State to bestow award on Port Aransas group

Nancy Phillips will travel to Houston in April to accept an award on behalf of the Port Aransas Preservation and Historical Association president. Phillips is PAPHA president.

The Texas Historical Commission will bestow its Award of Excellence in Preserving History on PAPHA at its annual conference in Houston, April 22-24.

The award recognizes achievements in preservation planning, historic site identification, preservation of signifi- cant archival or artifact collections, or research that leads to a greater understanding of state or local history.

It is not the first time the commission has recognized PAPHA. In 2003 the THC awarded Port Aransas distinction as a Visionary in Preservation Community.

Since PAPHA laid out its mission statements in 2002, “the town now has a grant-supported lecture series, a widely circulated electronic newsletter and informative Web site, an educational outreach program, a museum—the structure of which is itself historic, an archive whose originator has been recognized by an upper echelon historical organization, a productive multi-person research and writing enterprise, land and sea historical tours, and new Texas state historical markers,” according to interim museum co-director J. Guthrie Ford.