The Willamette Valley is known for its fertile ground.
People planning to register onsite for the joint Oregon Heritage Conference and Northwest Archvisists Annual Meeting April 26-28 in Salem will need to bring their checkbooks, as that will be the only form of payment accepted at the registration table at the Salem Conference Center.
The conference theme will be "Fertile Ground: Planting the Seeds for Restoration, Innovation and Collaboration." Using the fertile lands of the Williamette Valley as a backdrop, it highlights the
multi-disciplinary approaches that are strengthening and expanding the capacity of archives and other heritage fields in the Northwest.
Attendees will include community leaders, staff and volunteers from archives, records repositories, historical societies, museums, historic cemeteries, ethnic organizations, schools, historic preservation commissions, humanities groups, Main Street programs, the tourism
industry, economic development, history buffs and professional historians, youth, and local, tribal, state and federal governments.
Online registration is available on the registration page on the Northwest Archvivists website.
Keynote speaker
Robert Sutton
Robert Sutton, who has been the chief historian for the National Park Service for the past four years, will be the keynote speaker on April 27. His talk, “From Fort Stevens to Fort Stevens: Growing Heritage with Restoration, Innovation and Collaboration”, will use as bookends military forts in Oregon and the District of Columbia named after a Washington territorial governor.
Sutton was involved with the restoration efforts at Fort Stevens and other projects of the Oregon Parks and Recreations Department from 1974-1979. He obtained his PhD from Washington State University in 1984. With the exception of teaching for four years in the public history program at Arizona State University, Sutton has worked in a succession of posts for the NPS for the past 30 years. From 1995-2007, he was superintendent of the Manassas National Battlefield Park.
Heritage Programs awards 1-3 fellowships to undergraduate students who are seniors and to graduate students for researching, writing and presenting a topic related to history, geography, archaeology, cultural heritage, or historic preservation.
The students will present their topics at 3:30 p.m. Friday, April 27,during the joint Northwest Archivists/Heritage Conference. The students and their topics are: Laura Cray, Oregon State University, “High Desert Dreams: Arid Land Management Policy and Visions of the Western Landscape.” Kimberly Hursh, Willamette University, “A Social History of the Colegio Cesar Chavez, 1973-1983.” Gareth Stacke, Lewis & Clark College, “The Relationship Between Black Power and Welfare Relief Programs in Portland, 1964-1975.”
Application information is available at the Fellowship website.
