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Editor’s Note: This is the first of three stories highlighting Bethel College’s 2021 Distinguished Achievement Award winners. The show features profiles of Jennifer Scott Koontz, MD, of Newton and Joel Gaeddert of North Newton.
Steve Friesen rarely met a museum that he didn’t like or vice versa.
Friesen, of Littleton, Colorado, will receive the 2021 Distinguished Achievement Award from Bethel College, which recognizes character and citizenship, achievement in a chosen profession or calling, and work for the benefit of humanity.
The prize will be awarded at the alumni banquet, which has been postponed to the autumn festival weekend and will take place on October 3rd this year.
Friesen was born in Lawrence, grew up in Bühler and graduated from Bethel in 1975 with a BA in history and social sciences. He then earned an MA in American Folk Culture from the State University of New York’s Cooperstown Graduate Program at Oneonta.
He returned to his southern Kansas homeland in 1976-77 as director of Bethel’s Kauffman Museum and then spent a year in the Office of Museum Programs of the Wichita Public Schools, 1977-78, before moving on to educational programs. to direct the Littleton Historical Museum in the Denver area for the next four years.
After two years in Baton Rouge, La., As a service worker with the Mennonite Central Committee, Friesen moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania until 1990 to be director of the Hans Herr House from 1719.
He then returned to Colorado as museum director for the city of Greeley and later became director of Molly Brown House in Denver.
In 1995, Friesen took over the management of the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave in Golden, Colorado, from which he retired in 2017 after 22 years of service.
In 2018 he was inducted into the Jefferson County (Colo.) Hall of Fame.
After retiring from the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave, Friesen teamed up with his wife, Monta Lee Dakin, to create Friesen-Dakin Museum Consulting, a part-time company.
The two have worked in the museum profession for a total of 80 years (Dakin worked at Mount Vernon, the home of George and Martha Washington; the Smithsonian; Strawbery Banke in New Hampshire; Gadsby’s Tavern in Virginia; Colorado Preservation, Inc .; and most recently as executive director Director of the Mountain-Plains Museums Association).
Friesen and Dakin have advised the Aspen Historical Society, the Evergreen Mountain Area Historical Society, the Hastings Museum, the Crested Butte Mountain Heritage Museum, and The Hermitage, the home of Andrew Jackson in Nashville, Tennessee.
Friesen’s first book, A Modest Mennonite Home (Good Books, 1990), looked at the Hans Herr House in Lancaster County from 1719 and early German life in Pennsylvania.
His second book, Buffalo Bill: Scout, Showman, Visionary (City and County of Denver, 2010), was a finalist for a Colorado Book Award and was named Best Museum Publication of 2011 by the Mountain-Plains Museums Association.
Lakota Performers in Europe: Their Culture and What They Left Behind (University of Oklahoma Press, 2017) won a Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum and Best Illustrated History 2017 from the Western History Association and was a finalist for the Western Writers of America Spur Award.
Friesen has authored chapters for several museum management books and has written numerous historical articles and book reviews for scholarly and popular publications. In 2021 he began writing a regular column for True West magazine. He is an active member of the Western Writers of America.
Friesen and Dakin are parents to two children (including Bethel graduate Elizabeth Friesen) and have one granddaughter.
In addition to writing and reading, Friesen enjoys traveling and cooking which, when combined with his years of studying Buffalo Bill, has resulted in his latest book, Galloping Gourmet: Eating and Drinking with Buffalo Bill.
Friesen is a member of the Beloved Community Mennonite Church in Denver and continues his lifelong association with Bethel College as a member of the Kauffman Museum Board of Directors.
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