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Submitted by Michelle Allensworth Pendleton and the SCHS Members for Change:  A Renewal and Preservation Group

 

It takes a lot of people to steer and maintain a ship in order to achieve a successful journey. If you can imagine a ship’s crew abundant with passion, motivation, willingness to work together and a deep sense of local history preservation, then that ship would be named the Shelby County Historical Society. From the moment of inception and through the first 20 years, the crew of that great ship energetically and happily toiled to ensure the journey would continue far into the future and was strong enough to weather through stormy seas.

The charter and founding members of the Historical Society were savvy indeed; realizing there must be strong communication amongst themselves and the entire community in their endeavor to gather, preserve and maintain the history of the county and her people.

Roy T. Neff wrote articles which were published in the local papers sharing news about SCHS happenings, especially about new projects and updates as a project progressed and to solicit the community for their help in gathering county history. In one such article, found in the Feb. 26, 1969 Shelbina Democrat, he wrote informing citizens about a plan for the SCHS to institute a new program, pointing out, ”It is highly important that we try to preserve all highly perishable history that is being lost from year to year.”

The new project would focus on preserving the history of all rural and town churches including those that have become extinct. The expectation was it would be a difficult undertaking, especially for those churches that are already gone, but members of the Society believed there might be a treasure trove of records waiting to be discovered in the homes of Shelby County citizens.

Mr. Neff asked, on behalf of the Historical Society, for the help of County citizens to look through trunks and attics, write something about the history of a favorite church during their lifetime, make lists of churches and their township location being sure to add dates when the churches were established and any clues about from who or where records could be found.  He requested information be sent to him soon in order to present it all at the next Historical Society meeting to help guide members on how they can begin.

Society projects had already added 6 volumes to the records and as Roy Neff wrote in his article, “That is a tremendous amount of material, and it is for you to use.”

The last 30 years has experienced, essentially, a virtual silence in the local newspapers between the Historical Society and the people of Shelby County; an oversight which can be remedied with the reestablishment of the communication practices through which the very active and savvy early leadership and members utilized very well.

The vital connection between the organization and the County community is key, as Mr. Roy T. Neff wrote in one of his articles, “I want you to be fully aware that our county newspapers are responsible for what success we have had in our programs. Without being able to get information that we want to the public we couldn’t get to first base. Publicity is the success of our programs.” 

Our wise SCHS predecessors would certainly assert wholeheartedly; no matter how rough is the stormy sea, the crew of the Shelby County Historical Society refuses to sink beneath the waves.

 As present-day SCHS custodians, we wholeheartedly assert the same.