On Wednesday, January 17, 2018, Orlando Remembered,Inc.,met at the Orange County Regional History Center, 65 E. Central Blvd., Orlando FL. Meeting was called to order at 9:00 a.m., followed by the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America. Attending were:
Claude Wolfe, President
Grace Chewning, Secretary/Treas.
Joe Baker
Don Batchelor
Tom Beaty
John Camichos
Shirley Cannon
Richard Forbes
Rodney Kincaid
John Olin
Gail Padgett
Bunny Parish
Tana Porter
George Rodon
Jane Tracy
Bob Woodbery
Dr. Bernard Kahn
Dan Quilty
Katherine Schloetzer
David Woolford
Dee Woolford
- PRESENTATION: Guest speaker, Dr. Bernard Kahn, DDS, provided an extremely interesting mosaic on how the Jewish contingent came to settle in the Orlando area during the 1800s after immigrating from eastern European countries and South America, citing the myriad contributions by the families toward development of Central Florida in agriculture, government and a kaleidoscope of Jewish-owned business ventures.
- MINUTES: The December 13 minutes were approved as written on motion of J. Camichos, seconded by R. Kincaid and vote carried.
- TREASURER’S REPORT: $27,435.51 [including $10,000 in Andrew N. Serros Legacy Endowment Fund] as of 12-31.
- NEW BUSINESS: FWELCOME Dan Quilty as a new History Warrior! Contact info is: 3519 Edlingham Ct., Belle Isle 32812, 772-214-5228, [email protected].
- ON-GOING ACTIVITIES: () Historical Society members are invited to VIP reception for “Things Come Apart Exhibit” at the History Center on February 9th, 6-8 p.m.
() Tiffany Rivera reported by email that: news of the past is no longer limited to newspaper print as the result of a collaborative partnership between the Museum of Seminole County History, the Sanford Museum and the University of Central Florida History Department. Seminole County Historical Society led the initiative by raising funds to cover the costs of digitizing original newspapers and microfilm published from 1908 to 2005. Over 300 rolls of microfilm were digitized by local business partner, EZ Photo Scan. The Sanford Historical Society also joined the effort with fundraising, making the project a true working partnership. Together, these historical societies dedicated countless hours to review completed scans, provide quality control and assure that scans were legible. Without their tireless effort, this treasure trove of newspapers would remain physically archived without digital preservation. Final digitized images were supplied to RICHES to complete optical character recognition (OCR), a technology that enables the conversion of various types of documents into editable and searchable data. The OCR process ran continuously for nearly six months. Earlier newspapers were very slow to process due to print quality, but the more recent documents are processing much faster. Issues published from 1908 to 1962 are currently available digitally [https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/sanford_herald/]. As the OCR process continues, newspapers beyond 1962 will also be available through RICHES. Also,“the RICHES project at UCF continues its work to enhance and improve the Bookbag feature of the RICHES Mosaic Interface. The project received a grant to conduct research on the tool in an effort to make it better for users. Several focus groups with community members and academic audiences took place over the fall semester. The RICHES project will offer a History Harvest workshop in the spring to show community members how to collect historical items for digitation. Orlando Rememberedmay be interested in attending or partnering to plan the workshop.”
- ANNOUNCEMENTS/GOOD OF THE ORDER: JShirley Cannon reminded the Pine Castle Woman’s Club Chili Cook-Off is this Friday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. JJohn Camichos noted that daughter Lisa’s on-going meetings are proceeding with officials in Volos, Greece, to assist in producing a documentary on the “Orlando Plan.” JREMINDER: Periodically check out our website and Facebook, www.orlandoremembered.org& https://www.facebook.com/groups/71485598736/, for photos/info posted by Webmaster Ron Jaffe!
- ORLANDOANS REMEMBERED: People whose lives were so important to so many, who helped make Orlando a great City and whose passing represents a significant loss to our community: Robert H. “Bob” Elrod; Judge Rom Watson Powell; Albert “Al” Kelly; James “Jimmy” Kuykendall; John Tanner Pattillo; Ruth Agnes Gentile; Gary L. Patterson; Phyllis Hughes; Dr. Manuel J. Coto.
- ADJOURNMENT:There being no further business, meeting was adjourned at 10:20 a.m. Next regular meeting is Wednesday, February 21, 9:00 a.m.
Grace Ann Chewning, Secretary-Treasurer