Mermaid Society Symposiums River Guardianship & Arts, Culture & Preservation

Mermaid Society SMTX is preparing for its fourth year of festivities centered around the San Marcos River that runs through the city as well as the arts, culture and history that make it so unique. As part of that celebration, they are hosting their third year of symposiums.

Created to be signature events of the Mermaid SPLASH Festival, the symposiums work as a community platform designed to bring together like-minded individuals from all walks of life to cross-pollinate ideas, collaborate and strengthen connection through engagement.

River Guardianship Symposium: “Nature and

Nurture: Cultivating Community Guardianship”

Join Mermaid Society SMTX on Wednesday, Sept. 11 at the San Marcos Activity Center for the 2019 River Guardianship Symposium: "Nature and Nurture: Cultivating Community Guardianship."

The doors to the River Guardianship symposium will open at 5 p.m. with children’s activities, food and beverages provided by local vendors, live acoustic music by Eric Sarmiento and exhibitor booths including the San Marcos River Foundation, Atlas Environmental, Edwards Aquifer Habitat Conservation Plan, San Marcos Greenbelt Alliance, Eyes of the San Marcos and many more will be out representing their organizations.

The symposium will officially begin at 6 p.m. with opening remarks and a presentation to honor this year’s Mermaid Society SMTX’s River Guardianship Honoree Melani Howard, City of San Marcos habitat conservation plan manager for the Edwards Aquifer Habitat Conservation Plan.

The Symposium will consist of three separate panels that discuss the roles of education and youth in environmental stewardship, balancing recreation and protection in the San Marcos River, and the use of regional land conservation to protect the river.

The first panel, “Engaging Youth in Environmental Education and Stewardship,” will begin at 6:15 p.m. Texas State University Department of Geography Associate Professor Dr. Colleen Myles will moderate the panel that includes Mermaid Society SMTX Youth Programming Director Melody Rose Cuny Baker, Ben Hutchinson of the Edwards Aquifer Research and Data Center and Aquatic Science Adventure Camp, Justine Salsbury of El Ranchito Texas Rivers Expedition, Anne Halsey of the Commission on Children and Youth and the Mental Health Coalition and Chris Cooper of the San Marcos Consolidated Independent School District.

Mermaid Society River Guardianship Committee Chair Dr. Kimberly Meitzen, a Texas State University Department of Geography associate professor, said the impetus behind the symposium is to not only showcase the different organizations that are carrying the helm of youth-oriented environmental education, but to also act as a catalyst to bring more environmental education aimed at engaging youth to the city.

“Education is a really powerful tool, and part of this is looking at how you can have education in a lot of different formats, it doesn't have to happen in the classroom. But a lot more of this is the kind of one-on-one experience with the environment,” Meitzen said. “But we also want to use this symposium as almost a catalyst to bring more energy into the San Marcos community regarding youth, environment, education and stewardship. We feel like there's a lot of opportunities, maybe with school districts or even city summer programs, but we wanted to just draw attention to it to create a catalyst to hopefully build momentum for more of this programming and having it more accessible to all of our youth.”

The first panel will begin with a video presentation about litter and the river by two local children, Benjamin Bauerkemper and Kate Galko.

The second panel, “Balancing Recreation and Protection in the San Marcos Watershed,” will begin at 7 p.m. Dr. Meitzen will moderate the panel that includes Liz Palfini of Palmetto State Park and Texas Parks and Wildlife, Kelly Stone of Fun Boat, Laney Lyle of the San Marcos Lions Club Tube Rental and Zach Halfin of the Eyes of the San Marcos River.

Meitzen said this panel was similar to one held last year at the symposium, but that she felt it was important to continue the conversation on balancing the recreational aspects of the river with the ecological ones.

“We wanted to continue this conversation, because we feel like it's a really important one, to always bring attention to how we're using the river and how we are appreciating it — and it's such a sensitive environment — so also talking about how to balance that with how its managed and protected,” Meitzen said. “We hear so much about how different natural resources can just be loved to death. And there's a balance between providing access and use to them and then also trying to protect and manage them. And so it's very, very sensitive topic. But I think that the bigger the population of San Marcos gets and the more our river becomes known to out of towners, this question is going to become much more pressing and so I think it's important to just start thinking about right now.”

The last panel, “Promoting Local to Regional-Scale Land Conservation,” will begin at 7:45 p.m.

It will be moderated by San Marcos River Foundation Executive Director Dianne Wassenich. The panelists will include Katherine Romans of the Hill Country Alliance, David Baker of the Wimberley Valley Watershed Association, Sherwood Bishop of the San Marcos Greenbelt Alliance and Melani Howard of the City of San Marcos.

Arts, Culture and Preservation Symposium:

"Uniquely San Marcos: Achieving Community through

Communication, Connection, Collaboration”

The Mermaid Society SMTX will be hosting its annual Arts, Culture and Preservation Symposium on Sunday, Sept. 8 from 1-6 p.m. at the Price Center.

This year’s Arts, Culture and Preservation Symposium, entitled "Uniquely San Marcos: Achieving Community through Communication, Connection, Collaboration,” will include three panel discussions on arts and cultural activities and opportunities, as well as a new focus on preservation.

The symposium, according to Mermaid Society Arts, Culture and Preservation Committee Chair Ryan Patrick Perkins, is to build engagement and learn from various local, state and federal groups and organizations working on arts, culture and preservation initiatives.

“Our aim for this symposium is really to get people to leave with the tools and the resources and a little extra knowledge in their back pocket to be able to go out into their community, either as an individual or through their organizations to continue these conversations,” Perkins said.

The first panel, “The Business of Art in Our Local Economy: Tools for maintaining the community-building role that the arts can play in San Marcos,” will start at 1 p.m. Panelists will include Texans for the Arts Executive Director Anne Graham, Price Center Executive Director Clay DeStefano, Texas State University College of Fine Arts & Communication Dean Dr. John Flemming, Jamey Poole of the San Marcos Arts Commission, City of San Marcos Arts Commission Coordinator Trey Hatt, Film Friendly Volunteer Randy Polk and Cheatham Street Foundation Secretary John H. Gilliam, Esq., also known as “Missoula Slim.”

“This panel is about how other communities across the state are harnessing these assets and putting them to work in a way that benefits the community and brings people in using tourism. It’ll focus on the business of art in our local economy, and tools for maintaining the community-building role that the arts can play in San Marcos,” Perkins said.

The second panel, “Sensitive Treatment of Culturally Significant Communities & Resources: Tools for managing and maintaining living heritage embedded within historic fabric,” will start at 2:30 p.m. Featured panelists include City of San Antonio Cultural Historian Claudia Gurerra, Chairman San Marcos Historic Preservation Commission Griffin Spell, Executive Director Centro Cultural Hispano de San Marcos Dr. Ricardo Espinoza and Texas State University Assistant Professor in Occupational, Workforce, and Leadership Studies Dr. Shetay Ashford.

Perkins said this panel will focus on not only the tangible aspects of preservation but the stories of people, heritage and history that make them significant.

“We're talking about living heritage and the people and the stories and how a lot of the conversation that's happening across the state and the U.S. is recognizing that it's not just something’s date and type of building style that made something significant. It's really the stories of the people,” Perkins said.

The final panel, “Leveraging Living Heritage for Economic Prosperity: Tools for empowering people to manage change and build prosperity based upon our cultural heritage,” will start at 4 p.m. Panelists include Ogee Preservation Partner Haley Wilcox, Lindsey Derrington and Kelly Little of Austin Preservation Society, August Harris III of the Preservation Texas Board of Directors, Hays County Historic Commission Chairwoman Kate Johnson and representatives from the Texas Historic Commission.

Perkins said this panel was relevant because San Marcos is standing at a crossroads between the preservation of neighborhoods and historic character and a need for new development in the midst of the city’s growth. But, he said, San Marcos doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel in order to balance the two needs — there are lots of examples to follow.

“The conversation is shifting and it has been shifting over the past couple of years, especially in recent months, about how our community can generate its own economic development from all the things that matter to people here like arts, our cultural heritage and our historic resources. They can be our gold mine, if we know how to harness them,” Perkins said.

The moderator for all three panels will be James Russell, a freelance writer that has been featured in HuffPost, the Houston Chronicle, Dallas Voice, Fort Worth Weekly, Georgia Voice, and the Texas Jewish Post.

The symposium will wrap up with a town-hall-style recap and open discussion with all panelists and community attendees.

Seating is limited for each sessionof the Arts, Culture and Preservation Symposium to 100 people, so a reservation is required by RSVPing via the Facebook event page, www.facebook.com/events/403490656965022. Light refreshments will also be provided.

The symposiums are free and open to all. For more information go to the Mermaid Society SMTX’s website, www.mermaidsocietysmtx.com.

rwillis@sanmarcosrecord.com

Twitter: @rachelcantweet