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03/08/2022 - Eagan Historical SocietyEagan Historical Society Meeting Minutes March 8, 2022 Meeting started at 11:05 A.M. Members present were Mary Ellen Voracek, Karen Mackey, Lynae Gieseke, Leslie Chudnoff, Kim Hazel, Dawn Simpson, Joe Reid, Ted Ringberg, and Lori Tripp. Also present was the city liaison Joanna Foote. Joanna updated the group about her communications with Kwik Trip which has bought and is developing the old Starks property at Highway 149 and 55. They are interested in the property’s history and incorporating it into their restaurant. Kwik Trip’s idea is to have snippets of the property’s history in text and pictures on the tabletops with an overlay of a see-through protective covering. That way every diner could read the history. Joanna said that she can put the previous property information on a flash drive that someone in the group could peruse and prepare information for Kwik Trip’s use. Lori volunteered to get the flash drive from Joanna to prepare information for Kwik Trip. Per Mary Ellen it was an on-line auction of Starks property, and she has emailed the auction company for photos of the property. We still need the menus that Starks gave to Mike Scott so that we can scan them. Eagans Art Block is scheduled for September 10-25, 2022. The Art Block Coordinators are Tonya Mozingo and Julie Andersen. Possible Sundays for an Open House at the Old Town Hall would be September 11, 18, or 25th. Deadline to announce the dates in the city newsletter is July 15th. The group discussed July 24th as a possible date for an open house at the Old Town Hall. The group will make a final decision at the May 10th meeting to have time to make the city deadline for the newsletter. Parks Department will remove the wreath from the Old Town Hall. Mary Ellen asked the members to report their hours each month rather than try to remember at the end of the year. The hours need to be reported to the city after the calendar year ends. The group reviewed the new Organizational Structure for the historical society. It was asked if anything should be moved to another category, but no one thought so. It was mentioned that members would still help in various categories even if they weren’t responsible for the category. Taking a category would mean that you would be the contact person and would report to the group with updates. Leslie Chudnoff chose Archival Lead. Mary Ellen Voracek chose Meetings Lead. Lynae Gieseke and Kim Hazel chose Old Town Hall Lead. Joe Reid and Kim Hazel chose Budget and Donations. That left Project Lead for Lori Tripp. Karen Mackey said the library would be a great resource for our organization. Mackey would be willing to be on a panel discussion. Joe Reid said that he would be willing to narrate any digital snippets that were created. They could possibly be posted on the City Webpage, Facebook page, Eagan Neighbors, Next Door, and other historical society pages. Lori received a message from Kern Hough that he is willing to keep doing what he has done in the past like serving as a greeter at the Old Town Hall open houses. We hope you feel better soon Kern! The City of Eagan has a signed contract with OPG3 for the labeling template for the historical items that were scanned. Goals for EHS were discussed. Ideas mentioned were: Raise awareness of our group; having members present to other members so everyone in the group has the knowledge and it might motivate new members to stay and get involved; public presentations can be promoted by the library and they can host, they are opened until 8:00 P.M. Monday through Thursday so we could do evening presentations; it was mentioned that scout groups do meet at the library; speak to classes if requested; go through microfiche information that was scanned and label files and move to public folder; get shelving for our area downstairs so everything can be cleaned and organized. Joanna is ordering the shelving. After our group has transitioned to the new format, determine if meetings should be shortened or held less often. Still book the room for a 2-hour meeting, but we might not use all of it. How we want our relationship to look with the new liaison was discussed. The group thought we should report what we are working on to the liaison, and have the liaison make requests for money, put notices in the Eagan Newsletter, list in the events calendar, and come to meetings if requested. Dianne Miller is the new city administrator and the first woman to hold that position. We are going to add her to the Eagan First Ladies Display at the Old Town Hall. Joanna has provided us with a digital photo we can print out for the display. Lori has sent an email to Dianne requesting a one-page summary of the highlights of her career for the display and that we would like her added to the display for the May 22nd open house. Joe is willing to give a talk to the group about the project he did on early Eagan schools. He might be willing to do a version of that with ETV. Lynae reported that she was successful in obtaining Eagan High School Year Books for the years 2002-2021, except 2012. The Eagan High School Yearbook Advisor was very helpful. Lynae delivered them to the Dakota County Wescott Library and Karen accepted them. That brings the library’s collection up to date except for 2012. Lynae will try other means to get that year. Thank You Lynae! Lori reported that all three of Margo Danner’s scrapbooks were scanned into the Historical Society’s network folders. The scrapbooks covered the creation of the community park, grandfather tree, the community center, and the seniors group. There was a request for a member to be on a quarterly zoom call with the Historical Organizations Group. The group is made up of Dakota County Historical Society and other historical societies within Dakota County. Karen stated that she is already on that call in her role at the library and could do it for Eagan’s historical society. Joe said he was willing to do it also. Joe has been added to the zoom list. The next meeting is March 24th from 4:00-5:00 P.M. Thank You Karen and Joe! Lori mentioned that our group received an email requesting us to consider buying an old desk for $300. Pictures were sent along with the description. After visiting the Old Town Hall with Mary Ellen, Kim, and Dawn, we decided that we weren’t going to pursue the desk. We looked at the current space, the size of the desk, and loosing storage space with the desk, along with the fact that the desk had no connection to Eagan history, in making our decision. Meeting ended at 1:00. Next meeting is Tuesday, April 12, 2022, from 11:00 – 1:00 in the Eagan Room at Eagan City Hall.