The Union-Recorder
MILLEDGEVILLE —
The Milledgeville Chapter of the Watson-Brown Foundation Junior Board of Trustees is accepting applications for area students to join in its efforts of promoting historic interests and preservation in the area community.
The junior board program, which was established in 2006, not only promotes historic preservation to these students, it teaches them valuable lessons in giving back and in becoming strong ambassadors for the community at-large. These very students will one day be the adults entrusted with preserving and maintaining the rich value of this community, and by introducing them to the historic significance of all that surrounds them now they will have a better perspective and likely a stronger appreciation for it when they are older.
The foundation selects area students each year to serve and select programs that meet the organization’s criteria to fund preservation projects in Milledgeville and surrounding communities. The board members do their share of research on each of the projects before narrowing the field for selections. Members are divided into teams, and they visited historic sites and reviewed preservation proposals then presented their selected projects to the rest of the board for consideration and funding approval.
Students are selected to serve on the board from throughout the area, and the board is made up of students who express an interest in historic preservation and are active in their local communities, have good academic standing and references from their teachers.
The Milledgeville Junior Board was established through a grant from the Watson-Brown Foundation. High school sophomores, juniors and seniors are selected for the board from Baldwin, Bibb, Hancock, Jasper, Jones, Monroe, Morgan, Putnam, Twiggs, Washington and Wilkinson counties. The 12-member board functions as part of the educational programming at the Old Governor’s Mansion, an entity of Georgia College & State University.
This form of education outreach teaches these students the historic value of the region in which they live and demonstrates to them the importance of historic conservation in protecting and maintaining the characteristics that make this community and the entire Central Georgia region a cherished resource for us all.
