesburg University, as well as the renovations to the museum are constantly ongoing, with no end in sight, according to Redd.