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UAHuntsville and Spirit of Athens have developed a partnership with Professor John Kvach and his public history class for a project on Downtown Athens.

UAHuntsville offers an undergraduate degree in public history, which trains students in historic preservation, oral history, archival management and museum studies. This task will vary from developing lesson plans on the history of Athens for walking tours, comparing the design and history of the downtown buildings architecture to designing a downtown brochure.

A few buildings of interest are CEI Bookstore, Gray & Holt Dry Goods, U.G. White General Mercantile and the College Inn. The students’ objective is to help tell the "Athens' story.” They can reveal the history of the building, the current business’ history and develop a rack card or brochure for that business. The work on this venture will give the students practical experience and develop knowledge of how the past can shape the future plus learn steps in historic preservation.

Professor John Kvach’s committee will showcase the projects they implement during the Year of Small Towns/Downtowns Homecoming, a statewide effort to promote small towns and downtowns with activities in Athens on Aug. 21-22.

Teresa Todd
March 3rd  2010