2017 Preservation Achievement Awards, May 25, 2017

Please join us for another special evening as we honor this year’s winners: Shelley Hickman Clark, Karl Gridley, Depot Redux and Diane Stoddard. The Preservation Achievement Award, created in 2009, honors individuals or groups who have contributed in extraordinary ways to help preserve buildings or natural sites significant to the history of Lawrence and Douglas County.

Shelley Hickman Clark is a retired Clinical Professor of Law at the University of Kansas. Specializing in preservation law, she has both taught preservation in the classroom and argued it in the courtroom. She has a keen interest in preserving territorial sites and significant cultural resources in the unincorporated areas of Douglas County, and it shows in all the great preservation groups (including LPA!), she has either served on or chaired. She is the current chair of the Douglas County Heritage Conservation Council.

Karl Gridley is a Lawrence native who has a deep appreciation of territorial history, trails, cemeteries and any structures of native stone. This has led him to important work at Barber School (just north of Clinton Lake), Black Jack Battlefield, Pioneer Cemetery and many off-the-beaten-path stone fences, family plots and foundation ruins his many friends in the county wish to stabilize or preserve. For a number of years he has lived in and cared for the Larson House, the last remaining stone house associated with the Wilder & Palm Windmill Agricultural Works, which operated until 1885.

Depot Redux is a volunteer group formed by Carey Maynard-Moody in 2008 to bring attention to the Amtrak stop at our midcentury modern Santa Fe Station at 413 E 7th Street. This dedicated group took it upon themselves to clean up the dilapidated facility and keep it that way, improve safety there for passengers, and educate the public about this local architectural gem both misunderstood and forgotten. When the first of three different City Commissions voted to begin negotiations for the city to become owner of the building, assistant City Manager Diane Stoddard began one of the most difficult negotiations of her career. Nine years later, when the current City Commission voted to officially take ownership, and with a funded rehab project ready to roll this summer, Carey, Diane and all those Redux volunteers were still standing. Good things come to those who work!

Reserve your space! It’s easy—buy tickets here.