The Historic Natchez Foundation invites the Natchez community to attend a free cocktail reception and short annual meeting from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Elms Court. The reception honors the service of Hank Holmes, retiring executive director of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, and welcomes Katie Blount as his replacement.

The community will also have the opportunity to meet Lance Harris, new director of the Grand Village of the Natchez Indians, one of two local historic sites administered by Archives and History. The other, Historic Jefferson College, is the focus of renewed restoration activity to ready the site for the state’s upcoming bicentennial celebration. In 1817, the state’s first constitution was written and adopted in a meeting house that stood on the grounds of Jefferson College.

Hosting the event at Elms Court is significant because the late Grace MacNeil was a longtime supporter of the Department of Archives and History and a founder of the Historic Natchez Foundation. She also donated land and played a leading role in the preservation and development of the Grand Village. Her daughters Anne MacNeil and Elizabeth Boggess, event cohosts, have continued their mother’s legacy of stewardship. A decade ago, the Historic Natchez Foundation held a reception at Elms Court when Elbert Hilliard retired and Hank Homes assumed the directorship.

Hank Holmes joined the Department of Archives and History in 1973 and served as Director of the Archives and Records Services Division from 1988 to 2004. During his tenure, he directed the release of the papers of the Sovereignty Commission, a segregationist state spy agency, and oversaw the construction of the William F. Winter Archives and History Building. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated the Mississippi Gulf Coast and damaged inland historic buildings, including the Old Capital Museum. He subsequently directed a $26 million grant program for Katrina-damaged historic buildings and the restoration of the Old Capital Museum as a museum of state government reflecting its role as the state capitol from 1839 to 1903. Perhaps the most visible legacy of Hank Holmes as executive director are state museums now under construction in Jackson. The Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum will both open in 2017.

On Feb. 1, Katie Blount will take charge of the Department of Archives and History, established in 1902 and now a state agency with 122 employees and current budget of $10.1 million. Before her selection as the seventh director of Archives and History, she worked 20 years for the department, most recently as deputy director-communications.

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History has long played a pivotal role in the preservation and restoration of historic buildings and sites in the Natchez area. In addition to operating two historic sites open to the public seven days a week, more than 100 of the city’s historic buildings have benefitted from millions of dollars of grant funding and state and federal tax credits administered by the department. The Historic Natchez Foundation invites the public to join us at Elms Court on Thursday evening to express the community’s appreciation.

Those who come early will also be able to attend either the Natchez Little Theatre’s production of And Then There Were None or the Concordia Parish Library’s David Howarth piano concert Concordia Bank and Trust in Vidalia.

 

Mimi Miller is the executive director of the Historic Natchez Foundation.