South Texas Planning Meeting Notes
The first South Texas coordination and planning conference was held Thursday, March 3 at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.
WWICC Commission Maj. Gen. Alfred Valenzuela spoke at the afternoon session, providing an update on the National effort.
Attendees included representatives from the Texas Historical Commission, Battleship Texas, The Bullock Museum, Institute of Texan Cultures, The Fort Sam Houston Museum, Texas A&M (Cushing Memorial Library) Texas Military Forces Museum, Friends of Fort Clark, Brenham Heritage Museum, University of Texas San Antonio, St. Mary’s University, Brooks City Base, USAF history program representatives, Friends of the Royal Flying Corps, Bexar County Historical Commission, American Legion 20th District, and many others.
Missed the South Texas event? See the website article at http://www.texasworldwar1centennial.org/ for more details on the meeting.
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 TEXAS HISTORICAL COMMISSION (THC) UPDATE
THC Chairman John Nau has named an internal task force headed by Commissioner Thomas Hatfield to prepare the THC plan for WWI programs. The plan will be presented at their quarterly meeting in late April. The THC team has actively engaged with some preliminary WWI centennial groundwork effort in the meantime.
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The Smith County Historical Society executive committee will meet in the last week of March to adopt a comprehensive plan for promoting the Centennial that will include a number of programs for interpreting the war’s impact on the county. This will include a museum exhibit as well as several different activities including the identification of the World War veterans of the county and their burial locations. At this time, the data base includes nearly 1,500 names of whom 75% have an identified grave. It is anticipated that the final list will include around 1,700 names.
The Society and its museum is located in Tyler’s 1904 Carnegie Library. The auditorium was used by the Red Cross for rolling bandages.
Negotiations are underway to have Lila Rakoczy’s exhibit on East Texas African Americans in the war to be placed at the East Texas Fair in September 2018.
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 East Texas
from Iila Rakozcy
* Current veterans identified from East Texas: 9,500 (and still growing). When this project started I had twelve in my database!
* No Man's Land exhibition has confirmed and/or provisional bookings at eight sites so far. There are still a few vacancies in the schedule, however.
* The first round of funding applications is underway for the exhibition, website, and mobile app. Should know the results of this first round by early June.
* Money is being sought to create 4-5 historically accurate World War I uniforms for educators to wear at various events over the two-year centennial across East Texas. We are seeking African American male volunteers who might be willing to wear the uniform and engage with visitors, especially schoolchildren, on what life was like in the army and on the home front during the war.
* Anyone wanting to assist, whether it is with identifying African American veterans in a particular county, facilitating interviews with African American stakeholders in their communities, hosting the exhibition at their venue in 2018 or early 2019, being an educator at events, or with fund raising is encouraged to contact me at lmr038@shsu.edu.
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 Brenham Heritage Museum
by Doug Price
Our first WWICC project has been completed, the re-publishing of "In Memoriam", a book originally published in 1919 by the Washington County Memorial Association. We have printed 50 numbered copies, and have provided a copies to the Liberty Museum in KC and to the IWM London.
Our first WWICC content goes up Apr 25, and covers the Texas Rangers in WWI. The whole of the exhibit covers the Rangers as a whole, but uses the topic as a vehicle to bring more WWI content into the community. This will be our overall approach over the next three years.
We have acquired the original wheels and chassis of a US Army field cooker. We will be rebuilding the cooker upon the original chassis for our 2016-2019 exhibition.
We have acquired cannon wheels upon which to mount our French 1897 Model 75mm.
We have begun to accept planned object loans and donations, and have continued to search for a few gaps remaining in the collection. We have recently located a copy of a rare 36th Infantry victory poster we will be digitizing for use in the exhibition.
We have reorganized our annual meeting around a WWI theme. Instead of a sit-down dinner and report, we have elected to turn it into a 1914-1918 potluck. Members of the community can bring period dishes developed from
period recipes to the event. The museum will be serving fare revolving around the recipes that came out of national rationing.
We have completed our museum renovation, a project planned as part of our WWI centennial project.
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 TEXAS TREASURES BUSINESS AWARD
Below is information on the business award that may be of interest to the WWI Centennial Commission since one of your initiatives is to identify businesses that were in existence during WWI.
If businesses meet the criteria, a certificate is awarded that is signed by that business’s district senator and legislator and the Chair of the Texas Historical Commission. Elected officials are often happy to attend a presentation ceremony if asked. I
t would be a nice way to publicly recognize 100+ year old businesses across the state during 2017-19. The process can take about six months to complete so it would be good if people could start planning and researching now.
Texas Historical Commission’s TEXAS TREASURES BUSINESS AWARD
http://www.thc.state.tx.us/preserve/projects-and-programs/texas-treasure-business-award
How to Nominate a Business
Businesses can be nominated for this award by any elected state official or a business representative and must meet the following criteria:
- Have been in continuous for-profit operation in Texas for at least 50 years.
- Continue to operate the same or a very similar type of business as it did at least 50 years ago.
- Have a continuous record of employment for at least the past 50 years.
- Continue to operate as an independent, for-profit business (i.e., it cannot be operating as a subsidiary of or have been absorbed into another business)
- Maintain a good business relationship with the state.
- This resource page may help you with your research in documenting the business founding date.
State Coordinator, Texas Heritage Tourism Program
Community Heritage Development Division
Texas Historical Commission
1304 Colorado
Austin, Texas 78701
512/463-2630
www.thc.state.tx.us
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