Meet the Docents: This Air and Space Museum volunteer is in her ‘happy place’
Mary Dominiak should have been an astronaut. Or, at least, that’s what she wanted to be when she was growing up in Milwaukee.
Mary Dominiak starts greeting guests at the National Air and Space Museum at 10 a.m. She asks visitors what they’re interested in before directing them to a related artifact or display. (Photo by Elliot C. Williams / WAMU)
A lifelong airplane junkie and self-described “space cadet,” Dominiak says two strikes were against her: her poor eyesight and the fact that women weren’t admitted to NASA’s astronaut corps until 1978. By then, she was already halfway through law school at Georgetown University.
She now lives in Northern Virginia, where she’s lived for decades, and knows just about everything there is to know about the Air and Space Museum.
Docent Mary Dominiak at Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. (Photo by Elliot Williams / WAMU)
In this interview, Dominiak shares how she started visiting Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum right after it opened and what made her join the docents program.
As a volunteer, she spends hours in the museum every day sharing her love of spaceflight with guests as they walk through the sliding front doors, leaving the D.C. heat on Independence Avenue. Like the building’s air conditioning that hits tourists as soon as they step inside, Dominiak is a breath of fresh air.
Listen to the full interview with Mary Dominiak
Read the transcript of the rest of the interview.
This article by Elliot C. Williams was originally published by WAMU American University Radio as part of their Meet the Docents series. Listen to the original broadcast here and check out the entire series at this link.
Related posts:
Posted: 15 July 2024
- Categories:
