A Mission to High River - A MEST Story

I had the privilege and pleasure of sitting down last week with Louis Bowman. Louis is an active member of the Richmond MEST (Museum Emergency Support Team) and holds a CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) and amateur radio operator license. As a retired professional who spent years of his career at Morgan Stanley, Louis now has some time and flexibility to help out as a MEST member. But more importantly - he cares.

So much so that when the Museum of the Highwood, in High River, experienced a devastating fire, Louis showed up to help. He spent several days organizing and cataloging items in boxes that had been saved from the fire. Refrigerated 18 wheelers and a school auditorium had been enlisted to help house the items that had been damaged by smoke, flame, and water. Without volunteers who make themselves available quickly and act fast, those items would have been lost forever. Items of local importance ranging from a Superman II VHS tape to an 8x10 photograph of the Duchess of Windsor w/ a local class of students.

That there are people who care enough about others to make the time to get trained on what to do in various emergencies, and then who actually put the knowledge to use is heartwarming. I failed to mention one fact - if the name of the museum and the town don't ring a bell - Mr. Bowman traveled from Richmond, VA to Calgary (that's Alberta, Canada) to pitch in what he could. Think about that. An airline ticket, a rental car, several nights in a hotel room - for folks he had never met in a town he didn't know.

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Why did he help? Mr. Bowman relayed a story to me from the month after the World Trade Center bombings on 9/11, when he was in New York City. He stopped in to a nearby fire station to thank the firefighters who had lived through so much horror and given so selflessly. The first man he spoke with was a firefighter who had done just what Mr. Bowman would do nearly nine years later - he had flown out from Los Angeles to help in any way he could. The staff of that small fire station in New York City had lost 15 of their own. Louis never forgot his visit, his gratitude, or the firefighter from L.A.

Similarly, the folks from the Museum of the Highwood in High River will never forget Louis Bowman. At first, when they found out he was coming they asked, "What does he want?" But they came to realize that the trip was selfless and borne of a sincere desire to help and a heart full of gratitude - one that they now share. Says Louis, "There will always be a soft spot in my heart for the town of High River." We learn so much about ourselves - and gain so much - when we give of ourselves.

*If you are interested in joining a MEST team in Virginia, Contact VAM.


Heather Widener
Communications Director
Virginia Association of Museums

Connections from the Past Nurture Ties for the Future

VAM and its members continue to reach beyond Virginia to make connections and connect common threads. As you may have seen in the news, a group of African-Nova Scotians visited Virginia last month to attend the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities Nova Scotia Best Practices Trade Mission Forum and to visit sites in Virginia that interpret African American and American slave history. The group was hosted by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities in partnership with Nova Scotia's Black Business Initiative, which seeks to foster the growth of business and cultural sites owned by Nova Scotia's black community.

The trip was the first in what will likely be an ongoing exchange and dialogue between Virginia and Nova Scotia on the challenging subject of interpreting African history in the Americas. In fact, Virginia museum professionals have already been invited to Nova Scotia for a follow up exchange program based on African history.

Most people do not realize the links between black history in Virginia and that in Nova Scotia, where Halifax has been called the “birthplace” of the black Canadian population. Whether they were loyalist refugees at the time of the American revolution or escaped slaves on fugitive ships, many of Nova Scotia's African-Nova Scotian community have ancestral ties to Virginia.

In addition to the VFH, VAM took an active role in the VFH Forum (ED Margo Carlock gave a presentation on Best Practices and Standards in Museums). Several of its member museums were highlighted in the Canadian group’s tour around sites in Virginia that interpret African American history (museums involved, included Monticello, Colonial Williamsburg, the Robert Russa Moton Museum, Legacy Museum of African American History, Alexandria Black History Museum, Black History Museum and Cultural Center in Richmond, Virginia Historical Society, and the Christiansburg Institute). We all look forward to a developing dialogue and relationship with our Nova Scotian colleagues. Planning for a reciprocal exchange visit to Nova Scotia by VAM members is just beginning – let us know if you would like to be involved!