Message from SESAH President

Dear SESAH friends,

After much deliberation, the SESAH Executive and Conference committees have reluctantly decided to postpone our Natchez conference until the fall of 2021 due to concerns about COVID-19 and its effect on our members and our hosts. But don’t despair—there will still be a SESAH get-together on Zoom! We are excited about the slate of papers proposed by our inveterate members, and papers chair Leslie Sharp and her committee are putting those together into a one-day paper session extravaganza to be held on Friday, October 2, 2020 from 9:00AM to 5:00PM Eastern Time/8:00AM to 4:00PM Central Time.

The SESAH Board and its committees will be working over the next few weeks to (re)arrange paper sessions to fit the new format, build the website for an easy registration experience, and begin training presenters and moderators who need help on Zoom. Look for registration to go live in mid-August (we’re shooting for August 15).

To encourage the participation of every SESAH member, the usual registration fee will be waived for all members. For non-members, there is a low registration rate of $20 ($10 for students) and as an added bonus that payment can be applied to an annual membership. Help attract new conference attendees and members this year who might not normally think about joining a regional chapter by spreading the word to your professional friends about our virtual conference and the benefits of SESAH membership

If you’re unsure of your membership status, contact Lydia Brandt, Membership Guru, who will consult The Spreadsheet and tell you what it reveals. If you know you need to renew your membership, you can do that with just a few clicks on the SESAH website: https://sesah.org/join-support-contact/

I know all of us are still looking forward to experiencing Natchez in person. Mark your calendars for September 29-October 2, 2021, when our conference chair Carter Burns and his colleagues at the Historic Natchez Foundation look forward to showing off their city and their decades of preservation work. Memphis was originally scheduled for Fall 2021, but we plan to also move that back a year to 2022–stay tuned.

I’ll miss greeting you all in person in October, but I look forward to “seeing” you all virtually on Zoom on October 2.

For more information go to our 2020 Virtual Conference page.

Jennifer Baughn
Jackson, Miss.
SESAH President