Year Three Beginning Soon
The Community Historians Steering Committee (or is it an Advisory Committee?) met earlier this week to fine-tune plans for Year Three of a project that has actually been in the making for nearly five years (or is it six?) Whatever. Already the beginnings of this exciting program are lost in the proverbial mists of time and the project has taken on a life of its own. “As god intended” my friend Te would say.
The idea started in Jim Sayce’s fertile brain, was nurtured by a series of phone calls and emails to me, and then followed by two years of meetings with Betsy Millard and Cate Gable. It all evolved to become a unique, full-fledged history program under the auspices of the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum. It’s a program unlike any other in the United States as far as we know.
2013 Community Historians
Its basic purpose is to develop a cadre of ‘Community Historians’ who will become experts in some aspect of Pacific County history and will disseminate that history in a way that will help perpetuate it. As Jim said the other day, “The idea was developed out of fear – fear that as our older generation (ahem!) dies off, the stories of our past will disappear with them.”
If the first two years are representative, the mission is on its way to becoming a fait accompli. Program graduates are doing exciting things – organizing exhibits, leading tour groups, preserving archived photographs and negatives, or presenting dramatized tales from the past. They are ‘out there’ telling the stories in a variety of ways and getting people turned on to the rich history of our area.
Field Trip 2014
And there are quieter, less visible projects, too. Two that come to mind deal with researching and documenting specific interests –the provenance of a historic house in Ilwaco and the history of quilting and the Quilt Guild in Pacific County. Then there’s the Community Historian pursuing the litigious nature of one of the area’s pioneers. And the quest of another ‘graduate’ to document one of the old portage routes from the Columbia River to the Bay. In each of these examples, the researchers will tell you that they’ve followed many threads and learned far more along the way than they could have imagined. Their projects have grown or fine-tuned as they’ve delved deeper into the past and, almost imperceptibly, these Community Historians have become authorities in their own right.
‘Community Historians 2015’ will begin January 14. There will be fifteen once-a-week gatherings that will include visits from the experts, visits to research centers and archival storehouses, and hands-on experiences learning and practicing a wide range of skills – from taking oral histories to preserving artifacts. All for a registration fee of $100 and an interest in helping to preserve our past (and even our present, for that matter)!
Shoalwater Storytellers, 2014
There has been talk at the state level of using the Community Historian program as a model for other counties throughout the state. Wouldn’t that be great! And, we’ve had participants from across the river who hope to do something similar in Oregon. Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to Year Three (or is it technically Year Six?) right here close to home. Registration information will be available soon from the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum, 360-642-3446.
Congratulations, Sydney, on the outstanding success of this program. I hope it will be a model for other communities. There is never better time than the present (excepts perhaps yesterday) to document a communities history and cultural heritage. The rest of us are deeply in debt to you and your partners in this effort.
Sydney: Thanks for recording some of the details of the birth of our community historian project before, as you say, the beginning is truly lost in the mists of time.