Marty Lamoureux, Boone County Historical Society, February 11, 2026

Today on our program we are visiting with Marty Lemore. Marty, a board member with the Boone County Historical Society. We've got a lot of different things to talk about. You had the annual meeting and actually had a Saturday scholar program that was going on there.

And boy, what a turnout for that. I know. We had 43 in attendance. That was very nice. Charles Irwin did our program. And he always does a good job of getting the crowd. The group really was engaged and asked quite a few questions.

Very much a lot of interest and a lot of things I didn't know. I hadn't ever heard Charles's presentation before and I sure enjoyed it. Again, it was all about coal mining in Boone County. And there's a lot of history there. There certainly is.

We then enjoyed a soup lunch afterwards, which a large majority of people stayed for that and ate and visited. So there was some kind of social fellowship type time among people, which is always enjoyable. And then we did our annual membership meeting.

We went through each one of the individuals that has an area of responsibility, did their annual report. Our president, Sue, did the annual society report.

We had the treasurer's report, building and grounds, collections, exhibits, publications, membership, Kate Shelley, the community room, shops, and rentals. So everybody gave their updates from 2025. And it's always, sometimes you think, what have we been doing all year?

Because you're so busy in the middle of doing it. And when you sit down and do a summary, you kind of go, yeah, we did get quite a bit done. I had a lot done. I did want to ask, because I know we had talked a little bit about this before.

This is, again, you intentionally moved your annual meeting to a weekend, Saturday, just to see if it helped out. And it seemed like you had a few more people participating. Oh, we definitely did. There's been years that we've had our annual meeting.

And we typically have done it on a weeknight, like at 7 o'clock, where we've had one person. So I mean, it's definitely a huge improvement. At our board meeting in February, we decided that we all felt like it was a big plus to have it on a Saturday, do it during the daytime.

And so we're in to serve lunch. And so we're planning on doing the same thing, same format next year. All right, good. Build that tradition. That's right. Also, we reelected Jeannie Wipekey. We just had one board position up for re-election. And it was her.

And she will continue as a board member for a three-year term, which will expire in January of 2029. So we're glad to have Jeannie continue on the board with us. So I think that's it from the annual meeting.

So this month, again, already had your regular monthly meeting, I'm guessing. Yes. And that was on the 3rd of February. And then getting back to what we need to do, what we're doing. And this year is one of those where you've talked about it in the past.

We have a number of big events that we can make with. Right. Right now, the display that's on down at the History Center is it's the first anniversary of Charles Gassman, who is the first settler in Boone County.

So we have information about him, as well as that log cabin display. Jeannie has already started getting the work group together for the presentation for the 50-year anniversary of the Jordan tornado.

So she's getting together individuals from Boone who were involved in that, have recall about it, and are going to be doing our presentation. And that's in June. I don't know that we have to date firm on that.

I think the group that's presenting was not available the actual day of the anniversary, which I believe is the 6th. But don't quote me on that. And so it may not be on the actual day. So that there's 50-year, well, there's 250 years for America in July.

I'm not sure what all will be involved with that recognition. We have the CIC football championship 50 years ago, the winners of that, which will be recognized. And our own personal anniversary for our 60-year anniversary of the History Center.

So yeah, we have quite a bit going on, a bunch of different things.

And what's kind of fun about it is that there is a temporary exhibit to set up and put together, and not necessarily renovation and renewal of a room, having to tear apart and paint and redo and all that type of thing.

So I think it's kind of nice to have them be smaller, less intense projects. And if anybody's particularly interested in any one of the events that we're doing, just get ahold of the center.

Say I'm interested in either helping with the display and setting up just with your manual labor, or if you are interested in donating. Because there is cost involved with our exhibits. And so you can say I want a donation.

I want it specifically to go to the Jordan Tornado presentation. So we're glad to have you kind of adopt an exhibit. It's really kind of something we're promoting a little bit this year. Is it, would it be like being kind of a sponsor, co-sponsor for things like that? Yes, yes.

And you would be recognized for helping to assist with sponsoring it, yes. It helps out immensely just to have that kind of support, too. It certainly does. And this is an avenue where if we set people had a particular interest in something that they could utilize.

Do that specifically. In fact, anything that you donate to the center from a monetary status, you can designate where you want it utilized. Just in our general stuff, we just have comments from the president and that type of thing. We did renew our chamber membership for 2026.

The Ogden Alumni Association, we did donation of one of the Wilton plates and a membership as part of their auction for their fundraiser.

You can contact us if you are doing some type of an event like that and see if there's something that we have available to donate to your cause. The old business brochures, we have new pictures taken for the new tri-fold that we're doing.

And we're going to bump up the number there. We need to get new ones out to the local businesses and places. So the ones that we have are the probably, if anybody has any left in their pile, it's the old ones.

And we now have a separate map that we use just at the History Center that has locations for the historical sites in Boone County. Sure. OK. Trail Tales. We've got some really good feedback from our last issue. As you know, we were a little bit delayed with getting that out.

We didn't get it out until January just because of lots of things going on.

But it was the one that had that recap from basically the focus of Vietnam War, the interviews that Ron and Janie had done specifically with our current veterans, and then also recognition of those who were lost during that time.

Also, we did send out to everybody who had 20, 25 memberships as well as the people who had put in new memberships for 2026. OK. So let's see. We also, Ron was going to put a couple copies down at the VFW.

We thought that was probably a place that might be people may have interest of looking at that. New business, we're looking into, we go through Johnson Controls for fire and safety for our security system at the History Center, as well as our fire alarm system.

And we're looking at just looking at a proposal for maintenance and routine. We just had the fire extinguishers checked. And so we're good there.

But right now, we're just going to inquire to the fire department about a couple of options to make sure that we're up to code and safe with all of that. And they'd love to work with you on that. What's that? I said they'd love to work with you on that. I know. Yeah, I know. OK.

Application, we put one into the Boone County Community Foundation grant. We submitted requests. So we've been lucky enough to have been recipients of that in the past. And it's been very beneficial to us to be able to have access to that. Yeah, OK. We'll see what happens there.

Jeannie attends the downtown Boone forward meetings. And we're going to be, I believe, hosting that group in March at the History Center and giving them a tour.

And that's just part of, I think, part of what they're doing with that group is they're trying to host at different locations so that the downtown group maybe that hasn't seen a certain place or a business that you go visit at. So I think that's a good idea.

Let them get through and let them go take a look at your businesses in Boone County there and all of the business things you got in that new fairway exhibit. That's pretty cool.

We had a discussion about, we had had a request from a nonprofit organization to waive their rental fee to use the community room. At this point after discussion, we just couldn't come up with an equitable way to honor that request.

So at this end, it's one of our income streams at this point in time. So for right now, we still will just charge, even though the nonprofit one is it's member, non-member. Let's say, RAGR. That's a big discussion. I bet you had a little discussion.

I think they've got a committee that started kind of exciting. So we've got that on our radar knowing that they'll be in Boone on the 21st of July, right? Yes, 21st of July. OK, do you know anything more about that? It's the 21st of July. There you go. OK.

I know that that committee is meeting and they are continuing to meet. And they've recently met with the folks from RAGBRI, which they've got the playbook. And they give everybody down the same information. And so got to get a theme and everything else to go from there.

But they're working on it. Yeah, I think it's Chris Blocker, right? Chris Blocker at visit Boone County. Right, right. So we'll be getting in touch with her and just kind of seeing we did it. The only thing we really agreed upon is that we should be open that day.

And that's as far as we got with anything until we kind of get maybe some direction from that group. So good. All right. It's exciting. It's always good for Boone for that. Next we had committee reports. Actually, we kind of had a little bit shorter meeting there.

Let's see, what collections report? They can continue to do work on collecting all military artifacts from still working up on third floor up in that attic. We just never know what they're going to find.

And then making sure that they're updating the paperwork in our past perfect computer system and storing things properly in our military closet. We have that closet down on first floor just off of where the military display is. It houses everything.

So we had sometimes we locate items that are not Boone County. Exactly. Frequently we do. But sometimes there are things that we feel should be in other historical societies. And most recently, we found some things that needed to go to Ames.

And so a representative from Ames came over. I think it was a couple of weeks ago on a Thursday. And I picked up the item and toured our museum. So we have interaction with the Ames Historical Society too. We're looking for things concerning pufferability days.

That's another anniversary that we're going to be celebrating for 50 years that we will be doing a display on. So we're trying to get some items together for that. We did a pop-up sale at our annual meeting. And that was pretty successful. We brought in about $200 from that.

When this group is going through and purging the attic, any items that are multiple duplicate, items that maybe are not related specifically to Boone County, things that we may not display, including all of our trail tails, we put those things out on a table at the annual meeting.

And we're going to be putting a few more things as such out in our shop. We already have trail tails out there. And we've done a couple of times where we've put in an additional table with things. But we just never know what somebody coming through might be interested in.

So it's just another little way we can make a little bit of money. So we continue to find a few things too that, besides other historical studies, we find things from Mamie Dowd Eisenhower that you that be sent back over there too. So they're on their own and separate from us.

And we have their own board and everything set up over there. So a rag-brag has been through Boone before, as you know. And I recall two times, one time I worked in the medical tent and another time I was just downtown having fun, I think. But we are keeping our eye out for that.

Probably we'll put some display items out when they're going to be coming through town. Sure. My guess is you probably, I think, but this will be the fifth overnight time. So you might have some things from over the last several years. I think 2011 was the last overnight stay.

OK. There you go. Yeah. I didn't realize that they stayed overnight five times. That's more than I realized. You got to remember it's getting, it's like 53rd year, something like that. So yeah. It's been going for a while. I did want to ask you one question.

You were talking about Ron, in particular, getting some interviews done and stuff with Vietnam veterans. He's still willing to collect those, isn't he, for Vietnam? Yeah. Very much so. He has anybody who has information.

And maybe if they don't want to be interviewed, even if they have information that they want to donate. And we can copy things so that doesn't have to be necessarily original. They want to kind of put their story out there. That's what people seem to really have an interest in.

So if they have an interest in or have something they would like to share, be a part of, Ron Russell, get a hold of him. Right. He'll gladly work with you. OK. Let's see. Exhibit reports.

I think I already told you that Jeanie's already started to meet with a group whose farms and homes were destroyed in the 1976 Jordan tornado. Then they've shared photos and stories, newspaper articles, and artifacts. And it's been really interesting.

Carl Youngbuk, who is retired from the National Weather Service, also attended. And he'll work on the science and the path and the research of the tornado. So we've got that started. Told you about the early settlers display already. Pufferbilly Days we're working on.

The football team, they'll kind of overlap. There's also the dedication of McCose Park, which held July 11, 1926. Wow. We haven't heard anything from the city yet about if there's any planning for that.

But in the trail tales, the fall of 2010 has extensive information on McCose Park and why the McCose wanted a statue of Teddy Roosevelt in the park. I'll have to look into that one and figure, learn why we have Teddy. We'll get to that.

In publications, our thanks go out to Deb Duncan for all the donated work on the editing and the layout of trail tales. She's been just critical in helping us get that put together and sent out.

So Jeannie was contacted by a person who's the head of collections and curation in Kansas about wanting to submit an article to us for our trail tales. And it's about Holly Maine. And that's H-8-W-L-E-Y.

Holly Maine moved to town to Boone in 1865 and was a merchant for years, and with whom Rickenberg clerked before starting his own store, which I found interesting. And let's see, she said Holly was also the mayor of Boone from 1891 to 93.

And he had a daughter, Lou Elo, celebrated as the first baby born in 1895. So they have it. I won't read on with the rest of it.

But it's kind of an interesting family background attachment that you get a contact from someone from Kansas who's at a history museum about a whole history of a family in Boone in the 1800s. Kind of interesting. All right. OK, buildings and grounds. Not much happened.

We are still looking. We've got some concrete work to do when the weather decides to cooperate. Told you about Johnson Controls. And we're looking at updating in our computers and printers and have some of our display cases still to refurbish. Rentals going well, no concerns.

Let's see, shop. Not really any new report from that. Membership, thank you for those of you who have renewed your membership for 2026. I just sent out the January meetings. And I did include everybody who still had memberships in 2025 and are new in 26.

So I did make a note in there that if you hadn't renewed, that this would be the last email communication you'd get from us that I'll just take you out of my membership list in my Gmail. But new renewals are still arriving. We're welcoming them at any time.

And I'm going to be starting some visits to memberships to request and ask about membership. I'll start in that this month. We're looking at our board meeting discuss Kate Shelley, tentative date to remove all the items from the building.

And then also this month, we're going to be this month and next month working with getting some proposals for what we could use as options at the site and where we would locate them at the site, work with some contractors.

Maybe say we have some kind of visuals and maybe some potential projected costs of options. Then set a date for just a public open meeting for those who are interested.

I have a couple of members who are interested in helping with that and I'm going to recruit them to help come up with options for what we could put down at the site. So I really want to try and hopefully push this year to get things taken care of.

Like you said, we kind of kept on putting it out a little bit on the back burner, number one because of the lease and number two because we had projects that needed to be tended to up at the center.

But the other thing I put a call in to the city, I don't know how to go about this but I'm going to try and find out, we did think that we would like to note that July 6th date as being like a proclamation of it being Kate Shelley Day here in Boone.

So I've just put in one phone call so far to the city to contact about that. But that's what we're working on. Okay, busy, keeping going. Yes, it always does. Where we, there's always some activity, it's not boring.

So for those that once again, we have our regular hours coming up and I know it's what, Thursday, Friday, Saturday? That's what we're looking at?

Yes, Thursday, Friday, Saturday from 10 to 2 and then again, by appointment if those hours do not work for you, you want to have a tour, you may have a family group coming in or anything like that. We're willing to accommodate if we can.

All right, appreciate you taking time visiting with us, letting us know what's happening for the, and I can say, they can go online and renew membership that way or stop by when you're open and renew it.

If you're stumped for a Valentine's gift, memberships are the history center for your Valentine and you can come down and take a tour. How does that sound? There we go. I don't know how romantic it is, but. It's there too, so. There you go.

Are they going to have you do any of your stories about what you were doing during the Jordan tornado? I don't know, they haven't asked me to yet, but we'll see. I have very clear memory of that, so. There's a lot of people do.

Marty, I appreciate you taking time visiting with us. We'll look forward to visiting with you again next month. I always enjoy it. Thank you very much for having us. Bye now.