{"id":61137,"date":"2014-08-29T08:35:03","date_gmt":"2014-08-29T13:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/?p=61137"},"modified":"2014-08-29T08:35:03","modified_gmt":"2014-08-29T13:35:03","slug":"regional-partners-celebrate-heritage-designation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/2014\/08\/regional-partners-celebrate-heritage-designation\/","title":{"rendered":"Regional partners celebrate heritage designation"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recent public celebration at Hopson Commissary <\/a>in Clarksdale officially launched the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area (MDNHA), a partnership between the people of the Mississippi Delta and the National Park Service.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis designation, which was signed a few weeks ago by the Secretary of the Interior, was a culmination of over five years of hard work by the governing board and input from citizens throughout the Delta who cared deeply about this special place called the Mississippi Delta,\u201d said Spencer Nash, vice chair of the governing board the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are less than 50 National Heritage Areas around the country, and you must undergo a rigorous management planning process in order to receive your official designation and get the seal of approval from the National Park Service. We have achieved that milestone and are looking forward to instituting plans and activities that are outlined in our management plan that will allow the Delta to more fully reap the rewards of heritage and cultural activities,\u201d said Nash.<\/p>\n

The MDNHA was authorized under federal law in 2009, with strong support by Congressman Bennie Thompson and Senators Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker.\u00a0 Like other National Heritage Areas, it is a legal partnership between a defined geographic region and the National Park Service. In the Delta\u2019s case, it is all of the 18 counties that include the alluvial floodplain of the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers.\u00a0 The partnership is designed to promote the Delta\u2019s heritage in ways that benefit its people, both by spreading information about history and culture and by stimulating economic development based primarily on heritage tourism.<\/p>\n

The planning process involved public meetings, surveys, interviews and an inventory of heritage resources. It resulted in the production of a formal management plan, a document that describes what the National Heritage Area will do and how it will be governed and managed for the first decade of operation.\u00a0 The Management Plan must be evaluated and approved by several federal agencies and then approved by the National Park Service, a process that ended this past July when the National Park Service gave final approval of the management plan. The Delta Center for Culture and Learning at Delta State University manages the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur management plan will guide the next decade of work by the Heritage Area,\u201d said John Hilpert, chair of the governing board and the Governor\u2019s appointee. \u201cWe expect that the National Park Service\u2019s designation will draw visitors to the Delta from all over the world, and it will allow the people of the Delta to tell their own stories. This is the place that people need to visit to learn about the Blues, the Civil Rights Movement, agriculture, the Mississippi River, and so many other things.\u201d<\/p>\n

More information about the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area, including the complete approved Management Plan, is available at\u00a0www.msdeltaheritage.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area, as authorized by Congress in 2009, includes 18 counties \u2013 Bolivar, Carroll, Coahoma, DeSoto, Holmes, Humphreys, Issaquena, Leflore, Panola, Quitman, Sharkey, Sunflower, Tallahatchie, Tate, Tunica, Warren, Washington and Yazoo. The Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area is governed by a board of directors representing agencies and organizations defined in the Congressional legislation and is managed by the Delta Center for Culture and Learning at Delta State University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recent public celebration at Hopson Commissary in Clarksdale officially launched the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area (MDNHA), a partnership between the people of the Mississippi Delta and the National…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":61139,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[362,29],"class_list":["post-61137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-delta-center","tag-mississippi-delta-national-heritage-area","tag-the-delta-center"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61137"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61140,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61137\/revisions\/61140"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/news-and-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}