Benton County preservation planners pick theme, lock venues and set outreach push for Preservation Month

Organizers planning Benton County’s Preservation Month settled on a theme, confirmed key venues and sketched a promotion and volunteer recruitment plan at a March 22 joint planning meeting held by local preservation volunteers and partners.

Meeting participants chose the theme “Windows into the past, views to the future” and confirmed the Whiteside Theater as the venue for the annual awards ceremony. Organizers also placed multiple site tours and open-house events on the calendar, discussed a Fort Hoskins program that may proceed without reenactors if those groups do not confirm, and outlined a distribution plan for printed posters and postcards to supplement online outreach.

The theme selection is intended to unify public events planned across Benton County and nearby cities during the month. Planners said a unified poster and postcard package, distribution to county and city public-information newsletters and targeted outreach to neighborhood and interest-group lists will be central to promotion.

Key decisions and updates included: the Albany Airport Hangar open-house is scheduled as two…