If You Go
• What: Sweetheart Hangar Dance, featuring Beacock’s Swing Band.
• Where: Pearson Air Museum, 1115 E. Fifth St., Vancouver.
• When: 7 to 10 p.m. Saturday.
• Cost: $15 per person.
Seventy years ago, a lot of people met for the first time at dances in the airplane hangar at Vancouver Barracks.
Something similar will happen Saturday in the same setting, when the fledgling Friends of the Fort introduce themselves to the community.
The first public event for Friends of Fort Vancouver National Historic Site will be a Valentine’s Day dance in the hangar at Pearson Air Museum, 1115 E. Fifth St.
The event, in the style of USO dances during World War II, will be a fundraiser to support educational programs at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.
If You Go
• What: Sweetheart Hangar Dance, featuring Beacock's Swing Band.
• Where: Pearson Air Museum, 1115 E. Fifth St., Vancouver.
• When: 7 to 10 p.m. Saturday.
• Cost: $15 per person.
“A number of people have talked about such a group for several years,” said Mary Rose, acting director of Friends of Fort Vancouver. “There are more than 700 volunteers at the Historic Site.”
As living-history specialists formed their own guilds, lecture programs grew in popularity and interpreters escorted tours, the need for a support group like the Friends became apparent, Rose said.
The group is not recruiting members yet. It’s still in the process of getting nonprofit status, “which is pretty grueling,” Rose said.
According to their mission statement, the Friends will “cooperate with the National Park Service and partners to help coordinate and support volunteer activities in accomplishing educational, interpretive, conservation, research, planning and improvement projects and programs” to benefit the Historic Site.
Rose comes to the Friends by way of one of those partners. She is a historian with Confluence. Formerly known as the Confluence Project, the group was behind the creation of the Vancouver Land Bridge.
“This national park is built on partnerships,” Fort Vancouver Superintendent Tracy Fortmann said.
Other partners include the city of Vancouver, the McLoughlin House in Oregon City, Ore., and the nonprofit Fort Vancouver National Trust, which operates the Historic Site’s bookstore. The store has temporarily been relocated in Pearson Air Museum while the Visitor Center is being renovated.
The National Trust managed Pearson Air Museum until the Park Service took it over two years ago, but that didn’t scissor their relationship, said Mike True, president of the trust.
“Our goal is to still fulfill the retail role,” True said. “It’s in the best interests of the community for us to complement each other.”
The National Park Service Friends Group directory lists about 200 organizations.
Traveling at his own expense, Roland Emetaz will represent the Fort Vancouver board this weekend in Atlanta at a national conference of NPS Friends groups, Rose said.
