Meet Our Curator, Joe Laurenza, Also Known As: "Mr. Volunteer"
March 19, 2021
The Gouverneur Museum's Curator, Joe Laurenza is, at heart, an educator. When the museum's doorbell rings, he's there with a smile and a welcome. If you choose, you will be given a guided tour of the museum.
If you want to browse at your own pace, Joe will be there when you need him to clarify an exhibit or play a tune for you on the museum's Beckwith player piano, donated by William Sudds.
Joe grew up in Andover, Massachusetts and was married to his wife, Marilyn, for forty-nine years. He is a graduate of St. Michael's College in Colchester, Vermont. He was a business education teacher in the Gouverneur High School, Rockport High School in Rockport, MA, and for four years at Southwest Tech in Gouverneur, before becoming its principal.
He served as the Principal of Southwest Tech's Vocational School for twenty-five years. Southwest Tech is part of the St. Lawrence-Lewis Counties' BOCES system. Since retiring in 1995, after thirty-three years as a teacher and administrator, Joe expanded his role as an educator, becoming a "professional volunteer." Joe spends a lot of time at St. James School and organizing the Outreach/Thrift Shop. His days are full of juggling his many responsibilities, all of which he is passionate about. When Joe received the Silas Wainwright VFW Good Citizenship Award in 1999, they called him, "Mr. Volunteer."
Joe is President of the Gouverneur Museum Historical Association and is the Historian of both the Village and the Town of Gouverneur. For the past twenty years, in his role as the Curator of the Gouverneur Museum, Joe greets visitors to the Museum with a smile and a laugh and manages to keep the extensive collection of artifacts organized and in order. The museum is officially open on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 1:00 to 3:00, but if you call ahead and make arrangements, Joe will open the building to give you and your group a private tour.
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A new element for visitors is our web-based Tour App. Connect to the Museum's wireless network and open the tour on your smart phone, and you've taken the first steps to a multimedia tour of the Gouverneur Museum in real time.