Speaker encourages preservation
By ROGER ADKINS, radkins@newsandsentinel.com
POSTED: May 6, 2008
PARKERSBURG — The former director of the state’s archives Monday encouraged members of the local historical society to continue doing their part to ensure history is preserved through consistent record keeping.
Fred Armstrong, former archivist and historian with the West Virginia Department of Culture and History, was the keynote speaker Monday at the ninth annual James P. Vaughan Preservation Awards and Heritage Day Dinner held by the Wood County Historical and Preservation Society. The event was held at First Baptist Church at Ninth and Market streets.
Armstrong said historical record keeping is especially important in a society that becomes increasingly dependent on digital technology.
“What you as citizens need to do is ensure that your records are preserved,” he said.
Citizens should remain active in lobbying state government to ensure the state archives are maintained.
“Archives are supposed to be permanent. In this day and age, when we live by the cell phone and computer, there’s no guarantee they will be there for you to use.”
Information contained in the state archives paints a picture of West Virginia’s history.
“Those records have meaning to some people. So we need to preserve them,” Armstrong said. “Records are important to our civilization. It’s important that we all do our part to ensure that we don’t lose that.”
To highlight his point, Armstrong talked about the numerous records in the state archives collected around the time Parkersburg City Hall was demolished in the early 1980s. He said the Parkersburg collection is likely the largest collection of historical municipal documents in the state.
During Monday’s event, the historical society awarded three James P. Vaughan Preservation Awards. The award for arts and letters went to local author Dave Morehead. The award for building preservation was given to Trinity Episcopal Church for its recent restoration project. The award for general promotion of historical preservation went to Patty Cooper.
