The new Missouri Civil Rights Museum opened its first major exhibit at the Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Heritage Center in Kansas City on October 26. More than a hundred people enjoyed a reception co-sponsored by MPA that also marked the opening of MPA's annual meeting. MPA also co-sponsored the exhibit, "Marching Toward Justice: The History of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution." The exhibit, which has been traveling nationwide since 1999, suddenly became available for an unscheduled venue after MPA had already announced its reception at the center, and Cheryl Simmons, Urban Affairs Coordinator in Kansas City for the DNR Division of State Parks, worked tirelessly to bring it to the Watkins Center in time for the MPA meeting.
The highly successful event also celebrated the start of a promising new partnership between state parks and Kansas City Parks and Recreation, which had operated the center since its completion in 1989. The center was built with dedicated state park funds and had been supported at $100,000 annually from the State Park Sales Tax Fund, but not until this past year had it been possible to negotiate an agreement by which the facility could be operated as a bona fide unit of the state park system, staffed by employees of both DNR/DSP and KC Parks and Rec-an outcome strongly advocated by MPA. In the agreement, DNR/DSP is responsible for exhibits and programming at the State Civil Rights Museum, operated as an extension of the Missouri State Museum in the State Capitol, and KC Parks and Rec continues to operate other programs of the Bruce Watkins Cultural Heritage Center. It was Cheryl Simmons who was responsible for working out the details of the new partnership on the ground and arranging focus group meetings with community leaders to determine the goals and mission of the new museum.
During the opening ceremonies several speakers paid tribute to Simmons as the driving force behind the exhibit, which commemorates U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and those who fought for civil rights. State Senator Mary Bland told the audience that "Marshall's fight goes on through you, through the people." Stephen Mahfood, DNR director, spoke about plans for the Missouri Civil Rights Museum, which will develop and install permanent exhibits at the Watkins Center. In Mahfood's words, DNR wants to make this "the best museum, an illustration of what's best about our society. We want to be part of it and will continue to be part of it."
John Cunning, director of the state park interpretation program, explained that DSP is holding public meetings to gather input on topics and themes to be featured in future exhibits. The museum will focus on the civil rights movement in Kansas City and in the state as a whole. "It is important to remember," Cunning said in an interview, "that it is an on-going movement and still important to the people of the state. The civil rights story is still being written." The audience for the museum will be the general public, but Cunning noted, "We need to reach out to the youth" through special events and hands-on activities, "giving them additional experience that helps them learn more and remember more about what they have seen."
Curator of the new museum is Tilmon Stewart, former curator of the Black Archives of Mid-America, who joined the staff October 9. Stewart will be responsible for the daily management of the programs and collections, including conservation and care of artifacts, research, and community outreach. Other state park staff at the facility include Michael Parks, tourist assistant; Yvette Bell, seasonal tour guide; and Rachel Pope, student intern. The "Marching Toward Freedom" exhibit will be open through January 6, 2002, from 10am - 6pm Tuesday through Saturday. There is no charge. Plan to stop at the Bruce Watkins Center, 3700 Blue Parkway, to visit it.
Scarcely a week after engineering the triumphant opening of "Marching Toward Justice" and participating in other aspects of MPA's annual meeting in Kansas City, Cheryl Simmons collapsed in church and died two days later on Tuesday, November 6. She was only 42.
A native of Texas, where she was the first African-American football queen at Northside High School in Fort Worth and earned an undergraduate degree in communication from the University of Houston, she married Kelvin Simmons (currently a member of the Missouri Public Service Commission) in 1994 and moved to Kansas City, where she enrolled in the MBA program at UMKC. She served as director of community affairs in Kansas City for the late Governor Mel Carnahan and ran the Kansas City office of State Treasurer Bob Holden prior to becoming urban affairs director for the DNR Division of State Parks.
"She was a wonderful person who worked hard on our behalf to establish a divisional presence in the Kansas City metro area and to seek to expand our programs to inner city neigborhoods," said park director Doug Eiken. "This is a terrific loss and she will be missed by all of us who knew and worked with her." Cheryl had been of particular assistance to MPA in facilitating MPA's Urban Populations Outreach Project, which was headquartered this past summer at the Bruce Watkins Center. MPA President Susan Flader, expressing the association's shock and sadness at her passing, asked to "add Cheryl's many new friends in MPA to those who were grateful to have known her and who benefited from her extraordinary ability to reach out and touch the lives of others."
Partnerships, synergy, and urban initiatives were major themes of the MPA annual meeting in Kansas City October 26-28. The opening reception at the Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Heritage Center celebrated the cooperative effort of the city and the state to explore and interpret African-American history.
In his annual "State of the Parks" address Saturday morning, DSP Director Doug Eiken proposed better and stronger partnerships between the state, private support groups, and the general public as a way of enhancing existing operations and launching new initiatives in an era of decreasing revenues and heightened expenditures for security in the wake of September 11. As a step in this direction, a Missouri State Parks Foundation is being organized as a viable and active partner working with MPA, local friends groups, and others. Eiken praised MPA for supporting outreach initiatives in Kansas City's urban core and indicated that DNR's newly strengthened Outreach Center, to which the Historic Preservation Program has been transferred, will be much more active in the future, interfacing with urban populations through the St. Louis Urban Outreach Center, the Kansas City Discovery Center, and Springfield's National Wildlife Museum.
At a panel discussion on the role of parks in metropolitan Kansas City, Cheryl Simmons and Shalon Curls, MPA's Urban Populations Outreach Coordinator, reported on the summer 2001 UPOP program, in which more than 500 inner city youth participated. Activities included boating at Truman Lake, biking on the Katy Trail, and tours of Watkins Mill. Most of the participants had never previously visited a state park, Curls reported, adding that for some the experience could be life-changing. Corwynn Romberger of the Center for Management Assistance offered advice on fund-raising for UPOP and other programs, stressing the need to develop collaborative strategies and break down the barriers between the public sector, private corporations, and non-profit organizations. Sandra Aust of the Kansas City Parks and Recreation Commission spoke about recent drastic budget cuts and identified public-private partnerships as the "only salvation" for the urban park system, while Dale Bergerhofer of the Kansas City Discovery Center discussed the ways in which the Missouri Department of Conservation and DNR were working together to provide educational and outreach programs in the city.
State Senator Ronnie DePasco called for a state park in the urban core of Kansas City, specifically nominating Kessler Park and Cliff Drive, a suggestion that occasioned considerable discussion about the relative needs and allocation of resources as between urban and rural parks. Booker Rucker pointed out that DSP maintains group camping facilities that could serve more inner-city youth, if MPA, for example, were to expand its UPOP program in this direction. John Karel noted that, in the aftermath of the September 11 tragedy, it is important to remember that parks bind us all together. People are using parks as places to reconnect to nature-including both local parks and destination parks. This is a good time, he suggested, for Americans to re-evaluate civic life and the role that parks play.
A Saturday afternoon driving tour led by Booker Rucker highlighted urban parks and historic properties, in many of which DNR/DSP has played or has been asked to play a role. The tour began in the Rockhill Neighborhood, a National Register historic district, and continued through the Jazz District surrounding 18th and Vine Streets. Rucker pointed out that the second floor of the McConahay Building once housed the offices of Walt Disney's 1920 enterprise, Laugh-O-Gram Films. John Karel offered historical commentary on the Pacific House Hotel, famous for its Civil War Association with Union General Thomas Ewing, and there was further lively discussion of the massive construction project underway at the Liberty Memorial, after which .MPA members enjoyed a tour of the Thomas Hart Benton Home State Historic Site. Scenic areas on the tour included Cliff Drive, designed by landscape architect George E. Kessler, and Loose Park, the site of fierce fighting during the Civil War Battle of Westport.
In his address at the annual banquet Saturday evening, Roger Still, Executive Director of Audubon Missouri, challenged MPA members to think long-term and large-scale in facing extraordinary threats to our natural heritage. He called for a broad-based "culture of conservation," in which many organizations work together as they did on the recent Church Mountain issue. As examples of large-scale thinking, he cited the Nature Conservancy's program to protect one hundred thousand acres in the Ozarks and encouraged Missourians to protect their grassland habitat by joining with other states in the Prairie Passage program, creating a corridor from Minnesota to Texas that restores and interprets our grassland heritage.
Four employees of the Division of State Parks received employee of the year awards at the MPA annual banquet at the Rockhill Tennis Club in Kansas City on Saturday October 29. MPA President Susan Flader presented each with a plaque, an engraved clock, and a check in recognition of outstanding service to the park system.
Field employee of the year was Jean King, clerk typist at Sam A. Baker State Park since 1987, who developed work sheets and computer programs that were used as models by other units, and who has always willingly extended herself to help colleagues and the public.
Racine Myers received the award for maintenance and construction employee of the year for his unusual service maintaining the bison and elk herds at Prairie State Park. Indeed, it was through his dedication and quick action that he was able to recapture the elk that had escaped from the park shortly after their 1993 reintroduction and that had been causing problems to local landowners in the interim.
Facility manager of the year was Kurt Senn, who recently became site administrator at Confederate Memorial State Historic Site. He was recognized, however, for his work as assistant site administrator at Mastodon State Historic Site, where he deftly handled a crisis when a sewer line broke after a flood.
Jenny (Graham) Frazier, real estate/contracts manager in the Planning and Development Program, was named central office employee of the year. The award recognized her patience, perseverance, and diplomacy in facilitating several land acquisitions, including the purchase of the state park at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers.
In a surprise presentation, Roger Still of Audubon Missouri and John Karel of MPA jointly presented a special "Thinking Like a Mountain" award to MPA President Susan Flader in recognition of her extraordinary leadership in the successful campaign to save Church Mountain from a proposed hydroelectric development by Ameren.
At the annual membership meeting on Sunday, October 28, MPA elected five new members to the board of directors: Bonnie Stepenoff, director of the historic preservation program at Southeast Missouri State University, Cape Girardeau, joins the board as editor of Heritage; David Bedan of Columbia, retired from DNR with experience in four different divisions, has been active in many conservation organizations and is webmaster for MPA; Carol Grove of Columbia is an architectural historian active with the Missouri Alliance for Historic Preservation and the MoDOT scenic highways commission; Yvonne Homeyer, an attorney, is president of the St. Louis chapter of the North American Butterfly Association and active on many conservation issues; and Terry Whaley of Springfield is executive director of Ozark Greenways and former park director of Fenton. Harriet Beard of Kirksville was reelected to a second three-year term.
All current officers were reelected to another one-year term: Susan Flader, President; Jim Goodknight, Vice President; Barbara Lucks, Secretary; and Eleanor Hoefle, Treasurer. A special resolution of thanks was extended to retiring directors Robert Jameson, Neil Lombardi, Jr., Glee Heiligtag Naes, Osmund Overby, Mary Phillips, Mary Ellen Rowe, and Helen Murray White.
Only days before the deadline for comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Ameren Development Company's application for a preliminary permit for the Church Mountain Pumped Storage Project, Ameren on August 29 announced its intent to withdraw its requests for permits and cease all efforts to build the facility. MPA President Susan Flader and Audubon Missouri Executive Director Roger Still, speaking on behalf of all affiliates of the Taum Sauk Coalition, lauded Ameren's decision as "an exemplary corporate response to Missourians' concern about natural heritage and biodiversity values at stake in the Taum Sauk area." Groups along the entire spectrum of the conservation community in Missouri, from the Conservation Federation, Scenic Missouri, and various Audubon entities to the Sierra Club and the Coalition for the Environment, had joined the coalition to safeguard the Taum Sauk area.
Scores of MPA members and other conservationists had written letters to FERC, with copies to Governor Holden and the chairman of Ameren, in response to an article on the issue in the August Heritage. The letters, virtually all in opposition to the project, offered eloquent testimony to Missourians' concern about the area and, for many, their experiences hiking the Taum Sauk Trail, which would have been flooded by the lower reservoir. And Ameren listened. Only hours after Attorney General Jay Nixon filed a motion on behalf of the Department of Natural Resources asking FERC to deny the permit, a motion supported also by Governor Bob Holden, Ameren announced its withdrawal. CEO Charles Mueller stated that "the views expressed to us have caused us to conclude that it is impossible to go forward with this project in an environmentally sensitive yet cost-effective fashion."
MPA and the Missouri Coalition for the Environment had been preparing to file a joint motion to intervene before FERC in opposition to the project but decided not to file, instead applauding Ameren for its decision. Subsequently, MPA and others have met with Ameren officials to discuss the future of the area and were heartened by Ameren's intent to continue its lease with DNR for park trail development on the property as it continues to explore a range of options.
DNR and park division officials recently learned that the City of Osage Beach, which since March 1999 has leased and operated the Lee C. Fine Airport at Lake of the Ozarks State Park, undertook destructive land clearance and earth moving at the end of the north runway without reporting details and receiving the required approval from DNR. Moreover, they had apparently certified to the Missouri Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration that they had obtained the required permits. DNR has issued a Notice of Violation and will be meeting with Osage Beach officials in the near future to determine a course of action. The city will likely be required to pay damages and/or undertake mitigation, and its federal funding for the project is apparently at risk.
MPA is particularly concerned about this violation, as it has long been on record in favor of discontinuation of airport operations in the park (see Heritage, July 1999). The airport has never been of significant service to park visitors, and MPA believes it is incompatible with the mission of the park. Moreover, the association through its attorney had made a formal request to the city to be notified in advance of any meetings or opportunities for public input into the decisionmaking process on all matters related to expansion or construction at the airport, and no notice had been received. MPA also is considering options for further action.