Preserve America Youth Summit

Well this is a little late but I blame the log in screen. Well, this was one of the greatest experiences I’ve had in years, (excluding last years Youth Summit). We started out day 2 with a meeting to try and influence others to not cut the state historical fund as badly as planned by Colorado State legislators. We were then called up to tell everyone in less than 30 sec. on what preservation means to me. Everyone had been planning on it as if we were going to speak to the president of the United States or something like, but I hadn’t put so much thought in to it and I came up with this in 5 seconds. Preservation to me means making a different in the community, Historically wise. I know it’s a little cheesy, but hey, it was good. When we were allowed to sit back down, we concluded the meeting and ran to the nearest hotel to start our Lobbying practice for later that day and I swear, every room in the 4th floor was named after fashion designers or something to do with clothes like Prada, Hilfigure, and Armani. Anyway, we started practicing our little speech thingy to use for the senators at the Capital for a while and then we had another meeting. This one was to talk about our experiences, as young adults, with history. We each stood up and told our side of the historical story, and heard from the audience what some of them have done. Then we had a speed round of question and answer and some people were talking so fast, I got dizzy.

After that, we got to ride a chartered bus, but they didn’t put in a movie or something like that. Come on. We rode down to the Governors Mansion to have lunch with Mrs. Ritter and let me tell you, we were all so hungry at that point and the smell of the food was so tempting, I think I might have cried if I waited any longer. As we were all chewing our food, Mrs. Ritter asked us how our day was and what we did. She then asked us what we personally had to do with the Youth Summit, so it turned into a Socratic Seminar (My English teacher should give me extra credit for that.) We all gave a similar little speech as that of this morning. Once we finished, you could see the gleam in Mrs. Ritter’s eyes as if she was about to cry of joy. I had one of those feelings of satisfaction right there. We finished our conversation, took some photos, watched a history of the Governors Mansion, and departed for the Capital.

Because of the security at the Capital, I can finally say that I have been checked for firearms, drugs, or alcohol now. They scanned all of our things and we ran to a conference room to get the idea of what the rest of the day would be like. They told us that we were to meet senators and tell them why we don’t want them to cut the state historical fund. That is our lobbying thing we did. We ran around, met with senators, did our thing and moved on. After wards we collected our stuff and departed for home. (I’ve got Lexie beat on Word Count for this blog. HAHA)

-Jacob

In the week since the 2009 Youth summit for alumni of the previous summits I’ve decided that it really is time to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. My goal for the remainder of the school year is to find a historical location that is some way threatened by another project, or other people, and make it my personal mission to protect that site. Unfortunately, I don’t really know where to start. So if you know a location that you want to protect, reply to this blog. (I’ve got connections, haha.) I appreciate the support of the Colorado legislators, and I recognize that all of the programs in Colorado will be taking a hit this year in the budget, but I urge you again to “soften the blow” that the State Historical Fund receives. It is vitally important to everyone in Colorado, even if some people don’t realize it.

By the way, apparently I said some wonderful quote at the conference, so here it is…

“Teaching kids preservation is like teaching them a new language. You can  start when they’re older, but if you start when they’re younger, they will become more fluent and enjoy it more.” Can I copyright that?

By the way, I wholeheartedly agree with that quote. As a highschool sophomore, I have been privileged to began working in preservation when I was in 7th grade. But even younger kids would enjoy working with history by fighting to protect their favorite landmarks/places. Maybe I’ll work on that to.

-Emily

Well, here I am, almost one week after the conference, and now suddenly getting LOADS of college emails…about history. Connection? I think so.

Anyway, I emailed Mr. Colorado Speaker of the House to follow up on the group’s conversation. See:

Mr. Speaker:

My name is Kyle _____, and my group visited you on Friday, February 7, to discuss monetary cuts regarding the State Historical Fund. I’m emailing you to formally thank you for spending time with us. My group, the Colorado Preservation, Inc. Youth Summit, appreciated our discussion and definitely learned a lot regarding the House of Representatives system. I would also like to again ask to soften the blow on the State Historical Fund’s resources, as it is one of the most vital tourist attractors in the state, particularly in the southern regions of Colorado. Those are not the only areas that benefit, however; every county has at least one project in progress that is maintained by the State Historic Fund. Such projects help create jobs in communities across the state, and offer valuable volunteer opportunities. These volunteers save the state money, and so for every $1 put in to the State Historical Fund, you’d get $4 of labor out. It’s important to not deteriorate one of America’s most successful state historic preservation efforts.

Again, thank you so much for your time. Our group’s experience would not have been the same without our conversation.

Sincerely,
Kyle _______ (apparently im not allowed to post my last name on this blog. whatever.)

And then HE said:

Mr. ______ :

Thank you for coming by to discuss it with me. It is a pleasure to see young people getting involved in politics so early. Our future relies on our younger generation being informed about the issues that affect them most. So, again, congratulations to you for setting a high standard for your counterparts. Let me say that your comments have been reviewed and taken into account. I believe we all want to work hard to keep Colorado beautiful and the General Assembly will work with that in mind. Thank you again for your input and know that you are always welcome.

Regards,

What an amazing two days. I met some really interesting powerful people including the House of Representatives, a couple senators, the first lady of Colorado, archaeologists and many more. It was probably the most important two days of my life. When you think of preservation what comes to mind? Preservation is……what? In my opinion preservation is our future. Without preserving our past we have don’t have a future in this business. That is really the message we tried to show our superiors. In my life preservation is preserving the past so we can have a future. Moving on….we learned the historical fund was going to be cut. That was extremely depressing. Everything we have worked for is funded by the help of that fund. I have a personal experience. My passion is the Broomfield Veteran’s Musuem. It used to be a very small one room museum. Now it is under construction. It is the only museum in the nation that is dedicated strictly to WWII veterans. So how do I convince “policy makers” to not cut this fund? Well we met with them at the Capitol and gave them our pitch. I said “We are attending the Youth Summit to collect ideas on how to “rebuild” the Broomfield Veterans Museum. This is the only museum in the nation dedicated strictly to WWII veterans. There aren’t many veterans left and they won’t be around forever. Pretty soon they will disappear. We can’t have their past disappear with them. Will you support this? Please don’t cut the Historical Fund.” I was surprised that one official actually said no. He invited us back to his office and I flat out told him…basically begged him not to cut the hisorical fund. With tears in my eyes I shared the story of the Broomfield Veterans Museum. He had a personal connection with my story, as he talked about preserving slave history. I walked out of his office with his card in my hand and a victory smile on my face. I was sure he was going to do the best he could to save the Historical Fund.

~Lexie

Of course, I have to blog again or risk a grade.

So, yesterday (The second day of the mini-summit), we woke up bright and early, ate breakfast and headed off to the Sherman Events Complex to be presented at the preservation breakfast conference. Not very abnormal, when compared with the rest of the day.

Then, we went to the Hampton Inn across the street to learn how to be lobbyists and to prepare for the next event, a confrence seminar on kids in preservation and the youth summits. We all had the oppurtuity to speak about our preservation and youth summit experiences, and we all took every oppurtunity to tease Mrs. Pearson, but what do you expect?

Then, we hopped on our little (or not little, for that matter) chartered bus to go and visit Mrs. Ritter at the governor’s mansion.

Mrs. Ritter: “So, most of you have been here before, right? I’ve seen most of you before.”

Kids: “We’ve all been here before.”

Mrs. Ritter: “Oh, yeah! Throw your coat on the sofa!”

After a very nice lunch and talking very casually to the First Lady (Not Michelle Obama. She was in Washington D.C., as far as I know), we got back on our bus to head off to the capitol building. We got some strange looks as a large group of professionally dressed teenagers and a handfull of adults walking across the street to the southern entrance of the capitol building.

We met the State Treasurer Cary Kennedy and the official Treasury Dog Berkely, the Speaker of the House Terrance Carrol, Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry and a few other important people whose names I can’t remember.

Well, we’re all back home and recovering. AND I HAVEN’T BEEN SUCCINCT!

Inside joke.

–Natalie

Hey everyone, Emily here, done licking the whip cream off of my starbucks lid. The hotel lobby has the air of college students cramming for an exam the next day.  The 9 kids from Mrs. Pearson’s group, and my main man Max are working on our one minute spiels that we will be presenting to legislators tommorrow. The topic-why is preservation important to us, and  why does preservation funding need to stay put in a time where government budgets cannot afford to be generous. David and Mrs. Pearson are freaking out about something technical, using language that only they and Bill Gates can understand. This is one of those times where I hang back and try not to break anything. This year’s summit has been quiet, the June 2009 trip to Mesa Verde will involve 75 kids instead of just 12, but for now, we are all appreciating the training we are receiving to advocate for funds for preservation. Off to bed, yeah right, tommorow we’ll be visiting with Mrs. Ritter and other important people who will help us out with an issue that we are all passionate about.

The conference began at about four. The weather outside was very nice and warm- a welcome change from last year. The youth summit is much smaller this year, only eleven students. We spent most of the evening preparing to lobby on Thursday. I enjoyed talking to everyone I met from last year again. Listening to the presentation on the new Denver History Museum was very interesting. I also enjoyed the presentation by the archaeologists. I would have liked to talked with them about the possibility of using an archaeological project on my grandparents, the Brinks’, farm in Laporte, Colorado, to prevent the City of Greely from destroying the last remnants of the Stout Branch Railroad by laying a five foot water pipeline through it. Fortunately I will be able to talk to them tomorrow, after presenting what “history means to me” during the Preservation Conference breakfast. I am looking forward to the chance to talk to legislators tomorrow.

~Max Dean

Wow what an important day. Only Alumni students were allowed to attend this Youth Summit and I feel very lucky to be one of them. We had the priveledge of meeting with one of the Senators, Ann, Steve, Jennifer and many other people. It was so nice to be back in Denver again. We learned our suggestions from last year for the Denver Heritage Trail payed off. They actually used our suggestions. I find that just…incredible. They showed us some brochures and let us listen to some tapes of what their trail will be like now. We were amazed! They did so much work in such a short span of time. They totally lived up to our expectations. Everything we asked for was there….right in front of us! Later on the Senator gave us advice on one of our meetings that we are having tomorrow. We have to interrupt a “policy maker” and present our ideas about what we could do with the historical fund. Does anyone feel as unworthy as I do? I mean these guys are professionals and we have to project our naive ideas to them. Hmmmm have fun with that. Oh well I’m sure I will do fine.

~Lexie

Well, after a day of meeting lobbyists, senators and Ann Pritzlaff, we are all here ( I think) at the hotel, crashing and blogging simultaneously.

We arrived at the Colorado History Museum at about 4:30 this evening, to receive name tags and some very business like portfolios. We were introduced at the awards ceremony for the Governor’s Award for something or other (please, pardon my memory). Then, we all ravenously ate our pizza dinner and learned about archaeology, preservation, and the next youth summit. This included Mesa Verde, the National Forest Service and Crow Canyon. We met some people (whose names I have forgotten) involved in preservation and is something that we are all personally involved in, Denver Story Trek. I thought that it was really amazing to be looking at the brochures that they handed out, to be looking at all of that, and suddenly realizing that “wow, I helped make this happen. I’m part of the reason that this brochure is here in front of us right now. WOW.”. That is definately a moment that I won’t forget.

It’s been a long day of up and down and left and right and listening to things that most of us have no doubt forgotten, plus a very deserved trip to Starbucks.  But, it’s still something that we (all 12 of us) will remember for a long time to come.

–Natalie