Marci Donaho wants to put kids to work. Well, not right away. As president and CEO of the Jasmine Moran Children’s Museum in Seminole, Donaho is enthusiastic about helping kids find their passions. The museum, open since 1993, is full of opportunities to play that just so happen to relate to jobs kids might someday want.

“Every exhibit promotes a certain kind of career,” she says. “We give kids a chance to try on lots of different jobs so they are able to find what they are passionate about.”

A former classroom teacher at Northwood Elementary School in Seminole, Donaho knows that sometimes, all a child needs is a little push. And if that push happens to present itself as a room full of giant foam building blocks, a kid-sized TV studio, or a courtroom where visitors can be lawyers, judges, or members of the jury, then it doesn’t feel very pushy.

Visitors to the Jasmine Moran Children’s Museum will find 42,000 square feet inside and 12 acres outside to explore, except on Mondays, when it’s closed to the public. Photo by Brent Fuchs

All of this started in 1988, when Melvin and Jasmine Moran of Seminole paid a visit to a children’s museum in Flint, Michigan, and left inspired. Within the year, the Morans formed a board of directors, named Donaho as president, and established the museum as a non-profit corporation. Construction began in 1992, and the museum finally opened on January 23, 1993, with many of the same exhibits visitors see today.

One eye-catching feature of the building is the nose of a Convair airplane sticking out the side, which kids can enter and push all the buttons their hearts desire. Many museums will cover the buttons and switches with a plastic plate, but that defeats the purpose, Donaho says.

“There are manipulatives everywhere,” she says. “They need to play.”

To see evidence of this, all visitors need to do is wait a while. Soon enough, they’ll see kids climbing down from a platform, running over, and spinning a wheel attached to the oil and gas exhibit before running off again. As much as possible, everything in the museum is there for curious hands to touch and try. And the jobs available to experience in a hands-on fashion span the everyday and the maybe someday.

Inside Mabee’s Kid Town, two-year-old Eldridge Weaver is busy in the mock grocery store piling dog food, Cheez-Its, and popcorn into a kid-sized shopping cart. Despite the distance, mom Heather says they drive to Jasmine Moran from their home in Edmond once or twice each month.

“He loves the drive, and he loves the museum,” she says. “He’s all about the ambulance. If I ask him what he wants to do, he answers, ‘Go see ambulance.’”

More than twenty-five years ago, it was Heather’s grandparents who first took her to Jasmine Moran, and now, she’s happy to share it with her son.

Before the pandemic, the museum received about 71,000 visitors each year. Since it reopened in May 2021, the numbers of visitors and memberships have gone up compared to 2019. In fact, Jasmine Moran has set a record for attendance each month May through August of this year.

It’s nice to go out on top, which is what Donaho plans to do in 2022. She’s been on the board of directors since 1988 and the executive director since 1996, but now, she’s looking forward to retirement. When it’s time for kids to leave, they often shed tears of sadness. Perhaps she will shed a few as well on her last day.

“She and I have grown up together,” Donaho says, looking out over the museum.

But she’s confident the museum will continue to grow and thrive, even after she’s no longer a daily presence. As long as kids dream of being archaeologists, or heart surgeons, or architects, they’ll have a place at the Jasmine Moran Children’s Museum.

Written By

Greg Elwell

Greg Elwell served as research editor and web editor of Oklahoma Today from 2018-2023. He also has worked for newspapers, medical research organizations, and government institutions.