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'Great Ex' to lose chief

The director of the children's museum hears her roots calling her home to Missouri.

By MARY JANE PARK
Published April 10, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - Murray Beairsto, executive director of Great Explorations, the children's museum, is leaving the job effective in August.

She and her family are moving to Springfield, Mo., where she grew up and where her parents and siblings live.

She and her husband, Doug, have two young children, and their cousins are of similar ages, she said.

Beairsto was named executive director of the museum in April 2003 after having been its interim executive director for nearly seven months.

Earlier, she was on the board of directors, and she was a founding member of the Great Explorations Guild. She is a past president of the Junior League of St. Petersburg, one of the museum's co-founders. For more than a decade, she coordinated the St. Anthony's Triathlon.

"Great Ex has been a very special part of our life here in St. Petersburg," she said in a press release. "I'm leaving a bit of my heart here."

"The long and short of it is, it's very bittersweet, because I love this community, but my family is my priority," she said in a telephone interview.

Bill Heller, executive board president, said the organization will conduct a national search for a new executive director and will consider strong local candidates.

The museum moved to its current site at Sunken Gardens two years ago. It has raised $2.75-million of its $3.5-million capital campaign goal and recently renegotiated its lease with the city to help pay its debts. It has begun an endowment at the Community Foundation of Tampa Bay.

[Last modified April 10, 2005, 00:39:14]