Wednesday, Feb. 03, 2010

Heritage Center salutes donors

The Johnston County Heritage Commission has raised more than $25,000 in this year's campaign to support the Heritage Center. That's up 24.3 percent from the $20,100 raised a year ago. The number of donors so far this year is 194 - up from 156 a year ago.

The Heritage Center is a department of Johnston County government and gets most of its operating money from the county's taxpayers. The donations raised each year enable the center to acquire research materials for public use and to undertake special projects and programs.

Culmination of the annual campaign was the Contributing Patrons Appreciation Dinner, held Jan. 21 at the Johnston County Agricultural Center. A highlight of the evening was the naming of a Claudia Brown Commemorative Patron in memory of Richard J. Williams, a longtime Smithfield minister who died last year. Friends raised $2,500 for the Heritage Center to have mystery novelist Margaret Maron use his name as a "cameo character" in her next book.

Claudia Brown was Maron's mother and one of the founding volunteers of the Heritage Center.

The center also presented a "Keeper of Johnston County's Heritage" award to the Downtown Smithfield Development Corp. for its recent restoration of the historic Hastings House, a Civil War-era landmark believed to be the town's oldest surviving residence.

Moved to its present location on South Front Street in 1965, the Hastings House today belongs to the Town of Smithfield, which allows the downtown group to use it for office space.

The keynote speaker for this year's Patrons Dinner was Emory Austin, an internationally known motivational speaker who's a daughter-in-law of the late Bill Joe Austin. Mary Nell Ferguson is chair of the Heritage Commission, a 17-member board that augments the Heritage Center's work.

The Heritage Center is a museum and library of local history and genealogy. It's open free of charge from 9 a.m. till 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

It's housed in the original home office of First Citizens Bank at the corner of Market and Third streets in downtown Smithfield.