Preserve Arkansas executive director Rachel Patton and PA board member Bob Kempkes participated in National Historic Preservation Advocacy Week in Washington, D.C., March 2-5. The week was full of policy briefings, tours, and visits to the offices of Senators John Boozman and Tom Cotton and Congressmen Bruce Westerman, French Hill, Rick Crawford, and Steve Womack. The purpose was to advocate for increased funding and reauthorization of the Historic Preservation Fund, support for the Historic Tax Credit Growth and Opportunity Act, and to discuss preservation projects in their districts. As ever, we are grateful for the support of our elected officials! 

>> Click here for more photos from Advocacy Week.

Members of Preserve Arkansas’s board and staff were invited to join Congressman French Hill, North Carolina Congresswoman Alma Adams, and National Park Service employees for a special tour of Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site and the surrounding neighborhood to discuss the importance of maintaining our treasured historic properties and the impediments to and solutions for doing so.

Congresswoman Adams is founder and co-chair, with Hill, of the Bipartisan HBCU Caucus; this visit came on the heels of the HBCU Summit hosted by Hill at Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock. We appreciate the support for historic preservation from our elected officials!

Our 2026 season of Women in Preservation kicked off in February with Katherine Nash of the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program and continued in March with Dr. Emily Bartz of the Arkansas Archeological Survey. Next up, on April 14, will be Heather Davis, AIA, and Kate East, ASID, LEED AP, both of AMR Architects in Little Rock.

Heather Davis, a graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design from Arkansas Tech University and a Master of Architecture from Texas A&M, brings a distinctive perspective and a sincere dedication to placemaking in both rural and urban environments. Hailing from the small town of Hatfield in western Arkansas, Heather has led projects of varying scales and types, with a specific focus on civic and higher education initiatives.

Since 2005, Kate East has been an integral part of the AMR team, seamlessly blending her passion for interior design with an understanding of the practical considerations crucial to successful projects. With a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Lake Forest College in 2005 and a Bachelor of Science in Interior Design from the University of Central Arkansas in 2006, Kate has honed her skills at the intersection of creativity and functionality.

>> Click here to register for our April webinar.

Watch previous Women in Preservation talks on our YouTube channel here.

Each year, Preserve Arkansas's Mid Mod Tour highlights significant Mid-Century Modern architecture in cities throughout the state to raise awareness and encourage appreciation for these buildings. Join us in Arkansas’s capital city on Saturday, June 6 as we partner with the Quapaw Quarter Association to showcase six properties designed by Little Rock architect F. Eugene Withrow. The tour will begin and end at the Tower Building in downtown Little Rock. Tickets are $100 each and include guided tours of the Tower Building and five private residences, trolley transportation, snacks, and a closing reception.

>> Learn more and get tickets or sponsor here!

Your favorite preservation-themed crawfish and shrimp boil is BACK with all the fun and fixings you know and love. Join us on Saturday, May 2 for the best backyard party north of the river featuring all-you-can-eat crawfish at the beautiful Clements & Associates Architecture building in the Argenta Historic District of downtown North Little Rock. Sponsorship and volunteer opportunities available (and both eat free!!).

>> Learn more and get tickets, sponsor, or volunteer here!

On April 25, the American Battlefield Trust will host its 30th annual Park Day. Historic sites nationwide are invited to join this milestone volunteer clean-up event, which falls during National Park Week, National Volunteer Week, and Earth Week, magnifying volunteer efforts and kick-starting activities for America's Semiquincentennial anniversary. Participation is free, and participating sites and organizations will receive promotional support from the American Battlefield Trust to amplify their activities as part of this nationwide movement. The site doesn't need a battlefield to participate — historic sites, museums, and preservation organizations of every kind are welcome. Project possibilities are endless: trail maintenance, archive organization, fence restoration, historic structure painting, native plantings, accessibility improvements, digitizing collections, conservation work, and more.

>> Click here to learn more, register a site, or sign up to volunteer!

We mourn the loss of esteemed lawyer and passionate preservationist John P. Gill, whose enthusiasm for his home state of Arkansas was captured in several books and thousands of photographs taken on his many road trips exploring the state’s history and landscape.

An avid supporter of Preserve Arkansas, John was in 2019 awarded the Parker Westbrook Award for Lifetime Achievement—the highest honor of the Arkansas Preservation Awards.

In addition to his books on post office murals, historic courthouses, and the Governor's Mansion, his innumerable contributions to the state include planning and fundraising for renovations to the Little Rock Visitor Information Center at Curran Hall and to the Firehouse Hostel in MacArthur Park, the installation of the original sculpture “Straight Lines on a Round World” at the Statehouse Convention Center, and a portrait of noted civil rights attorney Scipio A. Jones at the downtown Little Rock post office named after him.

We're devastated by the loss of preservationist extraordinaire and former Preserve Arkansas board member Sandra Taylor Smith, whose exceptional career shaped the way Arkansans experience the state’s built environment. In 1999, Sandra was the youngest recipient of Preserve Arkansas's Parker Westbrook Award for Lifetime Achievement. Among her many outstanding achievements, Sandra authored more than 60 National Register nominations, including historic districts in at least 24 Arkansas cities and historic contexts for buildings designed by Charles L. Thompson, post offices with Section Art murals, and buildings and structures constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps.

She was a champion of the Argenta Historic District in her hometown of North Little Rock, surveying and authoring the National Register nomination for the district in 1993 and advocating for its approval at a time when the larger preservation community did not recognize vernacular architecture and working-class neighborhoods as significant. After writing design guidelines for Argenta's local ordinance historic district, Sandra authored design guidelines for historic district commissions throughout the state. She was the director of the North Little Rock History Commission from 1992 until her retirement last year.