The Historical Preservation Group will be presenting a proposal to the Lenoir County Commissioners on Tuesday January 22 at 4 o'clock. Due to the floods, portions of this Kinston Battlefield (1862) are now owned by Lenoir County. We will be asking the commissioners to designate this area as battlefield and allow HPG to be stewards of the property. Development of these battlefields would bring to our area, tourism, economic growth and awareness of Lenoir County's place in history. If you live in the area and support our efforts to preserve the battlefields please attend this meeting. Members of the group were recently in Washington, D. C. to attend a meeting to discuss the Lenoir County Battlefields with a preservation planner and archeologist with the National Park Service's American Battlefield Protection Program ... Also attending the meeting was the battlefield preservation coordinator with the Civil War Preservation Trust. We came out of this meeting with a good feeling, direction and knowing that these people want to help us.. We met with a member of Sen. John Edward's staff. She will be assisting us with a grant and other support. Martha was kind enough to let us stay with her from Friday until Tuesday. She was a wonderful hostess and a lot of help. Martha thank you so much. We were advised to get a cultural resource survey done and now writing for a grant for it. CWPT is preparing an offer to make to the owner of the 26 acre Wyse Fork Battle Site . We have been working on an Awareness Campaign with press releases, appearances on local cable TV shows, program at civic and club meetings, library displays, brochures, t-shirts, tours of historic sites, web site and anywhere else we can make a plug. Members took two people from the North Carolina Historic Preservation Office on a tour of the Civil War Sites this past week. They did not seem to be aware of just how much history we have here and were very interested. Hope something comes of the visit. We need sustaining members. If you have not joined please do so today. Go to www.historicalpreservationgroup.org for information We need researchers and grant writers. If you would like to help this cause please contact us. Jane Phillips ,