Blue Grass Trust awards first Yvonne Giles Award for research in Black history

The Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation held its annual meeting and Award Ceremony at the Dr. Thomas Hunt Morgan House on June 27. In addition to the eleven awards annually given out, the Trust added a new award: the first Yvonne Giles Award, given to an individual, group or project for contributing to research of African American or other culturally inclusive history in the Bluegrass.

Yvonne Giles, well known for a lifetime of work researching and sharing African American history Kentucky, as well as her involvement with Phoenix Rising and African Cemetery No. 2, was the obvious choice for the name of the new award.

Brenda Jackson of Versailles received the 2021 Yvonne Giles award. Jackson exemplifies advocacy leadership supporting the historic preservation movement in Central Kentucky. Brenda has researched, fundraised, and co-chaired efforts to place Kentucky Historical Highway Markers at several sites in her hometown of Versailles as well as Midway.

Jackson, who is retired from the Kentucky Department of Education, makes “helping people to keep from being forgotten” her personal mission. She began her foray into historic research on the Second Christ Church in Midway, Kentucky. At Lexington Theological Seminary, Brenda found the history of Second Christian Church written by Katherine Johnson in the late 1940’s. From its beginnings as a log church on Midway College’s campus (then know as the Kentucky Female Orphans’ School) Brenda discovered Second Christian Church is the oldest African American Disciples of Christ Church in the United States established before the Civil War.

Recently, Brenda assisted with research on Huntertown, an African American Community founded after the Civil War. The historic marker for this site has been approved and its interpretive park opening will occur in late August of this year.

The Blue Grass Trust’s 2021 Annual Award winners are as follows:

Preservation Craftsmen Award: Cutting Edge Construction Services, Shelbyville;

Public Service to Preservation Award: Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, Lexington;

Clay Lancaster Heritage Award: Reinette Jones, Notable Kentucky African Americans Database, Lexington;

Community Preservation Award: Ouita and Chris Michel, restaurants in historic locations throughout the Bluegrass;

Barbara Hulette Award: Laura Freeman, Mt. Folly Farm, Winchester; Sharyn Mitchell, Berea;

Lucy Shropshire Crump Volunteer Award: Joe Turley, Lexington;

Dot Crutcher Award: Janie Fergus, Lexington;

Clyde Carpenter Adaptive Reuse Award: Greyline Station, Lexington;

Landscape Preservation Award: Floracliff Nature Sanctuary, Lexington;

Lucy Graves Advocacy Award: Media Collaboratory, Lexington;

John Wesley Hunt Award: Yvonne Giles, Lexington;

Yvonne Giles Award: Brenda Jackson, Versailles;

Brittany Sams is the preservation specialist with the Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation.