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HomeMy WebLinkAbout02 PH Progress Report 02.28.2006 WEEKLY PROGRESS REPORT Anne Boykin Heritage Volunteer Coordinator Neighborhood Services Jan. 30 — Feb. 5, 2006 Project HOLD (PH) • Moment in History — Continued this new monthly series with an email to the Neighborhood Partnership, Explore, COCS, family and friends about Brazos County's 165 Birthday. This series began in November 2005 with the Kennedy Assassination and was followed in December 2005 with the bombing of Pearl Harbor December 7 The series is designed to acquaint members of the community with special features within the Project HOLD website. Response has been very positive. Several new contacts and leads for PH have resulted from this series already. Many have responded with emails describing their own experiences on these particular dates in history. • Acquisitions • From Andrew Drake, COCS Police Department: Three issues of Memphis newspapers from 1864, 1929 and 1963 for our PH World Events files. This contact was made as a direct result from the PH Moment in History email. • From Rosemary Boykin: Permission to scan her original manuscript of "Italians of Steele Store, Oral History Interviews." This is the only document of its kind regarding Italians in the Brazos Valley. Rosemary was able to interview many of the elder members of the Italian community who have since passed away. • Connections • Donna K. Norton, daughter of Coach Homer Norton, regarding Coach Norton's Pancake House. The restaurant was in the building at East Gate where Cazadores is now. Donna has photographs and scrapbooks of her father's life as football hero and coach. • Pat Munn, Aggie Class of '71, regarding his memorabilia collection from days as a member of the A &M Corps of Cadets. • Thank You Notes • Began designing thank you note cards and mailing labels for the many donors to PH. Brides of the Brazos Exhibit • Followed up with Mary Lancaster concerning her contributions to the exhibit which include: hand made wedding dress from 1953, 50 year wedding candle, wedding portraits, wedding book, wedding invitation, 950s wedding etiquette book, gloves, receipt for The Shamrock Hotel in Houston, menu from Antoine's in New Orleans. • Began gathering Rosemary Boykin's wedding memorabilia that includes: 1946 wedding dress, gloves, parasol, missal, wedding cake charms, wedding photos. Also acquired my great- grandmother's hand crocheted wedding stockings and baby bunting. City of College Station 1/2 2/28/06 Historic Preservation Committee (HPC) • America's Mile (AM) — Contacted Jerry Cooper, Cal Boykin, Jim Boone and Russ Mason about contributing to the AM committee. All are Aggies, historians and long time College Station residents. • Composed and typed the minutes and agenda for inclusion in this month's HPC packet that was distributed today, Feb. 1 Also photocopied various attachments that were included in the packets. Laserfiche • Sat in on a one -on -one training session with Casey Skelton about a new feature of Laserfiche 7.0. Digital images from a high- resolution camera can be directly imported into Laserfiche (and the PH website) by using a tabletop tripod set up. This enables us to forego setting up a laptop and tabletop scanner at our remote interviews. This will give us all the more reason to purchase a high- resolution digital camera and tripod for this purpose. Brochures • Began designing the new brochures for Project HOLD, Local Historic Markers, Exploring History Lunch Lecture Series and Neighborhood Seminar Suppers. These will go to press in time for our first Explore Lecture, Feb. 15. Volunteers • Marita O'Dell (HR) contacted me about her husband's interest in volunteering in historic preservation. • Contacted Mike Mullen about securing a volunteer to transcribe oral histories from cassette tapes. • New volunteer, Anne Triche- Steen, is ill this week. However, volunteer and oral history team member Mary Hamlin was in touch with her regarding their interviews of the African- American and Hispanic community members. • Volunteer Colleen Risinger completed scanning a book today on Brazos Bottom Folk Tales. She also proofed and filled in templates from prior scans. Colleen and I will be scanning on Sunday again to tackle the backlog of newspaper articles. • Volunteer Ruth Bramson assembled the HPC packets for distribution today, Feb. 1st Employee Recognition Committee (ERC) • Met with the ERC today, Feb. 1 and discussed the purchase of P &DS shirts, birthday celebrations, Valentine's Day, and Secret Pals. City of College Station 2/2 2/28/06 PROGRESS REPORT Anne Boykin Heritage Coordinator Neighborhood Services Feb. 6 — Feb. 26, 2006 Preface • These "not so" weekly reports are evolving into a form that I feel will be helpful for me in documenting the progress of Project HOLD. In the interest of time involved in writing these reports, I am considering issuing them once a month. Any and all feedback is welcome. Project HOLD (PH) • Acquisitions — 59 files resulting in 256 pages scanned • From Jerry Cooper, a data CD of current photographs of the Campus Houses. The CD also includes a current listing of owners, residents and previous owners. • Also from Jerry Cooper, three Abstracts of Title for the property at 602 Bell Street. From 1928 — 1936. In addition, there are several early plats of College Park. • From Bill Page via Jerry Cooper, documentation on early surnames associated with the establishment of A &M College. • From Regina and Charles Opersteny, a second photo album of "Early Polish Settlers of Brazos County." The album includes photographs of a wedding party outside the original St. Joseph's Church, numerous WWI soldiers, and several old school house photos. • From Mary & Bill Lancaster numerous photos and memorabilia from their 1953 wedding. • From Deborah Grace, a 1929 Valentine from to her Mother. • From Hillary Jessup, an original trolley token from A.M. Waldrop's issued just before 1900, a news article about George Jessup and his Mount Aggie ski school, and a news article about Hillary Jessup as a cancer survivor. • From Mrs. Luther Moon, numerous photos documenting her family's ownership of the Handy Burger restaurant behind the Campus Theater on University. The Handy Burger is now The Deluxe Diner and slated for demolition. I will be working on acquiring a subject marker for the business. • Connections • Katie Letton from TEEX is working with Volunteer Mary Hamlin to pinpoint members of the African- American community to add to our ever gorwing list of oral history interviews. • Arena Welch, of The Eagle, located an old copy of a news article on the Brazos County Birthday Celebration for me. The particular article in Project HOLD, was missing the second page. • I connected with Jacqulynn (Carroll) Pinkney at the Soul Food Luncheon at Lincoln Center. Jacquie and I were classmates at A &M Consolidated. Jacquie has been active with the Lincoln School alumni and has promised to help me better document the history of Lincoln School and the African- American community. • Oral History Interviews • Mary Hamlin and I interviewed Nan Alexander as the last of the Alexander interviews. The Alexanders have been instrumental in the creation of Brazos Valley Rehabilitation. Their youngest son has cerebral palsy. • Mary Hamlin and I also interviewed Jessie Mae Walton, a lifetime Home Economics teacher. Brides of the Brazos Exhibit • The exhibit was installed with the help of Volunteer Ruth Bramson and Katyla Boykin. The display will change periodically to showcase more photos and memorabilia from other families in the area. According to Grace Calbert- Vrooman at the Conference Center, the exhibit has initiated a lot of interest and has been very well received. Historic Preservation Committee (HPC) • Received word from the Texas Historical Commission that the Texas in WWII Steering Committee has won the Award for Excellence in Preserving History. Preparations are underway to attend the THC annual conference and award presentation in Galveston in April. Laserfiche • The HP desk top scanner is no more. Katie and I are looking at the possibility of replacing it with a Fujitsu scanner similar to the one across from Jessica. Until then, the volunteer desk has no scanning capabilities except for the large format Scanworks scanner. Volunteer Colleen Risinger and I will be scanning a few newspapers on the Scanworks scanner Monday. • I spoke with Casey Skelton about the possibility of creating a more user - friendly web page that would become the home page for Project HOLD. It would showcase some of our latest acquisitions and include links to instructions on how to use the website. I have already written the instructions and posted them on Project HOLD but they don't have very high visibility there. • I have not been able to locate a suitable digital camera with a sufficient optical zoom to replace our current digital camera. I am looking for one similar to my personal digital camera that is an Olympus Camedia with a 10X optical (not digital) zoom. The price range could be somewhere around $800. • I am continuing to document the bugs that crop up from time to time while using Laserfiche. Brochures • I have completed the Project HOLD and EXPLORE brochures for 2006. The Historic Marker brochure is almost finished leaving the Seminar Supper and Neighborhood Partnership brochures left to go. Volunteers • I am continuing my efforts to fully register our volunteer program with the Points of Light Foundation. Just yesterday, I received word that we have been accepted as an Official Certifying Organization for the President's Volunteer Service Awards.