By JONATHAN ZWEYGARDT
Hays Post
A group of Ellis County residents hope their passion and dedication will lead to the revival of the Ellis County Historical Society.
In March, Amanda Rupp was appointed the interim director of the Ellis County Historical Society and Amanda Unrein and Adam Conkey were hired part-time. The board also expanded to 16 members in an effort to get new faces involved in the historical society’s efforts.
Rupp, who worked at the historical society with for Director Donald Westfall from 2012 to 2015, took on the role of director as a volunteer after the previous director left amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
On top of the pandemic that forced the historical society to close its doors to the public, it is also dealing with structural issues and a lack of space.
In 2019, the historical society was forced to close the historic First Presbyterian Church, at the corner of Seventh and Main streets, because of a mold issue. The building has also suffered water and other structural damage.
Rupp said they are now in the process of moving artifacts that were stored at two locations off campus back to the historical society campus because they can no longer use those storage locations.
“Because of the pandemic, and because of structural difficulties and because a loss of staffing, it feels a little bit like we’re starting over,” Rupp said.
Rupp said the board has looked at several ideas to help the historical society rebound but, for one reason or another, those ideas, many of which she called great, have fallen short of expectations.
“It’s time to make some action. There’s no other way to go,” Rupp said. “This just can’t sit here. It deserves a future.”
Rupp said because several artifacts and pieces of the historical society’s collection have been moved around, they are focused on getting everything back in one location.
“Our first priority is getting our collection under one roof and accessing what we have,” Rupp said.
Once they have everything collected and stored in one location, Rupp said they can begin talking about space.
Amanda Unrein said she knows that that may be difficult for people to understand.
“It’s all behind-the-scenes work that we are doing,” Unrein said. “A lot is happening. It’s not stuff you can physically see unless you’re behind the scenes.”
The historical society was a topic of discussion at a pair of Ellis County Commission budget hearings earlier this year.
The group requested the same funding as in prior years, $72,000, as instructed by the commission. Commission Chairman Butch Schlyer said that money “just allows you to crash and burn” and “that’s throwing good money after bad money.”
Unrein said, “It’s hard for us to put a number on that because we’re only four to five months in a this point so we don’t know,” she added. “I know that’s not an answer that anybody wants to hear that’s just the reality of it.”
The commission has since agreed to provide the funding for 2022 but only if the historical society board provides monthly updates to the commission through the rest of the year.
After receiving just $3,000 from the City of Hays for budget year 2021, the historical society requested $20,899 for 2022. They received $12,000 in 2020. The city will hold budget discussions in August before finalizing the 2022 budget in September.
Because of the structural issues of the church there are questions about its viability. In 2019, Rupp said they received an estimate of $1.6 million to fix the building. That did not include the costs of remodeling the building and bringing it up to ADA compliance.
The historical society owns the entire lot from Main Street west to Fort Street, and Rupp said the board has considered building an entire campus to go along with the three buildings on site, but the cost was estimated at more than $16 million.
Rupp said they understand that the historical society cannot rely fully on funding from public entities to operate.
“We understand the challenges, that an entity like this cannot sustain itself from public funding along,” Rupp said. “It has to have a revenue source.”
Rupp said, “This year we’re putting in a maximum amount of elbow grease and to do so what we need is a little bit more operating costs funds.”
Rupp said they hope to increase the two new employees' paid hours from 10 to 20 hours.
She added that the most recent directors did a great job of taking care of the programming and “front of house” issues but she believes more attention needs to be paid to the “back of house” issues.
“That’s what the historical society has going for it right now,” Rupp said. “They already have a massive, amazing collection and now they have a good strong board that is willing to work together and three fresh faces, young enough to maybe put some back work into it, that are part of this community that want to see it through for pride.”
The board purchased a cataloging system a few years ago, and they really have not gotten to use it to its full capacity, according to Rupp, so they are planning on using it to better the experience as they get everything located and properly stored.
This year marks the 50th year for the historical society, and Rupp said she plans to reach out to founding members and volunteers to talk about the early years because of all the issues they are dealing with, “it feels a little bit like we’re starting over,” Rupp said.
Another focus for the group will be raising funds. They are hoping to increase their sponsorship numbers after they have dwindled in recent years.
Unrein said they are also working on grants and fundraising opportunities in the future in hopes of helping with the budget.
“We realize that we can’t sustain ourselves on public funding,” Unrein said. “So, we are going out there and we are doing the leg work.”
Rupp and Unrein said they are also urging members of the community and service groups who are interested helping through volunteer work to reach out.
Unrein said they also welcome help and input from the community.
Both Rupp and Unrein said despite the challenges and some of the negativity they have encountered so far, they are determined to succeed.
“We’re going to focus our attention on our priorities,” Unrein said. “However, another one of our priorities is to definitely make sure that the community knows we’re here, knows we’re getting work done, knows we’re moving forward. That we are here (and) we’re not going anywhere."
You can find more information on the historical society through their Facebook page.
