Whether you noticed it or not, the Preserve America effort has been very much in the local news lately. Since Stevens County was designated a "Preserve America Community" there have been articles in several papers and a Power Point presentation to the County Commissioners, Cathy McMorris-Rogers and the Colville Chamber of Commerce. If you don't live near Colville, never fear, David Bull, Stevens County's Tourism Coordintor, is making sure this presentation is coming to a Chamber of Commerce near you.
This is a big opportunity for us and I have been using it to tell people about our rich and important role in history. To that end, Grady Knight of G2 Video donated his time and equipment to turn my Power Point presentation into a 27 Minute DVD movie. We can't actually sell it without reviewing all of the pictures for copyrights. But we can give it away to people, which is what I will do if any of you want a copy.
I didn't do a peer review until now, so you may find some statements in there to take issue with. This would be a good time to do that. We have about 4 months to take this Crossroads on the Columbia theme and turn it into a history research project as a focus of grant proposals. Public-Private Partnership is a key component of the Preserve America Grants and many others. To make the work that each of us is doing, or would like to see done, an asset in the development of this project, we need to do a lot more communication. I have some generalist ideas expressed in this presentation. I need advice from professionals of all kinds. We want to make ways to channel energy, attention and funds back into your projects and any other that would fit comfortably under this umbrella. I want you to understand what I am thinking so far and I want to understand what each of you is doing and how we can work together. To that end I want to meet with each of you individually and as a group. I am willing to take on the politics and paperwork, but I can't put the picture together of what all needs to be done without your help. Let me know how to get one of these DVDs to you, and we will take it from there.
Joe