Bonifas Director Samantha Gibb Roff Moves, October 02
Bonifas Fine Arts Center executive director Samantha Gibb Roff left in October to begin a new position in Duluth, Minnesota as executive director of the 106-year-old Duluth Arts Institute, a visual arts center. The Arts Center Board of Trustees has appointed Kaymary Rettig as interim executive director.

"Kaymary knows the operation, having served as bookkeeper for the past two and a half years," said Marti Meyer, Arts Center board president. "She will oversee the finances and staff, keep programs and activities moving along on schedule and maintain our fall campaign for community support, while the board launches a search for a new permanent leader for the organization."

The search committee has already begun its planning, including a goal to have a new permanent executive director in place by January 1, 2003.

Gibb Roff, a native of New Jersey, has served as executive director since June 1, 1996, coming here from Crystal Falls, Michigan where she developed the Crystal Falls Contemporary Center, a youth-focused arts center with major seed money from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. While at the Bonifas, she has overseen a period of growth and healthy community relations for the Arts Center, which has led to increases in support from individuals, families, businesses and corporations.

"My decision to leave the Arts Center has not been an easy one. I care deeply for this organization and all the people who make it happen with energy and enthusiasm for arts in this region. I believe in the design and concept of a community arts center as its own self-propelling, self-governing, malleable, flexible and responsive entity designed to serve grassroots arts interests, however large or small, sophisticated or fledgling," said Gibb Roff.