Thank you all for coming to the MHI 2005 Annual Meeting. It means a lot to me personally as well as the director of MHI. Memphis Heritage is a wonderful agency and as you may know this is our thirtieth year.

There were many people that came before me. Several of them are here tonight: Jack Tucker, Jane Kowaleski…  Judith Johnson could not be here with us tonight. But there have been many directors before me and I feel honored to be part of this organization. I was a member of MHI for many years before I became active as the director. And I’m thrilled to be here and I thank you all for your support.

It has been a transitional year; it will be a transitional year for Memphis Heritage.  As was mentioned earlier, MHI had been doing a historic neighborhood survey for over 18 years and this year that grant was awarded to a company from Nashville. The loss of the survey grant, about $70,000 of our annual cash flow, caused the lay off MH staff.  The survey staff helped do ancillary things in the office. We unfortunately do not have the staff members we have had in the past. We do have one wonderful person who works for us ten hours a week named Aaron Frye, who could not be with us this evening. But if you have called the office recently you have probably spoken to him. He is terrific and we’re very grateful to have him.

Although this change created a large financial loss for the agency, it opened the door for us to look at agency and to say, where do we need to go from here, what do we need to do to make sure that Memphis and Shelby County have a historic preservation organization in the future? This being the most important issue, we had to look at where we’ve come from and where we need to go to realign with our original mission  which was to support preservation education and advocacy, working within the community, serving as a purposeful agency for people who have questions about preservation, advocacy issues, educational programs, etc. 

Memphis Heritage owes much to its great committees. The board does a wonderful job, and we’re blessed also to have board members who have rotated off the board but chose to stay on committees. That says lot about the agency, the fact that people stay with you, don’t just leave, but stay with the committees and work very hard. So, I encourage any of you that are interested in becoming more involved; please consider joining one of our committees, Education, Publication, Development, and Special Events. Obviously in a small agency we could not accomplish our mission without these committees. Great thanks go out to the chairs and our terrific committee members.

Obviously, education and advocacy and supporting preservation in Shelby County is our major mission and we are here to support that 100 percent. One of our most recent success stories was the Eureka Hotel, which we were recently able to save with the help of a lot of people. An MHI member, Donna Harkin is here tonight, generated support through a letter to the CA editor…Another major player in this project [is] one of our new board members, Neely Woodson. Without Neely and Lucy (her Mom) and other groups downtown it wouldn’t have happened.

I also have to mention that the demolition crew that had the contract had very mixed feelings about tearing the Eureka down. I don’t say that in too many public meetings because they’d probably never get a demolition job again … But I’m here to say that if you need any construction work, call the Durham Construction and Demolition Company…. They were tremendously important in our quest to save this structure.

I do have to announce one sad thing: J.P. Morrell one of the owners of this company recently passed away. I was fortunate enough to get to meet him two weeks before he passed away from a massive heart attack last Thursday. Mr. Morrell had stayed at the Eureka hotel during the years of segregation, and he knew how important it was and he didn’t want it torn down. So we owe a lot to him…. He was a wonderful, very humble and giving man.

I also want to talk a bit about the highlights from the past year. One event that’s very important is our newest collaboration with AIA Memphis (American Institute of Architects). I want to introduce Heather Baugus, the Executive Director of AIA, Memphis. As many of you know Heather came up with an idea last year and came to me and asked if MHI would like to be a part of this, and I said, “Certainly.” September is Architecture Month, it will go on every September and we have many great new programs planned for you. We are also planning to do a Home Expo this year. Go to the AIA Website or Memphis Heritage’s Website (www.memphisheritage.org ) and see what’s coming up in September.

We have in the past given our Preservation Awards in the month of September. We’re doing a little twist on it and going to change that. MHI started our preservation awards in the early 80’s. Several years ago the awards were done in collaboration with the Landmarks Commission. Going forward Memphis Heritage’s will present our Community Preservation Awards in May during National Preservation Month. These awards will be those awards that will honor our loyal community advocates, volunteers and preservation activists. We’re negotiating with AIA to hopefully sponsor, at their February Celebration, our preservation awards that honor building design and adaptive reuse which have to do with bricks and mortar. If all goes as planned the first year we will have the Awards structured this way will be in February and May of 2006.

Speaking about the Newman Collection. I wish Bertha Mae could be with us this evening. Bertha Mae is Don Newman’s widow. I wanted to share some exciting news, Don Newman’s sister, Margaret Newman, recently moved to Memphis. She wanted to live downtown near South Main. We are hopeful that once she gets settled in she will come do volunteer work at MHI. Well, who better to be talking about Don’s work than his sister? I’m very pleased about this news and I hope you all will come in and get to meet Margaret, she’s terrific.

Again, the Newman Collection has been a true lifeline for Memphis Heritage. If we had not had this wonderful collection to work with, I think it would have been a lot scarier for us financially as we move forward in the next coming months.

Regarding the 2005/06 Calendar… I want to thank Graceland again for their great support and I also want to thank Carol Drake and the Icon Archive Company. You all may not know this but without her help putting this together, pulling the pictures and  the stories of Elvis and making the Graceland connection, this project wouldn’t have been possible. There’s also a new exhibit going on at Graceland right now which is called “Elvis’s Memphis,” and if you go see that exhibit - which I hope you will, it’s in the gallery across the street from the Mansion –you will see fourteen, mural-sized Don Newman photographs, so we’re very grateful… They are indeed cornerstones of this exhibit, and it was through Carol’s concept and her work with Angie Marchese, manager of the Graceland Archives that made this a reality.

We also are working on a closer collaboration with the Shelby County and Memphis Film Commission. Linn Sitler and I talk regularly because she knows that one of the reasons they shoot movies in Memphis is because we have historic buildings. And one of the things we want to do is…shoot more movies in Memphis, so we’re looking forward to that.

Also we have a new exhibit that’s going to be worked on in collaboration with ...  interns from Rhodes College.   One of them happens to be working with us and with Stax on an exhibit regarding the houses of the musicians from Stax. So I think that will be a terrific exhibit that we will then have at MH and it will be up at Stax during September is Architecture Month. We’re also working with Soulsville in order to see if they could be designated as a National Historic District.

I know I’ve taken up too much time, but this is the most important thing I want to tell you all about this evening. As you know, we are in transition in figuring out how we will continue to exist. If MH just did nothing, we’d probably go out of business in two years. This is not an option…we can’t let that happen. So we have come up with a very ambitious and high profile program to insure the future for Memphis Heritage.

This being our thirtieth anniversary, we came up with the “3-for-30” Campaign. Three million dollars raised over the next three years…for the next thirty years for Memphis Heritage.  It is possible, it will be done, and the marvelous thing about this type program is that we’ll put our money where our mouth is. We will raise this money over the next three years. The funds will go into our Historic Preservation Foundation, at the Memphis Community Foundation. With a five percent return on our foundation account, revenues would be in the one hundred fifty thousand a year range. MH would keep approximately fifty thousand in order to keep our doors open. We would then spin off a hundred thousand-plus dollars back into the community for Historic Preservation. And you can’t do better than that. To me, that is what we’re all about. We’re about helping people save and restore historic properties when we can. There will be a formal program put forth - you’ll hear more in the coming months. I want to encourage everybody to get involved. Obviously volunteerism will play an even bigger part in keeping the preservation spirit alive at Memphis Heritage. I hope you will become involved and become a part of this all-important “3 for 30”campaign. I look forward to having you all on board. Thank you very very much.