FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 25, 2008
CONTACT: Molly Dannenmaier
Director of Marketing and Public Relations,
409-765-7834
molly.dannenmaier@galvestonhistory.org

Schwenk New GHF Board President

Galveston: At Annual Meeting Foundation Honors Volunteers, Gives Preservation Awards, Announces Heritage at Risk List and Recognizes Donors

The Galveston Historical Foundation (GHF) membership on Friday approved the selection of Thomas Schwenk as board president for 2008-2009.

Tom Schwenk, GHF President, 2008-2009

Schwenk is the co-owner of Seminars by Design, a company that offers a variety of health, safety and welfare classes for interior designers and architects and the general public across the U.S. He has served as a GHF at-large board member, marketing committee chair, vice president, and most recently, volunteer project manager of the rehabilitation of the historic Samuel May Williams House. This spring, Schwenk recruited a team of designers, all members of the Texas Gulf Coast Chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), to transform the Williams House into an ASID Designer Showhouse in time for the 2008 Galveston Historic Homes Tour in May. He raised more than $100,000 cash and in-kind donations toward the house’s refurbishing. Schwenk has also worked closely with GHF Executive Director Dwayne Jones over the past several years to develop a new strategic plan for GHF as well as a GHF marketing task force report. Schwenk is also a certified Eco Broker with Joe Tramonte Realty.

Schwenk succeeds Raymond Lewis, who remains one of the board’s five officers as immediate past president.

Joining Schwenk as vice president is David Bowers, a real estate agent with the Galveston’s House Company who specializes in restored and remodeled historic properties. He is a licensed Texas attorney and has been a member of the Planning Commission, the Wharves Board and the City Council. He was voted best City Council member three times in Galveston County in newspaper reader polls. He has long been active in Galveston Foundation, most recently serving as chair of GHF’s real estate committee and treasurer for the organization.

At GHF’s annual meeting at the Garten Verein pavilion, outgoing board president Lewis gave a farewell speech outlining a year of organizational accomplishments. Among the highlights he included were the successful new outreach efforts of 2007’s Dickens on the Strand; a new Bishop’s Palace management agreement between GHF and the Galveston Houston Archdiocese; the updating of GHF-enforced local covenants; the transformation of the Samuel May Williams House into a designer show house with the Texas Gulf Coast Chapter of the ASID; a new Partners in the Field Grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation; continued support for environmental education onboard Seagull II by BP; the creation of a new fence around the historic Rosewood Cemetery spearheaded by Eagle Scout Sean Moran; 75 new volunteers in the Sail Training program for ELISSA; the successful Harvest Moon Voyage of the 1877 Tall Ship Elissa to Port Aransis and Corpus Christi and the spring voyage of ELISSA to the Port of Houston’s Bayport Cruise Terminal; the introduction of Haunted Harbor and “Are We Haunted” Ashton Villa tours; the hiring of a new director of heritage programs, Denise Alexander; the successful launch of GHF’s new Web site and e-newsletter programs in partnership with Galveston.com (www.galvestonhistory.org); the introduction of a new graphic identity program by GHF’s department of marketing and public relations; the hiring of a new financial officer, Nancy Kitchel; the purchase of Galveston Island Tours as a wholly-owned for-profit subsidiary; and the creation of a new GHF education fund for employees.

Executive Director Jones spoke about the new plans for making the organization stronger in the areas of education, innovative museum programming, development, marketing and resource management. He praised the board and staff for their professionalism during a year of great change for the organization. And he praised Schwenk, the incoming board president.

“Tom brings to GHF a strong commitment to Galveston, especially the island's neighborhoods,” said Jones. “He also is very interested in the organization's new emphasis on "green" issues and conservation combined with historic properties. This is will be an exciting and fresh look at many of the things that GHF does now.”

The new board officers are Tom Schwenk, president; David Bowers, vice president; Dwayne Jones, secretary; Jerry Mohn, treasurer and Ray Lewis, immediate past president.

The other members elected to the 2008-2009 board are George Henley, Rodney Seiler, Angie S. Brown, Lauren Scott, Amy Ferguson, Larry Wygant, Ray Lewis, Heather Wooten, Mike Doherty, Carrington Weems, Robert Zahn, Joe Willhelm, Jr., Margaret Doran, Cheryl Vaiani, Tom Shehan, Jamie Grady, John Smith, Kay Sandor, Armin Cantini, Robert Lynch, Bill Leopold, Kay Schwartz, Tommie Boudreaux.

GHF Annual Meeting 2008 Volunteer Awards

The Spirit of GHF Award, the organization’s top volunteer honor, was presented to the Harris and Eliza Kempner Fund for its longstanding commitment to and patronage of the foundation’s efforts. President Barbara Sasser accepted the award. The foundation’s Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas, Robert Lynch and Patty Gray were also in attendance on behalf of their organization.

The GHF Phoenix Award was awarded to Tom Schwenk, for his leadership in the transformation of the 1838 Samuel May Williams House back to a single-family dwelling after serving as a house museum for more than 50 years. He organized a team of designers from the Texas Gulf Coast Chapter American Society of Interior Designers to turn the Williams House into the ASID Spring Designer Showhouse. Schwenk spearheaded of the donation of more than $100,000 for the project.

The President’s Award for Service to GHF went to Sherwin Williams, a company that has partnered with GHF for 15 years by providing a 30 percent discount to GHF members. William J. Strawn, manager of Galveston’s 61st Street store and Albert Loera, sales representative, accepted the award on behalf of Sherwin Williams.

Five President’s Awards for Distinguished Volunteer Service were given at the Annual Meeting. Jul Kamen, volunteer curator of the new Custom House quilt exhibit series and an active volunteer on both the events and heritage properties committees received a President’s Award, as did Anne Boyd, the volunteer who has played the role of Queen Victoria at GHF’s Dickens on The Strand festival for the past 14 years. Joe Willhelm, a President’s Award recipient for ELISSA volunteerism, heads the ELISSA engineering volunteer committee, serves as chairman of the ship operations committee and leads the seamanship training program. Bruce Kuehn, another President’s Award recipient for ELISSA volunteerism, has served as crew member, mast captain, instructor, and committee chair for the Youth Seamanship and Overnight programs over the course of 19 years of volunteer service. A final President’s Award was given to 17-year-old Sean Moran, a Ball High School senior and Eagle Scout who raised $3,300 and organized 290 volunteer hours to purchase materials and construct a fence around Rosewood, Galveston’s first African American Cemetery.

The Award for Outstanding Historic Homes Tour Volunteer went to Joe Mize, an active volunteer who has been involved with GHF since 2006. A member of the events committee as well as three of its subcommittees, she has been a chairman for both Dickens On The Strand and Homes Tour each year, and has financially supported both the events as a sponsor, donating gift certificates from her store, The Beach Cottage, as well as packaging retail items sold during Homes Tour, distributing posters and brochures throughout the city and serving as a true cheerleader for GHF.

The Award for Outstanding Dickens On The Strand Volunteer went to Mary Branum for an exceptional level of volunteer support for Dickens 2007. She organized costumed volunteers for the Houston Thanksgiving Day parade and all Dickens media appearances including Great Day Houston, Fox Television, the Galveston County Daily News, and the Houston Chronicle. She organized a new initiative that took the Dickens costumed entourage to all the elementary schools in GISD and served throughout the weeks leading up to the festival as GHF hostess to VIP Guests including Henry Dickens and Sue Hawksley and the curators from the Charles Dickens Museum in London.