Greencastle to receive Indiana Landmarks Servaas Award Saturday

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Indiana Landmarks will present its annual Servaas Memorial Awards for outstanding achievement in historic preservation on Saturday in Indianapolis.

A nonprofit from Putnam County and a preservation professional from Madison will receive the awards and cash prizes.

The Servaas Memorial Award in the nonprofit category will be presented to Heritage Preservation Society of Putnam County (HPS), a group that has steadily raised the local preservation IQ since 1977. President Mike Murphy and board member Phillip Gick will accept the award and the $2,000 prize.

Heritage Preservation Society of Putnam County draws attention to historic buildings, commercial districts and neighborhoods, organizing walking tours and preservation workshops. The group's creation of a Heritage Wall along Greencastle's Vine Street provides a venue for educators to teach students about area history.

HPS has led in saving many threatened landmarks, including the Putnam County Senior Center on Greencastle's Courthouse Square and the Victorian Zaring House. The group has also saved structures by moving them, including a Victorian cottage and an 1839 log cabin.

To bring positive attention, honor and restoration incentives, Heritage Preservation Society nominated three Greencastle neighborhoods -- Old Greencastle, Eastern Enlargement and Northwood -- to the National Register of Historic Places and published walking tour brochures for the areas.

"HPS is a respected, active partner in community revitalization, on the courthouse square and in residential areas of Greencastle," Indiana Landmarks President Marsh Davis said. "We wish every town in Indiana had such a preservation advocate."

The Heritage Preservation Society partnered with several civic groups to help secure Greencastle's status as a Stellar Community in 2011, a designation that brought money to restore facades on the courthouse square and spurred changes by DePauw University that accented the historic streetscape. HPS has developed a collaborative relationship with university, providing restoration advice for structures for its historic structures.

"The record shows Heritage Preservation Society's breadth of vision -- from restoration of the Civil War Monument in the cemetery to involvement in the Stellar Community project and the classy new entrances to the DePauw campus," Indiana Landmarks Honorary Chairman Randall T. Shepard, the award presenter, said.

Phillip Gick nominated the Heritage Preservation Society of Putnam County for the Servaas Memorial Award.

Camille Fife, a historic preservation professional from Madison, will receive the individual Servaas Award and $1,000 cash prize.

As president of The Westerly Group, a consulting firm, Fife has lent her expertise to landmarks across the state for more than 30 years. Her projects have ranged from identifying the rehabilitation needs of an early brick farmhouse to documenting the historic buildings in an entire town.

Sites and districts across the state have won listing in the National Register of Historic Places through her efforts, including individual sites, residential and commercial historic districts in Fort Wayne, New Albany, Princeton, Beverly Shores, Clinton, Brazil, South Bend, Terre Haute, Rising Sun, Logansport, Gosport and Frankfort.

Five Indiana county courthouses -- Benton, Newton, Ripley, Sullivan and Greene -- won National Register listing based on her nominations.

Indiana Landmarks Honorary Chairman Randall Shepard, former Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice, will present winners with the cash prizes and original Servaas sculptures by Evansville artist John McNaughton at Indiana Landmarks' 53rd annual meeting in Indianapolis.

Saturday's event begins at 4 p.m. at Indiana Landmarks Center, a 19th-century church restored and adapted as theaters, meeting and office space. The center is at 1201 Central Ave. in Indianapolis.

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