A bit more information...

With my upcoming tour of duty in West Virginia a lot of people have been asking me what exactly I will be doing with the Appalachian Forest Heritage Area. Before, I had simply said it would either be heritage development with museum or historical societies in the area or hands-on historic preservation of buildings in the Elkins area. Now, I have somewhat of a better idea of what I will be doing, but the final details won't come until I have actually started.

It looks like I will be spending half my time with Historic Beverly Preservation, which is located in Beverly, WV, about 10 minutes from Elkins. Part of that time will be spent at the Beverly Visitor Center, but it seems like I will also be able to work on a project of interest to me which will encourage heritage tourism development. Still pretty vague, I know.

The other half of my time may be spent doing historic preservation in the Elkins/Beverly area. This is hands-on work that repairs and construction on historic buildings. I may also be doing smaller heritage tourism projects for other organizations. All of these opportunities excite me, since I have the possibility to do a lot of different tasks and learn a lot. One of my personal goals for this year is to learn as much as I can about historic preservation, heritage development and museum work; I hope doing different projects will accomplish that.