One big news story I did not include in yesterday’s roundup was that our friends at Mississippi Heritage Trust have announced that registration is now open for the Statewide Preservation Conference. The conference will be held April 26 – 27 in Ocean Springs and Biloxi.
According to MHT’s website:
This year the Mississippi Main Street Association, Mississippi Heritage Trust, and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History are joining together to present a conference focused on preservation as an economic development tool. The conference will feature speakers from across the country including keynote speaker Donovan Rypkema of Place Economics in Washington D.C who is nationally known for his work in using historic preservation as an economic development tool. Other speakers will include Randy Hemann from Downtown Salisbury, Inc., John Hildreth from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and representatives from the Mississippi Press Association, Mississippi Development Authority, Mississippi State University, and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. The conference will also include tours of historic preservation projects in Biloxi and Ocean Springs and a special art tour of those cities.
The site also has the full conference brochure for registration information.
I hope many of you recognized the name Donovan Rypkema. He should give us some great information to share with developers and local elected officials on how preservation makes economic sense (especially good for places where talking about historic character and architecture falls on deaf ears). I for one am going to jump at the chance to hear him speak, and I hope a lot of other MissPres readers will be there as well. Besides the great info the conference will provide, being on the coast at the end of April sounds like a nice way to spend a couple of days!
The conference schedule also includes MHT’s Heritage Awards Luncheon – which should mean that we’ll have some stories about great rehabs and other outstanding preservation activities to report on in May.
Categories: Cool Old Places, Historic Preservation, Mississippi Heritage Trust, Preservation People/Events
Preservation in Mississippi 
This sounds like a great conference. Since the conference focuses on preservation as an economic engine, It sounds like it will help me work on one of my new year’s resolutions for preservation; proving that Preservation Means Business!
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I am delighted to hear about the conference! For several years now, my friend and I have been traveling Mississippi’s back roads (and front roads too) just to see what’s there and blog about it to our friends. Time and time again we’ve seen the economic impact that results when a town takes preservation seriously – many times we’ve actually BEEN the economic impact in a small way! Even one charmingly restored building can lift an entire town up and cause travelers to stop, see…and often spend – we’ve seen this time and time again. We’ve also seen towns with incredible potential that are just withering away and there’s nothing sadder.
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