Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Ho Ho HO!!




I send the best Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year wishes to all my dhsclassmates viewers.

In 2010, I plan to keep the dhsclassmates web site article base and focus the same as in the past. However, from time to time I will add new interesting articles that are outside of Deadwood, the Black Hills, and South Dakota. I may add general photos of my own and of other talented photographer web friends. I also hope to encourage more guest contributors.

I appreciate your feedback and ideas. Just email me when you have time.

In the 2009 review, you all know that the most extensive article I have published is the web linked Tribute to Deadwood's Mattie Hill. Luckily, I was blessed with a lot of professional and personal help. Dr. Lilah Morton Pengra was the driving force that made the article possible. She and our delightful friends Clifford & Georgia Melrose (Mattie Hill's Grandson) joined with me to sign and nominate Mattie Hill to the Deadwood Wall of Fame. Mattie's nomination form was accepted by the City of Deadwood Preservation Officer, Kevin Kuchenbecker. The Deadwood Historic Preservation Committee passed the nomination to the Wall of Fame Committee for review around this coming June 2010. On receiving the nomination, there were a few committee member comments, mostly negative.

The dhsclassmates' challenge for 2010 is to ensure that Mattie Hill's Deadwood Wall of Fame nomination receives full and fair consideration. We are not sure that the nomination consideration is a transparent process. As you know, Mattie was a private person in life but she freely helped the whole Deadwood Community, her whole life. Not many know during Mattie's time in Deadwood, the KKK was a powerful and vengeful force against the Lead Catholic Miners and any person of color. There were 3000 Klan members in SD in the 1920s. The largest Klan rally ever held in the USA was held in the Centennial Valley. So wisely, but sadly, Mattie did not attract attention to herself and her life long Deadwood community good deeds and caring. Mattie did in deed bring color to the Deadwood community in many ways.

Note: Currently there are around 3400 viewers that follow dhsclassmates web site. That exceeds over twice the population of the current Deadwood town.

~~~ In the interest of importance, I am showing Kevin Kuchenbecker's comment to this article both as text and site comment. I appreciate his comment and interest.

Kevin wrote

"On behalf of the Deadwood Historic Preservation Commission, I can assure you that the Wall of Fame Nomination which was presented for consideration will be reviewed closely with all other nominations for this recognition program.

The Commission will select two nominees for the 2010 Wall of Fame program. Any nominee not selected in 2010 will be held over for consideration in the future. No pre-selection has been discussed nor will be as official action of the Commission.

The Commission, in my opinion, did not make any negative remarks or actions regarding this nomination. All nominations are important and worthy of review and consideration.

Sincerely,
Kevin Kuchenbecker, Historic Preservation Officer"

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

On behalf of the Deadwood Historic Preservation Commission, I can assure you that the Wall of Fame Nomination which was presented for consideration will be reviewed closely with all other nominations for this recognition program.

The Commission will select two nominees for the 2010 Wall of Fame program. Any nominee not selected in 2010 will be held over for consideration in the future. No pre-selection has been discussed nor will be as official action of the Commission.

The Commission, in my opinion, did not make any negative remarks or actions regarding this nomination. All nominations are important and worthy of review and consideration.

Sincerely,
Kevin Kuchenbecker, Historic Preservation Officer

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