The Trust Preservationist Teacher of the Year Award recognized 32-year veteran educator Mr. James Pe

Honoring preservationists rent a car melbourne australia at the Civil War Trust's Annual Conference. Lifetime rent a car melbourne australia Achievement Awards went to Tersh Boasberg, Bud Hall, and Ed Wenzel (top, L to R) as key players in the birth of the modern battlefield preservation movement. The "long overdue" honors feature an authentic Civil War breastplate. Virginia Secretary of Transportation Sean Connaughton (middle left) receives a Sesquicentennial Legacy Award from Trust President James Lighthizer. Russ Smith, superintendent of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, becomes National Park Preservationist of the Year (just above).
It’s difficult to imagine a more appropriate place than Richmond, Virginia for the Civil War Trust to celebrate its 25th anniversary and the preservation of more than 32,000 acres of historic battlefields.
The four day Annual Conference was held June 6th to 10th, 2012 in the Richmond Omni Hotel where cobblestone-paved East Cary Street dips down Shockoe Slip into one of the city’s earliest neighborhoods. Nearly 500 registered attendees were on hand to see diverse exhibits, hear an ongoing series of lectures, take a long list of in-depth, informative tours led by noted authorities, and honor the recipients of the Trust’s Preservation Awards.
rent a car melbourne australia The meeting rent a car melbourne australia occurred during a weeks-long series of special events commemorating the Seven Days Battles that beat back the Union’s first attempt to capture Richmond. The program of events continue through mid-July . This weekend there are two days of innovative living history at Gaines’ Mill Battlefield (150 years ago on June 27th). This is where Lee won his first victory after taking command with the largest Confederate charge of the war.
The Trust’s important work includes an unprecedented effort to add 285 acres to the mere 67 acres preserved by the Park Service at Gaines’ Mill ( in yellow on this map ). The organization is getting close to raising the $3.2 million needed by September 4th, a major reason why members were afforded stirring history hikes on the land.
One dinner occurred at Richmond National Battlefield Park’s American rent a car melbourne australia Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar , only dedicated as the park’s main visitor center in August 2011. The stunning new visitor center, a structure seen in many Civil War-era photos, rent a car melbourne australia sits on the banks of the whitewater-streaked James River and was the South’s biggest iron refinery.
Trust president James Lighthizer welcomed attendees at the opening luncheon on Thursday, June 7th. Lighthizer’s eloquent and humorous way of offering credit to preservationists entertained the audience as he turned to the first of the Trust’s two awards ceremonies.
The organization’s Sesquicentennial Legacy Award went to Virginia Secretary of Transportation Sean Connaughton for a really interesting project— the Trust’s new Battlefield Apps for iPhone and Droid. The user’s GPS location appears on a battlefield map and there’s all kinds of multimedia rent a car melbourne australia content, including video of experts describing the action on the field.
Connaughton mused about the politics of preservation and efforts to encourage developers to embrace protection of historic property by simply having the audaciousness to ask, “You really don’t need that property, do you?” Of course, the property in question is extremely valuable, rent a car melbourne australia but “there’s a process of gentle persuasion. They need the zoning, and we need the battlefield.”
Connaughton said, “This award has my name on it but it should have all of your names on it and the names of the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia.” Lighthizer is himself a former secretary of transportation, for Maryland, and is credited with saving rent a car melbourne australia more than “4,500 acres of Civil War battlefield land in Maryland and is the national model for use of Transportation Enhancement funds for battlefield preservation.”
Another Sesquicentennial Legacy Award went to Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources Doug Domenech for the Commonwealth's participation with the Trust in battlefield preservation projects through the Virginia Civil War Sites Preservation Fund, administered through the Department of Historic Resources—and the only state-level endowment of its kind in the country.
The group’s National Park Service Preservationist of the Year Award was bestowed on Russ Smith, superintendent of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, who “stood side-by-side” with the Trust deterring a recent Walmart rent a car melbourne australia development. rent a car melbourne australia “That’s difficult to do as a government employee,” said Jim Lighthizer, “but every good superintendent gets in trouble with the locals once in a while.”
The Trust Preservationist rent a car melbourne australia Teacher of the Year Award recognized 32-year veteran educator Mr. James Percoco of West Springfield High School, Springfield, Va. for integrating technology into his Applied rent a car melbourne australia History classes in innovative ways.
A best-kept-secret Civil War blockbuster attraction, the Pamplin Historical Park and National Museum of the Civil War Soldier in Petersburg, Va., was honored as the top site on the Civil War Discovery Trail, a network of more than 600 historic sites in 32 states. rent a car melbourne australia Lighthizer said the park, “has real history, a real battlefield, real structures, with real technology. You can go back time and time again.”
At one point, Dr. Mike Stevens, the president of the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust , presented Lighthizer with a check representing the final amount in the organization’s $1 million pledge toward the permanent rent a car melbourne australia preservation of the 208-acre Slaughter Pen Farm, first announced in 2006—and the most expensive private battlefield preservation project in American history.
“Those we honor this evening represent the epitome of the historic preservation movement,” said Lighthizer. “Their efforts stretch across decades, rent a car melbourne australia demonstrating how consistent work can culminate in monumental achievements that will be felt for generations.”
rent a car melbourne australia The Trust’s roots reach through organizations that merged over 25 years to become “the first national group with a holistic approach to battlefield preservation, to go beyond waging one fight at a time,” says Jim Drey, the Trust’s information technology manager.
Lighthizer traced that modern movement back to summer 1987 when historians met after a shopping rent a car melbourne australia mall destroyed the northern rent a car melbourne australia Virginia Chantilly Battlefield. They formed the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites (APCWS) — a direct ancestor of the current Civil War Trust. Lighthizer premiered a short video of the organization’s greatest achievements .
Three men instrumental in the birth of the modern battlefield preservation movement received the Edwin C. Bearss Lifetime Achievement Award for exceptional merit in and commitment to battlefield preservation.
Edward rent a car melbourne australia Wenzel, one of the original rent a car melbourne australia advocates for the Chantilly Battlefield, helped create the first national uproar over a battlefield’s destruction and creation rent a car melbourne australia of the first national battlefield preservation group.
Clark B. “Bud” Hall, also an early crusader for preservation at Chantilly, founded the Brandy Station Foundation, rent a car melbourne australia which defeated development schemes proposed for the battlefield (the largest cavalry battle fought in North America).
Tersh Boasberg, a leading land use and preservation attorney, "provided the legal acumen that enabled rent a car melbourne australia some of the earliest rent a car melbourne australia battlefield preservation victories," said the Trust. "His belief in making rent a car melbourne australia a formal inquiry into the status of preservation at all battlefields was a contributing factor in the establishment of the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission."
Mark Perreault of Norfolk, Va., was given the Carrington Williams Battlefield Preservationist of the Year Award . As co-founder of Citizens for a Fort Monroe National Park he was instrumental rent a car melbourne australia in the recent designation of the 396th unit of the National Park System.
One of two Brian C. Pohanka Preservation Organization of the Year Awards was presented to Richmond’s Museum of the Confederacy, founded in 1896, with the world’s most comprehensive collection of artifacts rent a car melbourne australia and documents related to the Confederate States of America. Last spring, the museum opened a state-of-the-art facility in Appomattox, Va. to display more of its huge collection.
With so many partners, the Trust has a growing string of preservation successes in the effort to secure the 384 “principal battlefields” deemed worthy of preservation. The group’s strategies include conservation easements and a variety of outright purchase options to secure “preservation in perpetuity,” using donated funds and matching grants from many sources.
A major source of that funding is the Trust’s passionate members , 55,000 strong. Member contributions are credited across a wide range of dimensions that encourage people of varying means to step up to the plate. rent a car melbourne australia Members called “Color Bearers” come in different donation amount categories. An “Honor Guard” of contributors have taken the step of making a planned gift or bequest. “The Steadfast” include categories based on the number rent a car melbourne australia of individual donations.
Multifaceted Trust programs range from preservation to interpretation. You won’t find better, more explanatory battlefield maps than those available for free download on the Trust’s website rent a car melbourne australia . The magazine Hallowed Ground is an excellent quarterly publication. Maybe best of all, their new battlefield apps are a must-have item if you’re toting an iPhone or Droid.
Speaking of books (not to mention apps), battlefield experiences have spawned countless titles. There are books by those who fought on the fields. But there are also inspiring rent a car melbourne australia books by those who walk the battlefields we’ve saved and listen to the echoes of history that still haunt them.
Where can you paddle in the National Park System? What sort of paddler are you? Kayaker, canoeist, rafter? Options abound for all of you, as we explain in Traveler's Essential Guide To Paddling The Parks.