The first meeting of the 2017 Board of Directors for theLinden Heritage Foundationwas held February 18th at the residence of John and Catherine Knapp in Linden, Texas.
Directors present: Sam Higdon, Joe B. Lovelace, Sue Lazara, Jana C. Bounds, John Knapp, Sandra Westbrook Skoog, Ron Calhoun andBarbara Teachey.
Directors absent: Gail Dorgan, Kay Stephens and Anna Barber.
Acting-President Sam Higdon called for nominations for the election of Officers. The following individuals were elected as Officers:
President – Joe B. Lovelace
Vice-President for Preservation & Education – Sue Morris Lazara
Vice-President for Marketing & Development – Sandra Westbrook Skoog
Vice-President for Information Technologies – John Knapp
Secretary – Gail Dorgan
Chief Financial Officer – Jana C. Bounds
Parliamentarian – Kay Stephens
The Linden Heritage Foundation Board will next meet on Saturday, April 29th @ 5 p.m. at the residence of Sue Lazara after hosting activities during Wildflower Trails in front of the 1939 Linden Firehouse.
Original article by Neil Abeles – Texarkana Gazzette
Mason Darrell Barrett is a federal administrative judge now, but he still remembers the highlight in his life when, as a 12-year-old, he power shifted that new 396-horsepower Chevrolet Malibu.
“I remember it like yesterday,” said the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission administrative judge whose Birmingham District Office oversees Alabama, Mississippi and northern Florida.
Barrett, a 1973 Linden-Kildare High School graduate, said he loves his work of almost 30 years in hearing employment discrimination complaints relating to disability, race, age or gender. He has a home in Linden and one day will retire there.
Mason Darrell Barrett has this 1940 photo of his mother, Audrey Mae Barrett, teaching school in the Macedonia Elementary School in Linden. He proudly carries it with him.
He was in Linden on Saturday to help clear the Old Macedonia Cemetery, and several of the local sights reminded him of growing up here and his love of car speed.
In those days he would come to town with his school librarian mother, Audrey Mae Barrett, and her teaching friend Mary Shurn. The two would shop while he would go hang around with Dub Body, the make-ready car employee for Tom Lanier’s Chevrolet Company.
“I would go there every chance I could. I was fascinated with cars,” Barrett said.
“One day this transport truck came in with an ice-blue Corvette roadster and white convertible top. When they backed it off, the driver said, ‘Get in.’ He turned it around on the street and stomped on it, power shifting it down that road so fast that I begged him to stop. My knees were shaking, but I was hooked on speed.”
Some time later, Barrett got the chance again, this time with a new 396-horsepower Chevrolet Malibu belonging to a cousin.
“They let me drive it, so at the stop sign on Highways 8 and 11, I stomped on it and power-shifted it and could feel that big block engine come to life.
“‘Your dad is going to get you,’ they told me, but I could tell they were surprised I knew how to speed shift that car.”
Perhaps those experiences transferred somewhat to the fast lane of life for Barrett because he soon left Linden-Kildare High School for Prairie View A&M University to earn a degree in mathematics. He became a computer engineer, but later, in 1984, decided to attend law school at the University of Denver in Colorado.
“My dad had wanted to be a lawyer,” Barrett said.
Instead, M.J. Barrett had been an important local educator. He was a former principal at Macedonia school in Linden as well as a Perfection Elementary principal in Kildare from 1958 until integration in 1969. His wife, Audrey Mae, was librarian.
Darrell Barrett had one sister, Audrey Elaine Sam, who graduated from L-K High School in 1972 and became an assistant principal in Houston.
Brrett was tall at 6 foot 4 inches and wanted to play football, but his dad had been injured playing and wouldn’t allow it.
“So I played tuba in the band and we were sweepstakes winners for four years, and I was in the all-district band,” he said.
He had two sons who played football, however. One earned a full scholarship to a Colorado school and the other walked on to the team at Texas A&M University. One is now a banker in Colorado and the other is successful in Europe.
Barrett said he’s simply a country boy and glad to be back. He’s had a long association with the Macedonia Baptist Church founded in 1894—the one African-American church inside the Linden city limits, he said.
Like a number of Linden buildings, the church had been made of the red rock, which is substantial and thus the building still serves as the church’s annex.
Barrett also has a great-grandfather who was one of the four Rambo brothers who helped form the Rambo community near McLeod. These were Alonzo, Benjamin, Nate, and Darrell’s great-grandfather Monroe.
His work with the heritage and cemetery associations is an effort to help preserve the heritage of the African-Americans in the area, he said.
“We’ve tried to clean it up before, but now the interest has blossomed,” he said. “We want to fix it up so it won’t be forgotten again.”
Sandra Westbrook Skoog grew up happily in Linden playing with neighborhood friends, riding her horse, swimming at Charlie Wylie’s, and twirling at L-K football games. Newly elected to the Linden Heritage Foundation Board, Sandra wants to preserve and celebrate Linden’s unique history which, in turn, will create new opportunities for future growth and development.
Her Westbrook ancestors came to Cass County in 1848 from Georgia, and their family farm was recently recognized by the Texas Department of Agriculture for 160 years of continuous agricultural production.
A retired school counselor from Pine Tree ISD in Longview, Skoog has volunteered extensively with the Junior League of Longview, the Boy Scouts of America, Newgate Ministries, the Boys’ & Girls’ Clubs, and the Longview Women’s Forum. She has also served as president of Longview Community Ministries, the City of Longview’s Partners in Prevention, Longview Area Chi Omega Alumnae, and the Deep East Texas A & M Mothers’ Club. Skoog has chaired the annual Women in Longview event and was named a Star Over Longview in 2016.
Sandra and her husband Eric, a retired chemical engineer at Eastman Kodak, have been married 29 years and have a son and daughter-in-law, Hunter , a third-year medical student, and Dr. Emily Skoog, a pediatric resident, who live in Temple.
Let’s welcome Sandra as she will bring to the Linden Heritage Foundationboard a vast experience in volunteer non-profit work.
Photo by Cass County Front Porch (Mason Darrell Barrett, Sam Higdon, James Penny)
When: Saturday, February 18th, 2017 from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Where: Old Macedonia Cemetery on the west side of the Linden Cemetery
Bring: Gloves, wheel barrows, and garden implements
Refreshments: Water, coffee, hot chocolate, and donuts. Lunch will be provided
Spread the word! Invite your family, friends, students, customers, and non-profit groups who are interested in preserving the Old Macedonia Cemetery and its historical significance to Linden.
Along with five local Main Street enthusiasts, Linden’s new Main Street Manager Allie Anderson attended the invitational Texas Main Street Training 2017, held in historic Georgetown on January 24 and 25. Participating in these excellent training sessions were Linden Main Street Manager Allie Anderson and supporting volunteers Anna Dewell-Eddings, Ruth Halleck, Catherine Knapp, Sue Lazara, and Joe Lovelace. Others invited for the training were representatives of the City of Buda, also entering the program in 2017, and a small number of other Texas cities with new Main Street staff and/or volunteer leadership.
Linden representatives were impressed with the professionalism of the Texas Main Street Program staff and left Georgetown more excited than ever about the future potential of our own special, historic downtown.
Since 1981, the Texas Main Street Program has demonstrated tangible positive impact by bringing visual improvement and economic viability to historic town centers. Texas Main Street Program staff are public servants trained to provide effective individualized services to cities winning this designation. The program offers technical expertise, education, state and federal resources, and individualized staff support in accord with the National Main Street Four Point Approach™ of organization, design, economic vitality and promotion:
Organization: Community partnerships lead to even more successful preservation-based revitalization.
Design: Guided by a town’s own unique physical assets and local heritage, the design staff produces professional solutions geared to an active district that maintains authenticity.
Economic Vitality: Identify new market opportunities for the commercial district, find new uses for historic commercial buildings, and stimulate investment.
Promotion: Marketing activities are built around a unified, quality image of the business district as the center of activities, goods and services.
Texas Main Street communities range in population from 2,000 to over 300,000. As a group, these 80+ cities have added about 35,000 jobs and 8,700 new small businesses to the Texas economy – reporting also more than $3.2 billion of overall reinvestment, most of it privately funded.
NEXT STEPS: The Linden Main Street Advisory Board is forming committees and inviting broad community participation in those committees. Local Manager Allie Anderson will lead a local Advisory Board Training program on January 31 to review and reinforce some of the key learning from the Georgetown sessions. Finally, late next month, State Main Street Coordinator Debra Drescher and a team of her key staff will be spending a few days in downtown Linden, working toward an individualized Plan of Action for our local Main Street program and downtown development. Like the Georgetown training, this personalized assistance is given at no charge now that Linden is a designated Texas Main Street City.
