048 NATIONAL PRESERVATION LEADER CONDUCTS LOCAL TOWN HALL MEETING

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Sept. 5, 2006
CONTACT: Center for Historic Preservation, 615-898-2947


Community Encouraged to Participate in Open Sept. 12 Forum on Historic Preservation

(MURFREESBORO)—David Brown, executive vice president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, will be the featured host and speaker for a Tuesday, Sept. 12, town hall meeting beginning at 7 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 315 East Main St., in Murfreesboro.
A graduate of MTSU historic preservation program and a former Murfreesboro resident, Brown will visit with local officials, civic leaders, educators, business owners, concerned citizens and interested property owners in Murfreesboro in an effort to explore how a balanced approach to historic preservation can yield immediate and long-term economic and cultural benefits to the region.
Patrick McIntyre, executive director of the Tennessee Preservation Trust, said Brown’s Sept. 12 stopover brings “experience and real-world solutions to the bulldozers and developers who are now mindlessly wiping the past from our landscape.”
Dr. Carroll Van West, director for the Center for Historic Preservation (CHP), remarked, “Brown is the most illustrious alumnus of our nationally recognized historic preservation program at MTSU. He grew up in the East Main historic district; he brings a love of Murfreesboro and its citizens, but adds a healthy dose of realism and experience to the issue of balancing the past with the present.”
According to meeting organizers, Brown will address the audience and then take questions, creating a useful dialogue between the nation’s most important historic preservation organization and one of the nation’s fastest-growing communities.
CHP representatives report that Brown—who applauds local public-private successes in historic preservation, including the successful Main Street program in downtown Murfreesboro— “is very concerned about recent demolitions of National Register-listed properties in the county, including the Jenkins House.”
Brown’s upcoming visit, which is free and open to the public, is supported by the CHP, Main Street Murfreesboro and the Tennessee Preservation Trust.
For more information or directions to the meeting, please call the CHP at 615-898-2947 or Main Street Murfreesboro at 615-895-1887.

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ATTENTION, MEDIA: To obtain a jpeg of Brown for editorial use, please contact Lisa L. Rollins in the Office of News and Public Affairs at lrollins@mtsu.edu or 615-898-2919.