Blog

By Ellen Shubart, Class of 2006

Her long suit was organization, says her husband, Jim Gary. She was a no-nonsense person, says docent Bobbi Pinkert, one of her best friends. She created one of our most popular tours, Treasures of Culture and Commerce, and spearheaded noon-time building tours, remembers docent Jane Buckwalter. And certainly without intention, she became the model for our docent jacket in the Land’s End Catalogue.

No longer with us, Myra Gary is also the woman for whom CAC’s annual Best New Tour Award is rightly named.

Myra was born in Shaker Heights, Ohio. After college she got a job as a medical writer, research assistant, and speech writer for doctors at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Cleveland. In 1967, Myra married Jim Gary. The couple had two children, a boy and a girl. Myra continued to work for medical institutions and ended her career at a Cleveland hospital where the Nutrisystem brand of diet programs was developed. She traveled around the country setting up Nutrisystem centers.

Jim’s work took the couple to London. And while her husband worked, Myra took tours, triggering her interest in then giving tours, Jim recalls. Back in the United States, Myra wanted to volunteer – “not necessarily in architecture—that was me,” he adds. But all the museums had waiting lists for docent training. Except CAF. Not many people wanted to put in the three months necessary for training, Jim says. But Myra loved it and was certified in 1999. Jim recounted, “and then she told me one evening, ‘we’re moving downtown,’ so she could fulfill her decision to give three to four tours a week.”

Myra was a “doer,” jumping into projects with both feet. She responded to SOS calls, filling in when no docent had signed up for a tour but tickets had been sold. She won the award for aiding staff at least twice. She was elected to Docent Council and brought Bobbi Pinkert along with her. “I wasn’t thinking of being on DC,” Bobbi recalls.

“A tour hour is tour hour,” Jim recalled about a campaign Myra successfully led to separate tour from service hours. She didn’t believe that Tour Directors should get tour hours for scheduling rather than giving tours, or for sponsoring or certifying new docents, the practice at the time. The change didn’t come easily. But it stuck and remains the policy today.

When Myra joined the Tour Committee, she noticed that many docents didn’t want to come downtown at night for committee meetings. “Myra saw a job that needed to done and did it. That’s how the lunchtime tour committee got started,” Bobbi Pinkert recalled. With Docent Council President Jane Buckwalter’s approval, Myra set up a Daytime Tour Committee.

Myra noted a gap between the Modern and Historic tour itineraries, inspiring her to create the Historic Tour of Culture and Commerce, today’s Treasures tour. She also organized the noon building tours. Jane Buckwalter recalls that when she created the Reliance Building tour, she ran it by Myra. “Why do you think this is important?” Myra asked Jane. Recalls Jane, “Her standards were high and she asked great questions, even of her friends.’

What made a good tour for Myra? A combination of using the tour for education purposes but also entertainment. “You needed to be adept (at both),” Jim recalls.

Myra contracted breast cancer in the mid-1990s. She underwent treatment and was cancer-free for 10 years. But in 2009, the cancer claimed her. In the intervening years, Jim set up the Myra Gary Award for docents who created the most engaging and interesting tour. He has been giving the award annually at DAN and has endowed a speaker fund for docents who give the CACLive programs.

And that modeling job. Myra received a docent jacket from Land’s End, and she posed in it. “Somehow,” Jim says, “she became the model for that jacket – and she was shown in the garment in all varieties of the rainbow, including yellow, seen here.

________________________________________________________________________________