It is hard for me to believe that almost a year has passed since becoming President of the Brazos Heritage Society; but it has, and what a busy and successful year it has been. I was blessed to have an Executive Committee that was committed to revitalizing the Society! Our membership, which was one of our main focuses, has grown threefold this year and we hope to see the same trend in the coming year.
Dan Beto, our Publications Chair, developed a blog (http://heritagebrazos.blogspot.com) this past May and it has kept the membership and the public timely informed of our activities. If you haven’t had an opportunity to review this electronic newsletter, please do so; it contains not only information about the Brazos Heritage Society but also provides a number of helpful links.
Our 25th Anniversary Fourth of July Celebration in Heritage Park was wonderful; the kids of all ages had a great time. And the September membership meeting held at the Park’s Matthew Winsper Knobel Memorial Gazebo, concluded with a social hour, was both informative and enjoyable.
The Victorian Tea of Thanksgiving, held in The Clary House, was really successful, both financially and as a social event. Many of the ladies, attending the tea, expressed gratitude at seeing the Brazos Heritage Society once again having the teas in one of our Historic Homes. We had ladies and gentlemen dressed in Victorian costume coming from as far away as Dallas to attend. Our blog contains great accounts with lots of pictures about all of these events.
Heritage Park was decorated beautifully for our Christmas Stroll on December 10th and the lights continued to sparkle until the New Year. We received so many compliments from the neighborhood and visitors to the park. Beverly and Homer Myers, Linda Roberts, and Phil and Harriet Smith had their homes open. Justin and Jenny Bulhof and my husband and I served Wassail and cookies on our front porches. Hidden Oasis provided horse drawn carriage rides in the neighborhood and St. Michael’s Choir sang Christmas carols in the park.
We were successful in getting the Master Plan for Heritage Park approved by the Parks and Recreation Board in December. Now there is a plan in place to keep the integrity of the park as was intended when deeded to the City.
We have also been successful in getting several of the Astin clothes restored so they will be available for showcasing. We still have several garments left to be restored and will be deciding which ones to have done this year.
We will also continue to work on securing a new Boonville marker until that task is completed. Some things take longer than others.
We now have a New Year to look forward to and plan for. We are very fortunate to have Fran Lamb join the Executive Committee as our Events Chair and she has great ideas for additional fund raising events for the Society, ideas we will bring to the membership’s attention as plans firm up.
I hope to see each of you at our annual membership meeting on February 26, 2012, at the Brazos Valley Museum of Natural History. Thank you for your support and involvement in the Society.
Nat Hilliard
President
