President Joyce Hunter rang the opening bell at 12:30. Richard Ingram tuned us up with My Country Tis of Thee. Shelley MacMillan’s Inspiration included two quotes about Preservation, today’s speaker topic. Architectural Historian William Murtaugh said, “It has been said that, at its best, preservation engages the past in a conversation with the present over a mutual concern for the future.” Benjamin Disraeli wryly observed that “Plagiarists, at least, have the merit of preservation.” Shelley also led us in wistful song, Home on the Range.
President Joyce extended thanks to the people who make the meetings run smoothly, and greeted guests. She exchanged flags with Sanga Kim from South Korea. Birthdays were also celebrated. She reported on the District’s honoring Past President Collyer Smith at the recent District Conference.
Roy More and Brendan Black split the duty announcing the GPO and Auction. Roy talked about signing up for the golf and pickleball; Brendan talked about the auction’s being online this year. He announced that the auction is now open for four prizes. The football tickets – UM/Texas and Arkansas State – are two games that will be decided before our September 16 event. Bidding on the use of Keren Kerry’s Copper Harbor house and tickets to Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in Omaha are the other two items available now. This part of the auction will run through August 28. Jump in here: https://www.a2rotary.org/rcaa-online-auction-august-21-28-bidding-is-open/.
John Sepp introduced New Member Jennifer Richards. Jennifer is the Development Director at Packard Health. She is a Michigan girl who with her family lived a while in California but is back. Jennifer is already participating in some club activities and is looking forward to an active Rotary career.
Notes from the Program
Bob Mull introduced our speaker, Nancy Bryk, Professor of Historic Preservation in the Geography and Geology Department at Eastern Michigan University. She began her talk noting that the historic preservation degree is a graduate program that accepts people with all different academic and professional backgrounds. The program is in the Geography and Geology Department which is unusual but the emphasis in this program is in examining the entire site of a project. Interpreting the site as well as its buildings is important. This broadens the definition of value to include learning about the people who lived and worked there and placing them in the political and economic environment they inhabited. Every summer students work on a field training project that can include restorations of homes, businesses, and public buildings. The projects clear out and rebuild properties using the techniques and materials that would have been used when the project was built.
Students do a lot of research and hands on projects like building displays and interpretations of collections. The program has had great success on placing students in career positions. Oral histories are being preserved to give voice to the written records. Community collaboration is instrumental in getting access to records and the personal stories that make the preserved sites come alive to present day viewers.
President Joyce thanked Dr. Bryk and led us in recitation of the Four Way Test, and rang the closing bell.
The August 25 speaker will be University Musical Society’s President and Rotarian Matthew Van Besien,
