Things continue to happen fast and furiously for the battlefield.  Renovations to the Washington Monument office are going well.  Over $24,000 worth of office equipment, computers, carpeting, HVAC etc., will be going into this effort.  This will eventually become the office for the battlefield operations.  I have hired two new seasonal employees to work at the museum at Washington monument, which is going through it's own facelift to get it open for summer too.  I am checking into the budget to see if it will be possible to hire a second seasonal for Gathland too.  Chuck Wierer will be back in his role as an interpreter at Gathland again and he has already signed his paperwork.  There will also be a seasonal ranger hired for the mountain.  They will work primarily as a maintenance person, but will also assist the rangers by opening and closing parks and some patrol work.  Just like the rangers themselves, the seasonal rangers will rotate through Greenbrier, so you will actually see several different people working on the battlefield through the summer.  The interviews for the two Park Service Associate positions will start soon.  These are the two classified positions that will help me with the interpretation of the battlefield.  So hopefully, before too long, we will actually have a staff here for the battlefield.

I have been talking with Antietam   Battlefield personnel, along with several other people, about loans of Civil War related items and artifacts.  These are being arranged and, once we have some display cases, we will be able to

Townsend and Boneventure Letters Acquired  The Friends have been very fortunate in acquiring 17 letters written by George Alfred Townsend to his son-in-law Edmond Boneventure.  The letters were left in a box at the Thrift Shop of the Samaritan Center in Ooltewah, TN and staff gave them to Mr. John Lamb, the Fundraising Coordinator.  Mr. Lamb was raised in

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