The Prairie Landscape

The Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award - 2006


Lois Welch Metzger

Nominated By The Honorable Stanley Schaeffer (Deceased)


Collinsville


Lois Welch Metzger

Lifelong Collinsville resident Lois Welch Metzger is recognized with the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award for her leadership and participation in numerous historic preservation and educational activities in her community. Ms. Metzger developed the Collinsville Historic Landmark Awards and designed the plaques that were awarded to 73 Collinsville buildings and sites based on their age, architecture, and historical importance. She is a member of the Friends of the Collinsville Historical Museum and has given programs for this and other community organizations on subjects from "Interesting Women in Collinsville History" to "Blum Cowbells," the product of the historic Collinsville factory. She belongs to the Historic Preservation Commission and has assisted in the effort to have four structures named to the National Register of Historic Places by researching the buildings' histories and presenting the nominations of two of the buildings to the Illinois Sites Advisory Council. Ms. Metzger has also gotten her hands dirty working with the Commission to clean up the circa 1845 D.D. Collins House for its restoration and transformation into a museum. In addition, she helped bring the residents of historic Glenwood Cemetery to life in a fundraising pageant for the Victorian Blum House, doing much of the historical research needed for the pageant's script. Thanks to her efforts to keep local history alive in the schools, an elective class on the subject has been added to the high school curriculum.

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