The Loretta Y. Jackson-African American Historical Society has been selected as a winner in the category of Preservation Projects for the African American Museum and One-Room School Restoration Project in the 2008 Annual Awards Program presented by the Oklahoma Museums Association.

“I’m so excited about the fact that the school has withstood the tests of time,” said Jackson. “But this award belongs to all of the individuals who see the value in preserving history and who have helped with this project from day one. I want everyone to feel it belongs to everyone who resonates with a one-room schoolhouse and to anyone who wants to learn more about them.”

The awards recognize outstanding achievement by museums and individuals throughout the state during the past year. Award categories include exhibitions, promotional pieces, publications, websites, newsletters, conservation projects and education programs. The competition is divided into four budget categories.

In addition, certificates of recognition honor the contributions of an individual, group or business to Oklahoma museums or a specific museum or community. This year, the Laura McDonagh Streich Award to the Profession will also be presented.

Restoration of the one-room school was completed on Feb. 27, 2007. it was built circa 1910 by Allen Toles, an African American farmer, on land he acquired through the Homestead Act of 1862, for African American children, grades one through eight, near the town of Verden.

Once located on a farm and later used as a barn, the schoolhouse, threatened with demolition, was rescued and moved to Chickasha in 2004 as a rare, surviving example of a one-room separate school. The building retains a great deal of historic fabric relating to its use as a schoolhouse; the move did not jeopardize the existing materials.

Care was taken to save this rare and important building, which now rests on a concrete foundation on Ada Sipuel Avenue where it has been restored, with added ADA requirements, to its original exterior appearance.

“The LYJ-AAHS Project has been supported by the generous help and donations of an extraordinary group of local, state and national individuals,” said Jackson.

The African-American Museum/One-Room School restoration is an official project of the Oklahoma Centennial Commemoration and was funded, in part, through a grant made possible by the Oklahoma Legislature. The relocation of the Verden Separate School from Verden to Chickasha was funded, in part, by the Oklahoma Department of Commerce.

A grant from the National Trust of Historic Preservation, through the establishment of the endowed Ruth and Allen Mayo Fund for Historic Preservation in Oklahoma, provided consultant services for the architectural drawing of the museum complex and to restore the one-room school. A grant from the National Trust of Historic Preservation made it possible to restore the roof of the one-room school.

In addition, the Verden Separate One-Room School was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005, the only known wood-framed one-room school to be built on black land by black people for black children that still exists in Oklahoma.

Award recipients will be honored on Friday, Sept. 26 in Bartlesville. The keynote speaker will be Gene Batchelder, senior vice president, services and chief information officer of Conoco-Phillips.

A historic association exists between the city and the school. When the Verden Separate School was abandoned in 1935 due to consolidation, its students were transported to the separate school in Chickasha. Since its relocation, the Verden separate school is also recognized as “the school that followed its students.” Edna McDonald Irby and Janie Roberts of Chickasha attended this school.