James Pepper Henry, CEO of OKC's First Americans Museum, stepping down at end of March

After spending years working to get the First Americans Museum open and operating, James Pepper Henry is stepping down as executive director and CEO of the Oklahoma City landmark.

Pepper Henry, an enrolled member of the Kaw Nation who is also Muscogee, will exit his current position on March 31, the museum announced Monday.

He will shift from overseeing daily operations of the First Americans Museum, also known as FAM, to an advisory role of director emeritus, with a focus on fundraising and special projects.

"We will be forever grateful for the expertise and leadership that Jim has brought to FAM," said Gregg Wadley, who is Choctaw and chairman of the First Americans Museum Foundation Board of Directors, in a statement.

"We will miss his steadfast dedication and wish him success in his next endeavors.”

James Pepper Henry's time as director of OKC's First Americans Museum

Pepper Henry was named director and CEO of FAM, then known as the American Indian Cultural Center and Museum, in 2017. He shepherded the long-delayed project to its public opening on Sept. 18, 2021, and has continued to guide the fledgling museum over the past two and a half years.

“Jim brought First Americans Museum to the finish line. We couldn’t have completed this project without his expertise and dedication," said Blake Wade, executive director of the Native American Cultural and Educational Authority, in a statement.

"Not only has he helped to build an amazing facility to showcase the 39 tribal nations in Oklahoma, but he has also solidified its reputation as one of the premier cultural institutions in the state. FAM is now regarded as the bellwether museum for the representation of Indigenous peoples both nationally and internationally.”

By fall 2021, almost a year after the long-awaited landmark opened near downtown OKC, more than 130,000 people from all 50 states and 26 countries had visited the First Americans Museum.

To date, more than 300,000 people from across the state, country and globe have been admitted to the museum, and thousands more have attended events at FAM.

The museum is expected to draw even more visitors after the adjoining $400 million Okana Resort and Indoor Waterpark opens in 2025. The resort along the Oklahoma River is being built by the Chickasaw Nation as part of an agreement with the city of Oklahoma City to finish the First Americans Museum.

Under Pepper Henry's leadership, FAM also has been honored with more than 30 local, regional, national and international awards.

The museum recently received a $65,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to help the museum continue to reunite Indigenous items on loan from the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian that were collected in Oklahoma more than a century ago with their tribes and families of origin.

“One of the things that I am most proud of at FAM is that the stories and histories presented in our exhibitions are told from the first-person perspective by members of the 39 tribal nations in Oklahoma. You will not find a more authentic experience in any other museum representing Native peoples," Pepper Henry said in a statement.

Why is the First Americans Museum's director stepping down?

Pepper Henry is stepping down because he believes it is time to pass the mantle to the next generation of leadership at FAM, according to the announcement.

The First Americans Museum Foundation Board of Directors soon will begin efforts to recruit a new executive director.

Pepper Henry, who is also vice chair of the Kaw Nation Tribal Council, brought decades of museum experience to FAM. He came to the long-stalled OKC project from Tulsa's Gilcrease Museum, where he was executive director for two years.

Prior to that, he was the director and CEO of the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, for almost two years and the director and CEO of the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center in Alaska for nearly six years before that.

After interning there in the 1990s in New York, Pepper Henry returned to work as an associate director for the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian from 1998 to 2007. During that time, he played a pivotal part in the 2004 opening the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., and he drafted the agreement to loan items from the Smithsonian that were collected in Oklahoma to what would become the First Americans Museum.

Pepper Henry also served as the founding director of the Kanza Museum in Kaw City, Oklahoma; interim curator of American Indian Art at the Portland Art Museum in his native Portland, Oregon; gallery director at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center in Portland; and gallery director for the Institute of Alaska Native Arts in Fairbanks.

"We could not have made First Americans Museum a reality without the support of so many individuals, foundations, corporations, the public, and especially our tribal nations and tribal members. I am forever grateful for this incredible opportunity to help bring FAM to fruition," Pepper Henry said in a statement.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: First Americans Museum director James Pepper Henry stepping down