It’s a case of “tag, you’re it” here at Ohio’s statewide preservation organization. In response to the country’s latest craze, that of posting lists of “25 Random Things About Me” (a fad so prevalent that it has been
covered by the venerable New York Times), the PreservationNation blog recently posted its own list of “
25 Random Things About the National Trust for Historic Preservation” with a call for others to do the same.
We’re game, PreservationNation. So here goes -- “25 Random Things About Preservation Ohio.”
1. The view from the Preservation Ohio office in Springfield is wonderful. We occupy a huge fourth floor office that looks out over downtown - a particularly nice place to be during the annual mini-Grand Prix. Our location in Springfield testifies to our belief that as a statewide preservation organization, we have a commitment to all communities, urban and rural.
2. Almost 27 years after its founding, one of the three founding members of the organization is one of our current Trustees. How’s that for institutional history? One of the other founding members is the consultant currently working in Tiffin toward preservation of the Seneca County Courthouse, and the third, Bob Gaede, was a tireless advocate for historic preservation in the city of Cleveland until his passing last year.
3. The favorite haunt for Preservation Ohio staff meetings is the Old Bag of Nails Restaurant in downtown Delaware - nicely equidistant from Galion, Marion and Springfield.
4. Marian Vance, our Director of Development, was formerly the Executive Director of Scenic Ohio and Secretary of the Board of the Ohio Historical Society. Thomas Palmer, our Executive Director, was Board President of one of Ohio’s three charter Main Street programs, served as Downtown Manager in the city of Delaware, and has practiced law for over 16 years.
5. Preservation Ohio sponsored one of the very first meetings in Ohio -- and anywhere -- on preservation-based downtown revitalization in the very early 1980s.
6. Ohio is the only state in the country with two statewide preservation organizations. More than once, both Preservation Ohio and Heritage Ohio have received memberships and contact from individuals who assumed that they were in touch with the other organization.
7. Three of our current Trustees hail from Warren, Toledo and Cincinnati -- you can’t get much further apart than that!
8. Thomas is an alumnus of The Ohio State University Marching Band, and marched with the band at the Orange Bowl in Miami (where OSU won, of course).
9. Preservation Ohio was the first statewide preservation organization in the country to have its own blog (over 2 ½ years ago), the first with a MySpace page, the second with a Twitter account, and one of the first five on Facebook. All of our online sites are created and managed in-house, and we have never used outside web assistance of any kind.
10. Thomas and Scott Crider of our staff have both served as chair of their city’s design review commissions, and Marian served as a commission member.
11. Rachel Mendell, our new Project Manager, wrote a series of “This Place Matters” for a local Ohio newspaper last summer that profiled historic resources.
12. For some 24 years our organization was known as the Ohio Preservation Alliance, which remains our corporate name. The change was made in late 2005 at a meeting on the campus of Kenyon College in Gambier.
13. The logo of Preservation Ohio is a stylized version of the stained glass skylight in the dome of the Ohio Statehouse, whereas the logo of the Ohio Preservation Alliance was designed by the same individual who created the Solidarity! logo in Poland.
14. Marian spearheaded Preservation Ohio’s successful architectural salvage/ReStore project in Springfield. She and her husband renovated a glorious home on East High Street, just down the street from the Westcott House.
15. One of our former Board Presidents, Ann Antenen, was formerly Mayor of the city of Hamilton (or is that Hamilton!?) (those outside Ohio will not get this reference).
16. Former Board Presidents and Trustees of our organization include several well-known Columbusites -- Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Moyer, Robert Loversidge of Schooley-Caldwell Architects, Jeffrey Darbee of Benjamin D. Rickey & Co., and Kathy Mast Kane, Executive Director of the Columbus Landmarks Foundation.
17. At almost every conference and public event you will find a jar of M&Ms on the Preservation Ohio table. Help yourself!
18. In the early 1990s, Preservation Ohio co-sponsored the “Managing Change” Conferences, one of Ohio’s first looks at smart and sustainable growth.
19. Since 1993, Preservation Ohio has issued the List of Ohio’s Most Endangered Historic Sites.
20. In the last 15 years, Preservation Ohio has owned both a hotel and a church. Both are standing, one completely renovated, the other underway and protected by a preservation easement.
21. Speaking of which, Preservation Ohio holds easements protecting historic properties across Ohio, in Washington, Ottawa, Montgomery, Clark and Butler Counties. No other statewide entity in Ohio holds more.
22. Thomas rather famously once misspelled “neighborhoods” as “neighborboods” in a promotional flyer, and has never been allowed to forget it.
23. Current Preservation Ohio Board members include faculty members at Youngstown State University and the University of Cincinnati, a former editorial director of the Toledo Blade, a web producer with Time Warner, an executive with one of the Midwest’s largest public relations firms, and the director of one of Ohio’s most successful land trusts.
24. Almost everyone involved with Preservation Ohio has been personally impacted by the loss of Ohio’s historic schools.
25. We have a fantastic group of dedicated and talented individuals serving on our Board, and it’s a distinct pleasure working for them (no, its not time for a performance review or raise!).
The date was July 22, 2006 -- and the country’s first statewide blog on historic preservation, downtown and neighborhood revitalization, heritage tourism and smart growth was started with an initial post entitled “Downtown’s Role in Community Planning.” In the 347 articles that have followed, including Tuesday’s post, we have chronicled the world of historic preservation in Ohio, from the enactment of the Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit through two Statehood Days, the complete saga of the Seneca County Courthouse, two sets of Ohio’s Most Endangered listings, statewide summits on historic schools and public buildings, and much, much more.
Preservation Ohio has announced the Call for Nominations to the 2009 List of Ohio’s Most Endangered Historic Sites.
The participating organizations in this year’s Statehood Day, set for March 3, have released the 2009 History Works Legislative Priorities list.
The venerable Main Building on the campus of the now-closed Antioch College in Yellow Springs was the subject a recent major water leak that was discovered over the weekend, Preservation Ohio has learned.