Trust Hosts Annual Conference; Retired CWN Editor Is Honored

By Nancy Jennis Olds · Originally published August 2016 · p. 2

Civil War Trust President James Lighthizer presents retired Civil War News editor and publisher Kay Jorgensen with the Edwin C. Bearss Lifetime Achievement Award. She received a framed Vermont honorary enlistment certificate with plaque. Jorgensen donated the framed Don Troiani Gettysburg print “Retreat by Recoil,” at left, for which raffle tickets were sold.

GETTYSBURG, Pa. — Civil War Trust’s annual conference in early June celebrated a great year for the Trust and a sterling moment for the Civil War News. Declaring it to be the largest annual conference ever, with over 500 attendees, “High Tide at Gettysburg” was hosted at the Wyndham Gettysburg. The conference opened with a Thursday luncheon and day of historian talks. Representatives of non-profit organizations that protect hallowed battlefields of the Revolutionary War, War of 1812 and Civil War, and book vendors, were set up nearby. On Friday and Saturday members and their guests took part in bus and walking tours of battlefields and historic locations within and surrounding Gettysburg. Trust President James Lighthizer presided over the Saturday night banquet where he recognized participating organizations and scholarship sponsors in the audience. Three awards were given: State Leadership Award to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission; Shelby Foote Preservation Legacy Award to Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star reporter Clint Schemmer, who has been covering preservation since the 1980s; and the Edwin C. Bearss Lifetime Achievement Award to recently retired Civil War News editor and publisher Kay Jorgensen. Earlier in the conference the Brian Pohanka Preservation Organization of the Year Award was given to the Princeton Battlefield Society and the Land Conservancy of Adams County. In presenting the Bearss Lifetime Achievement Award, Lighthizer said, “We give it rarely – four or five times over the years.” It was given posthumously to Deborah Fitts, a longtime Civil War News assistant editor.

He related how Kay and her husband Peter, who died in 2009, started The Artilleryman magazine in 1979 and Civil War News, “the Bible in our business,” in 1989. The newspaper “helped our industry, our movement and our business” with the help of great reporters, not the least of whom was Deborah Fitts, Lighthizer said. Noting the newspaper’s recent change in ownership, he praised Civil War News for its “long, long number of years of recognition, help and assistance with our business.” Lighthizer gave Jorgensen a large framed Vermont honorary enlistment certificate for 13th Vermont, Co. I, member Jerry Hutchinson, whose regiment helped repulse Pickett’s Charge. “Kay, you and, God rest his soul, Pete, were just tremendous,” said Lighthizer.

Former Civil War News publisher Kay Jorgensen, left, and Linda Hoyt, right, who was circulation manager and spent 16 years at the newspaper, drove from Vermont to Gettysburg for the Civil War Trust’s annual conference at which Jorgensen was honored.

Jorgensen said that 30 years ago June 2 the couple sold their suburban Boston weekly newspapers. They had recently bought The Civil War Book Exchange, a small quarterly publication founded by Michael Cavanaugh and published in Philadelphia. A few weeks later they were in Gettysburg for the book and relic shows. A year later they returned to Gettysburg for the shows and attended Jerry Russell’s Civil War Round Table Congress. Jorgensen said that she didn’t remember much about the conference other than walking across Pickett’s Charge land “behind this fast-walking, loud-talking guy with no notes and, of course, it was Ed Bearss – before he became a legend.” She thanked the Trust for the honor of receiving an award named for Bearss. The newspaper evolved, becoming Civil War News in 1989. It covered the Civil War battlefield preservation movement from those early years when the Jorgensens met many of the young historians, some of whom founded the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites in 1987, which became today’s Civil War Trust. She said the newspaper promoted battlefield preservation from the beginning to today. “If you are not courageous enough to take risks you are never going to accomplish anything,” Lighthizer told banquet guests. That includes creating such a national preservation organization. The Trust has since saved more than 43,000 acres of hallowed ground in 23 states. Some 956 of those protected acres are in Gettysburg, most recently Gen. Robert E. Lee’s headquarters on Seminary Ridge. The Mary Thompson House was in the midst of fighting and served as a hospital during the July 1-3, 1863, battle at Gettysburg. For information about Civil War Trust go to www.civilwartrust.org. Contact Civil War News at email [email protected] or website www.civilwarnews.com.