9th Annual Preservation in Your Community Event

[Kayla]

Contact: Kayla Wagner, NCPTT marketing intern
National Center for Preservation Technology and Training
Phone: [phone] ext. 247
Email: [e-mail]
Fax: [phone]
URL: http://ncptt.nps.gov


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 27, 2009


NCPTT TO HOST 9TH ANNUAL PRESERVATION IN YOUR COMMUNITY
Participants will be able to interact with student interns during a poster exhibit




Natchitoches- The National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT), Cane River National Heritage Area (CRNHA), and Cane River Creole National Historic Park (CARI) will showcase recent research at the 9th annual Preservation in Your Community (PIYC) on Aug. 11. PIYC will feature research by NCPTT summer interns and highlights from CRNHA and CARI. The hour-and–a-half event will begin at 5:30 p.m. at NCPTT’s Lee H. Nelson Hall on Northwestern’s campus.

“This year the National Park Service is trying to do something a little different,” Kirk Cordell, NCPTT executive director, said. “We want to make Preservation In Your Community more enjoyable and interesting to our guests. This is also a great time to tell our partners thanks for all they have done.”


This year’s event will offer a more social setting, by inviting guests to eat and talk with the interns as they view posters of the summer projects. The goal of this event is to visually increase the community’s awareness of preservation efforts that are taking place in Natchitoches.

CARI will display artifacts from the park’s collection at the PIYC exhibit.

Kirk Cordell, Laura Gates, CARI Superintendent, and Cynthia Sutton, CRNHA Director, will each present short overviews of cultural resource projects from each organization. Afterwards, refreshments will be served and guests will be invited to view the posters and talk with their creators.

Dustin Fuqua, CARI museum technician, Lou Anne Williams, CARI museum aide, will present a poster on the reproduction of floor coverings and window treatments for the Oakland Plantation Main House Exhibit.

Fuqua will also collaborate with Dean Barnes and Rodney Meziere, CARI museum aides, to create a poster about the conservation treatment strategies at the park’s curation facility.

JoAnn St. Clair will create a display on the Magnolia Plantation Blacksmith’s Shop Collection. This display will feature archeological investigations and field collections.

Seven NCPTT summer interns will create posters for the event. Molly McGath, a chemistry graduate from the University of Arizona, will update last summer’s research on graffiti removal techniques from historic structures, concentrating on two types of brick and marble. The five techniques McGath will present are laser ablation, paint stripper, peel-away, poultice and sol-gel.

Josh Springer, an architecture student from Ball State in Indiana, and Jessica Cleaver, a master’s student from Tulane University, will review their research using paint strippers for preservation, and will reveal which technique worked the best.

Joseph Evans, a heritage resources major at Northwestern State University, is constructing a computer application that can be used on a portable tablet personal computer to efficiently inventory historic landscape features.

“This one-of-a-kind, portable unit will make inventory easily accessible, and it will eliminate the traditional paper version of inventory that is usually lost in paper files,” Evans said.

Updates on NCPTT’s wind tunnel research will be given by Eric Guidry, a liberal arts student from Northwestern State University’s Scholar’s College. Guidry’s poster will present the results of his studies on the effects of pollution on cultural resources.


Megan Smith, a graduate student in the Nautical Archaeology program at Texas A&M University, will showcase a poster on the consolidation of archeological bone and bone strengthening.

Curtis Desselles, a recent graduate of NSU’s masters program in Heritage Resources, will create a poster to inform guest about a technique that uses microwave radiation to remove unwanted biological growth on masonry.


NCPTT’s Lee H. Nelson Hall is located at 645 University Parkway on the NSU campus. For more information on Preservation in Your Community, contact Kayla Wagner, NCPTT marketing intern at [phone] or email [e-mail]

[Kayla]

[Kayla]

[Kayla]