Paul Hilliard hasn’t visited the museum that bears his name since former director Herman Mhire resigned in September 2005. “I’m not happy with it, and I’m not very optimistic about it,” Hilliard says, “and I’m a very optimistic guy. It seems to be hanging in limbo. Nothing’s happening. There’s no more first-class exhibitions and no curator. A museum without a curator — is that a museum or just a storage area, or an arts and crafts tent show?”

The President of Badger Oil, Hilliard and his late wife Lulu were initially enlisted by Mhire to provide a financial foundation for an $8.5 million, 33,000-square-foot expansion of the University Art Museum on the campus of UL Lafayette. The Hilliards first pledged $3 million for the project and later increased it to $5 million. But Mhire resigned as director last year, after a contentious disagreement over an exhibition of Martelé silver — owned by local attorney Robert Shelton and his wife, Jolie — put Mhire at odds with both the Sheltons and UL President Ray Authement.

In Mhire’s absence, deputy director Mark Tullos was named interim director. Tullos is now slated to become the museum’s director, and the university will soon conduct a national search for a curator who will work under Tullos’ direction. But it’s Tullos’ appointment, made without a national search for the position, that frustrates museum supporters who say UAM is heading in the wrong direction.

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R. Reese Fuller
The Independant