Kellermans honored at preservation awards

Drs. Mary Ann And Bert Kellerman of Cape Girardeau and the Kellerman Foundation for Historic Preservation will be honored Thursday at the 2014 Statewide Historic Preservation Honor Awards Ceremony in Jefferson City, Mo., according to a news release from the Missouri Alliance for Historic Preservation.

The Kellerman Foundation was established in 2012; since 1971 the Kellermans have been involved in purchasing historic buildings, restoring them and listing them on the National Register of Historic Places. Their most recent project was restoration of the Oliver-Leming House in Cape Girardeau, which is the home in which Marie Watkins Oliver designed Missouri's first flag, adopted in 1913. To celebrate the flag's centennial, the Kellermans hosted a program, tours and receptions in what has become known as "The Flag House," and the restoration was celebrated as a centerpiece of the Missouri Conference on History, sponsored by the State Historical Society of Missouri and held in Cape Girardeau in 2013.

The year before, the couple established a nonprofit foundation to support preservation, especially in Southeast Missouri, and have ensured the Oliver-Leming House eventually will be gifted to the foundation to serve as a house museum to commemorate the state flag.

In addition, the foundation has awarded three grants for local preservation projects. One will fund the nomination of the Miller House, Missouri's 2013 Most Endangered Historic Place, to the National Register of Historic Places.

More information is available at preservemo.org or by calling 314-619-1941