Here’s a roundup of news briefs from around Southwest and Southside. Send yours for possible inclusion to news@cardinalnews.org.
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Southwest, Southside projects among 2024 recipients of state history grants
Poplar Forest, the Glencoe Mansion and Radio IQ are among this year’s recipients of Commonwealth History Fund grants from the Virginia Museum of History and Culture.
This year, nearly $400,000 is being awarded to support history preservation and education projects throughout Virginia, according to a news release announcing the awards. The fund was established in 2021 and is supported by Dominion Energy.
[Disclosure: Dominion is one of our donors, but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.]
This year’s grant recipients:
- Corporation for Jefferson’s Poplar Forest: 1857 slave dwelling restoration project: Funding will support the restoration of a two-story brick structure that housed enslaved and free African Americans at Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest.
- Radford Heritage Foundation/Glencoe Mansion, Museum and Gallery: Building a New Life: The African American Experience After Emancipation: Accessibility and preservation enhancements will be undertaken to Glencoe Mansion. New interpretation will focus on the story of Reconstruction.
- Virginia Tech Foundation Inc.: Tribal Truths Podcast: The Tribal Truths Podcast, produced by Radio IQ WVTF, is a public platform for Indigenous people in Virginia to tell their history, teach tribal heritages and address current issues. Funding will support a second season that will be produced with tribal representatives of the Patawomeck, Upper Mattaponi, Pamunkey, as well as military veterans of all 11 state recognized tribes.
- Appomattox Regional Governor’s School for the Arts and Technology: Historical Depths: Students will gain hands-on public history experience by facilitating oral history and collections management projects to preserve history related to the original Petersburg High School.
- Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia: Preserving Virginia’s Black History: Funding will enable the BHMVA in Richmond to better preserve its collections through an extensive organization and improvement project at the museum’s artifact storage facility.
- Gloucester County Parks, Recreation and Tourism: reimagining the Gloucester Museum of History: Funding will provide for the development and installation of new exhibitions.
- Historic Germanna: Rediscovering Katina through Indigenous Voices: Siouan Slavery in Early 1700s Virginia: This project will support Historic Germanna’s efforts to better represent indigenous voices. It will result in new tribal consultation guidelines, research and new public history programming. An online exhibition will be created to share the story of Katina, a Siouan-speaking woman enslaved by Alexander Spotswood.
- Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation: Law and Race at Jamestown: The foundation will develop several new programs that address Jamestown’s pivotal role in establishing the rule of law and legalized chattel slavery in U.S. society.
- Preservation Virginia: History as Greenspace in Downtown Richmond: The Grounds of the John Marshall House: Preservation Virginia will design and install new interpretive signage on the grounds of the John Marshall House.
- Norfolk Historical Society: Fort Norfolk Civil War prison camp exhibit: Norfolk Historical Society will research Fort Norfolk’s use as a Civil War prison camp and will identify the prisoners housed, guards stationed and conditions experienced at the fort during the Civil War.
- Science Museum of Virginia Foundation: From Union Station to the Science Museum of Virginia: Architectural, Social and Cultural Histories: This research project will help the museum better document and interpret the history of its historic building and campus.
- Hear2Hear LLC: The Black History Project: Learning From the Past and Inspiring the Future: Funding will help Here2Hear expand its work in telling Black history that incorporates deaf and hard of hearing individuals.
- Belle Grove Plantation: The Cost of Motherhood: Interpreting Eleanor Madison Hite’s Life in the Shenandoah Valley and Her Enslaved Nursery Workers: The largely unknown story of Eleanor “Nelly” Conway Madison Hite, sister of James Madison and wife of Isaac Hite Jr., of Belle Grove will be better told.
- Orange County Historical Society: Orange County Free Blacks Project, 1734-1865 (Phase I): This research project will allow the Orange County Historical Society to expand on the names in the extant free Black register with information from primary and secondary sources.
The VMHC will receive applications for funding for its fourth annual grant cycle Sept. 1-30. Awards will be announced in early 2025. More information on the Commonwealth History Fund is at VirginiaHistory.org/HistoryFund.
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Mipso, Steep Canyon Rangers, Wayne Henderson featured in Blue Ridge Music Center summer lineup
The Blue Ridge Music Center near Galax has announced its 2024 concert lineup.
Concerts take place Saturday nights in the music center’s outdoor amphitheater. Gates open at 5:45 p.m. and concerts begin at 7 p.m.
Season passes and individual concert tickets are available at BlueRidgeMusicCenter.org.
- May 25: East Nash Grass + The Amanda Cook Band
- June 1: Caleb Caudle performing with Wild Ponies
- June 8: Chatham Rabbits
- June 15: The SteelDrivers + The Wilder Flower
- June 22: An Evening with Tuba Skinny
- June 29: Appalachian Road Show + None of the Above
- July 6: The Alum Ridge Boys & Ashlee performing with New Ballards Branch Bogtrotters
- July 13: David Wax Museum
- July 20: Fireside Collective performing with Liam Purcell & Cane Mill Road
- July 27 Martha Redbone + Zoe & Cloyd
- Aug. 3: Mipso
- Aug. 17: An Evening with Steep Canyon Rangers
- Aug. 24: Alison Brown Quintet performing with Wayne Henderson & Friends
- Aug. 31: Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway
The Blue Ridge Music Center is at milepost 213 on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Galax. The Blue Ridge Parkway/National Park Service maintains and operates the facility. For more information, visit BlueRidgeMusicCenter.org.
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Hungry Mother State Park opens registration for birding festival
Registration is open for Hungry Mother State Park’s inaugural Life’s Extras Birding Celebration, a festival to honor the life of longtime volunteer and Virginia Master Naturalist Randy Smith.
Smith died after a brief illness in January 2023. He loved spending time in nature and was an active birder. He maintained a list of bird species he had seen over his lifetime and led bird walks and owl prowls at Hungry Mother.
The park will honor his memory May 3-5 with a birding festival featuring 15 birding activities, from bird hikes and owl paddles to a live raptor show and programs on bird rehabilitation. Speakers include birding experts, licensed wildlife rehabilitators, Virginia Master Naturalists and more.
Admission to the festival is $25 for a three-day pass or $15 for a single-day ticket.
Registration closes April 26. All proceeds from the festival will benefit the Friends of Hungry Mother State Park. To learn more or to register, click here.
