Director Thomas loves telling stories

Jul. 14—HUDSON

In January of this year, Sarah Thomas was named the director of the Mitford Museum in the HUB Station.

The Mitford Museum located at 145 Cedar Valley Road in Hudson showcases the ways in which Hudson helped shape the life and work of author Jan Karon and to preserve and celebrate the cultural values of the American small town.

"Sarah Thomas brought us very many useful and wonderful skills, all of which are suited to our growth at the museum," said Karon, author of the Mitford series and founder of the Mitford Museum. "She is beautifully suited to this role. Visitors always remark on her kind and generous approach to them. We're very pleased and honored to have Sarah."

Thomas is originally from a small town in West Virginia.

"My husband teases me about how he's never met anybody who's quite so patriotic, but all of us from West Virginia are this patriotic, we love our home state," Thomas said. "I'm actually the seventh generation to grow up on our family farm in West Virginia ... my heart is in the mountains of West Virginia. I just think it's the best place anywhere."

Thomas relocated to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina because she initially thought she wanted to be a marine biologist. However, she quickly realized that she did not have much passion for math and science, so she studied English and history instead.

Her first job was with the Myrtle Beach area Chamber of Commerce, "where it is always 70 degrees and sunny on the grand strand."

From there, Thomas worked in nonprofit arts and even as a newspaper reporter covering the political beat.

Then, one day, a hurricane completely flooded her and her husband out of their home.

"We lived on the Waccamaw River in eastern South Carolina, not far from Myrtle Beach, and we decided we really didn't want to live in a floodplain," Thomas said. "That was my chance to get back to the mountains."

Thomas and her husband then moved to Asheville where she began working in public relations for the Biltmore estate.

"After I'd been there for about six years, I started getting this itch to do something that I felt like was giving back more," said Thomas. "The Biltmore House is wonderful and needs to be preserved, but I wanted to be more working with people."

Thomas volunteered at the Black Mountain Home for Children, a children's ministry in Black Mountain, and she ended up working in a variety of positions such as fundraising, public relations, communications, IT, human resources, and more for nearly 16 years.

"It was a ministry," she explained, "so people did a lot of different jobs. I love that ministry ... they're awesome. It's just an incredible place for kids in group foster care, abused, abandoned, neglected kids."

It was through her work with the children's ministry that Thomas had the opportunity to meet Karon, who was one of the supporters of the ministry.

"Because I'm a writer and she's a writer, we developed a friendship and got to know each other," said Thomas.

Karon was in search of the perfect director for her museum, someone with nonprofit experience, fundraising experience, volunteer management experience, and also someone who knows the Mitford books and understands about writing, and Thomas felt certain that she would be a great fit.

"The more Jan talked about, the more I felt that God designed this job for me," she said.

Thomas was delighted to take the position.

"I felt like I had the skillset and it was such a great fit," she said. "But also, coming from a children's ministry where we really were making an incredible difference in the lives of children, I was wondering, do I want to give up this kind of ministry work? And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is ministry work, but it's a completely different kind of ministry work. Mitford is this place where the readers go when they are distressed, when they are upset, when they need a respite."

She and her husband moved from Asheville to Lenoir shortly thereafter.

"It has been a lovely change," she said. "Asheville has gotten pretty tourist-driven, it's kind of a busy city. Moving to Lenoir has been like going back home ... it's just the friendliest place I think I have ever been in my life. We love it here, and we're loving the museum."

Thomas is excited to offer outreach programs for the community through the Mitford Museum. In August, the museum will host a summer reading program every Tuesday morning for children in the community.

"Literacy is so important, and we're in a great position to encourage literacy," said Thomas.

This fall, the Mitford will host a "Get Lit" literary weekend where they will bring in North Carolina writers to encourage literacy, creativity, and to encourage kids and adults to express themselves through writing. There will also be a writing contest for a cash prize of $750.

"We like to say, 'Everyone has a story,' because everyone has a story," said Thomas. "We want to be the place where people can come and we will listen to their stories."

Next year, Thomas hopes to launch an oral history library.

"The Mitford Museum focuses on Karon's history here in Hudson and Caldwell County, but there's also incredible history and incredible people in this area who have amazing stories," Thomas said. "We want to become a repository not just for Jan's stories, but for all of Caldwell County's stories."

Visit themitfordmuseum.org to learn more.

Thomas is dedicated to encouraging and inspiring people of all ages to express themselves creatively.

"Sarah's years of experience with a nonprofit and her success as an award-winning writer made her the perfect choice for the Mitford Museum's director," said Ann Everhardt Smith, a member of Mitford's board of directors. "I look forward to attending the 'Get Lit' literacy event and workshops sponsored by the Mitford Museum and Jan Karon in the fall to hear Sarah and other authors share their writing tips and success stories. Sarah is an exceptional story teller."

Thomas's history and deep roots in the mountains of West Virginia inspired her to write Appalachian fiction. To date, Thomas has seven full-length novels in print, two novellas, and she is about to sign a contract to write two more novels.

"I love telling stories," she said. "My dad was a huge storyteller."

Sadly, Thomas lost her father to Parkinson's disease a little over two years ago. The dedication in one of her more recently published books says, "Thanks for the stories, Dad. I'll take it from here."

"I feel like my storytelling is a legacy," Thomas said.