How did an upstate New York boy become so involved in Will Rogers? Greg Malak doesn’t know for sure how it happened, but he took a shine to Rogers as a teen when he bought a framed photo at an antique shop.
Malak, who is leaving after almost three decades at the Will Rogers Museums, has learned a lot about Will and has shared it with thousands during his tenure first as a guide, and then curator, manager and more recently associate director.
As he departs, the Will Rogers Memorial Commission awarded him the Will Rogers Communicator Award, first bestowed on the late President Ronald Reagan.
Malak has “effectively used his innate and educational talents to convey the humor, the candor and downright goodness with the same honesty of Will Rogers as a staffer and associate director of the Will Rogers Museum and as executive vice president of the Will Rogers Heritage Trust,” the Commission said in presenting him a replica of the Jo Davidson statue that stands in the Museum rotunda.
Malak said he hopes he has made a difference and has helped “keep his (Will’s) legacy alive.” He has learned a lot about the man and said he tells himself to “treat people the way he did.”
He moved here in 1977, fresh out of the University of Delaware where he was a student of museum studies and a short stint at Philbrook in Tulsa. His wife. Sheryl was transferred to Tulsa with Getty Oil.
As a history buff, he said, “I knew of him (Will), had studied about him and admired him.” It wasn’t until much later he found the framed photo at his parent’s home and recalled the purchase.
He has spent the past 30 years learning about Will Rogers and sharing that knowledge with the people who have come through the museum, especially those who have been doing research.
“There was plenty of work (when he joined the staff), but Reba and Delmar (Collins, the Commission director and museum manager then) made sure I had time to explore the collection and library.”
He has been through different stages in the Museum with the difference directors and “learned from each.”
He has special memories of visitors who “wanted to share their memories of Rogers.” He has met and knows all the family from Will’s three children to the grandchildren and great-grandchildren and the wonderful friends of Will Rogers who have been here through the years.
If he had a favorite, he said it would be “General Jimmy Doolittle, such an important man in history, so down to earth. And of course Joe McCrea and Frances Dee …” and the list goes on.
Malak has been through construction projects and special events, charged with the managing the complex business and financial affairs of the museum and living history birthplace ranch.
All the improvements and additions, he said, have provided a place to show the films, additional space to house the collections and exhibits, safer storage of archival items and valuable historical documents, “really to tell his story.”
“I have worked with so many authors, researchers and they have compared it to presidential libraries. This has been shared by many folks,” he emphasized.
In his museum office, he is surrounded by books about Will and when he is unpacked in his new home, he will still be surrounded by those memories … his own collection of Will Rogers books and the communicator award and statue.
He will keep track of what is going on in Claremore where he and his wife have raised their two sons, now moving to Florida, where they will share the rest of their lives with family they left behind many years ago.
After all, memories of the greatest part of his life are in the limestone building atop the hill overlooking Claremore.