New Group Aims To Preserve Hernando History

BROOKSVILLE - Last month, the group charged with advising the county commission on worthy projects aimed at preserving Hernando's history quietly became history itself.

The Hernando County Historical Advisory Commission asked county commissioners to dissolve the nine-member citizen group because the model wasn't working, said former member Roger Landers.

The county commission did so with an ordinance passed May 6. But the need for such a group lives on, Landers said. So now plans are in the works to create a similar organization that would be strong where the advisory commission was weak.

Volunteers interested in participating should attend a meeting at 3 p.m. today at the historic Brooksville Train Depot, 70 Russell St., Landers said. The new group will be a committee under the auspices of the Hernando Heritage Museum Association, a nonprofit group that runs the May-Stringer Museum and the historic train depot, where it stores a vast collection of Hernando-related historical records.

The new group will be able to raise money, something the advisory commission could not do, Landers said. The county also did not provide any funding to the commission.

"We knew that would be the case from the beginning, but it got to be an economic issue," Landers said.

The group had made progress, though, Landers said, such as setting up a display of artifacts on the second floor of the government center. The group also started a project in conjunction with the clerk of the court to digitize the county's oldest records. That effort will continue with the goal of making the records available on the Web, Landers said.

The new group probably should have been the original model, said Virginia Jackson, president of the Heritage Association.

"I was under the impression they should have joined us to start with," Jackson said. "We're really happy to have them come with us."

Jackson already has a to-do list for the new group.

A subcommittee of the advisory commission had scanned some 4,000 historic photos for the museum association and was in the process of identifying the subjects in each photo, Jackson said. That work will have to continue.

She said she also hopes the new group will help rally volunteers to allow the historic train depot to remain open for more days during the week.

And she'd like the group to create a master file of information from all the county's cemeteries. The Hernando Genealogy Society has compiled the information but now the information must be placed into one file and submitted to the state, Jackson said.