The Jefferson County Historical Society held their Annual Meeting & Awards Event on Saturday October 19th at the Heritage House in Brookville. The event was an evening of entertainment: Music by Celtic/folk band Keridwyn, silent auction, hors d’oeuvres by Buff’s, community storytelling videos, interspersed with the annual brief business meeting consisting of election of Directors & the Awards ceremony. Larry Anthony, Board President, presided over the evening’s events.
Election of Directors:
Four board members whose terms were expiring were re-elected at the meeting: Colleen Cooney, Vice-President, Amy Salsgiver, Ron Shrewsbury and Dave Taylor.
Awards Ceremony:
Pat Steele and Emma Work were both awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award. Both Pat and Emma contributed over 50 years of Genealogical work and donated their collections to our Archives.
Pat published “Tombstone Hoppin’ ” cemetery records of Jefferson County and the “Who, When, Where” series – a compilation of 1850s-1880s county and newspaper records. Pat was also on the Board of Directors for many years and she received the first Kate Scott Award in 2001. Pat was unable to attend the event.
Emma published “The Work Family of Jimtown,” and “Richardsville Baptist Church,” as well as two volumes of unpublished research on the Richardsville community. Larry Anthony presented Emma’s award and Larry and Kat Lyons presented Pat Steele’s award.
Eric Armstrong was awarded the Arthur Altman Award by Colleen Hummel Cooney. Eric was recognized for his long service on the Board and as past President and for his authorship of several books, including “This is Hard: The Story of Charles Chase”, and “Brookville Stories, and re-published “Life & Confessions of Charles Chase.” He also edited “Earle of the Air,” a new biography of Earle Sandt, Brookville’s “birdman” and 1st pilot to make an international flight to Canada and back. Eric also created many exhibit videos over the years, including those for the Parlor, Pittsburgh & Shawmut R.R. and Earle Sandt Exhibit.
Eric was also on the work crew for building Scripture Rocks Park, and instrumental in designing the architectural blueprints for the interior renovation of the new Parker Archives.
Clair Kriner of DuBois was presented the Kate Scott Award by Kat Lyons, Operations Director. Clair is the author of the Pennsylvania Barn Scrapbook Series, Volumes I-V (available at JCHC Gift Shop) and is planning a Volume VI. He has been instrumental in preserving our rich agricultural heritage in these books and in the JCHC Community Storytelling Video project: Videography of the barns and farms of Jefferson County and obtaining the stories of our farm families. The video “Every Barn has a Story” features Clair and introduces many of the lifelong farmers who we interviewed. This video is now available on our YouTube channel (go to jchconline.org and click on the channel on the landing page) or
https://www.youtube.com/@JeffersonCountyHistoryCenter.
[The Community Storytelling Video project is funded by PA Humanities’ new Wingspan Grant, Spring Point Partners, individual donors and the National Endowment for the Humanities].