Madeline Ricks is an AmeriCorps member with AFNHA, serving as the Collections Preservation Coordinator for The Augusta Heritage center in Elkins, WV. She has begun writing a new blog series for the Augusta website. Beginning with the African origins of the banjo, Madeline will take readers on a journey through the histories and cultural impacts of the instruments played in West Virginia’s musical traditions.
There are many interesting and unique materials housed in the Upshur County Historical Society Document Repository that have never been displayed in an exhibit. Some materials have been overlooked because, while interesting, they relate to a topic that is too narrow to warrant an entire exhibit. This year’s exhibit gives space for these materials to shine.
On June 19, Pleasant Green Church in Hillsboro underwent two restoration projects in collaboration with the Forest Service, Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, AFNHA AmeriCorps, and Cultural Heritage in the Forest. The Forest Service creates partnerships like these within local communities to help support efforts of preservation. This partnership is overwhelmingly meaningful to us here at the Forest and AFNHA - connecting with Black students and sharing with them our state’s history is invaluable to the future of diverse involvement, public awareness, and funding for these sites. There is no West Virginia History without Black History, and it was our honor to share with them this part of their cultural past.
This term in 2023-2024, my involvement with the 4-H History Round-Up project and my participation at 4-H Camp evolved together as the theme of this year’s camp was “A Journey Through 4-H”. The theme took campers through the past and into what may be the future of 4-H in 2115. That faraway date marked the 200-year anniversary of the world’s first 4-H Camp in 1915, “Camp Good Luck”, which took place in Randolph County! This theme gave me the role of putting all the Randolph County 4-H history I’ve learned in my service to direct use.
Every March the WV Division of Forestry organizes 4 citizen science lessons for 5th graders at Petersburg Elementary School. These lessons are about Non-Native and Invasive Species (NNIS). We teach these students what non-native and invasive species are, how they spread, how to identify specific species, and how to use GPS data to locate, track, and record information on them.
To honor and celebrate the 160th anniversary of McClellan's Union victory, the Beverly Heritage Center and the Rich Mountain Battlefield Foundation is planning the first ever Rich Mountain Memorial March and Fun Run! On July 10th from 10 am to 5 pm, this celebration will combine the history of the battle and a fun run into one event! Our event will be a five mile walk from the top of Rich Mountain into the town of Beverly. Find out more inside!
People say a picture is worth a thousand words, so a painting must be worth a million. When it comes to designing interpretive signs, you can only have so many words before you lose your audience and that is why using art is so important to getting your message across and have an audience actually receive it. Interpretation in itself is an art and has a process all on its own. Each interpretive sign you see has its own inspirations, passions and messages it is trying to portray, and an artist/designer behind it trying to share all these things. It’s a process that I have had the opportunity to experience and want to share with you now.
My time so far serving as an AFNHA AmeriCorps with the USDA Forest Service has provided me with many more opportunities than I could have expected. My service focuses on interpretation at the Seneca Rocks Discovery Center, a place where visitors flock from miles and miles through windy country roads to learn more about what makes this area so unique…
I came to AFNHA AmeriCorps in 2019 from Washington, DC, where I held a two-year post-doctoral appointment in the Education Department of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. During my first year with AmeriCorps, I served within the Heritage Community Development Program as a museum associate at the Randolph County Museum (RCM) in Beverly and as an interpretive coordinator for 4-H Camp Pioneer, where I conducted oral histories, wrote grants, and completed a digital archives project. Both experiences broadened my skills in museum collections, archives, curation, and community engagement.
One of Emily Culp’s main goals for this year and serving with AmeriCorps has been to advocate for blurring the lines between community goals and conservation goals. In order for conservation to work, the community must be supportive and advocate for the lands that need to be preserved. Public lands can be great spaces for recreation, however, they are also simultaneously lands that are meant to be protected and preserved for the sake of wildlife and general ecosystem health. Serving in an outreach position with the US Forest Service is a perfect place to put these ideals into practice, and Emily has been happy to be able to assist with conservation minded community initiatives.
This has been a very challenging task in the time of Covid-19. Without being able to go to all the schools and festivals, Kaitlyn has found new ways to communicate and educate kids and the public about our impacts on the forest. Most days are about thinking and creating new ways to educate without being there in person. This gives her the opportunity to use online knowledge and continue to gain more insight about new online platforms.
AFNHA AmeriCorps member Emma Pringle reflects on the opportunity to explore a few of her career options while getting a stipend for it, offering hands-on experience in her potential field, and letting her network with other professionals with her work at the West Virginia Railroad Museum in Elkins, WV.
Join Adam with the Beverly Heritage Center! “Since February of 2020, I have been serving with the BHC. In that time, I have worked in the collections department, with most of my time spent assessing and cataloging documents. While this work is highly important to the goals of the BHC and there have been genuinely interesting moments and items during it all, it unfortunately does not make for the most exciting reading. Instead, I will write about some of the current projects at the BHC that I have been involved in recently.”
When you think of a stream, what comes to mind? You probably think of water (obviously) or about the fish that swim in it. Maybe you think about aquatic insects that you find by turning over rocks. Maybe it makes you think about fishing or swimming with your friends. Talking about streams, a lot of things can come to mind, but what about the word “habitat”?
