This is a longover due thank you.
Late last year, I received an email from Gary Estep, someone who is working to restore historical markers throughout North Texas.
He wanted to restore the plaque on the front of our office that explains the history of this newspaper.
He told me in the initial message that he has restored plaques in Gainesville, Whitney and McKinney.
Estep asked for no compensation, just permission to do the work.
When I said yes that day, he stopped by and restored the marker, taking the background from the faded gray it had become to the deep black it should be, and shining up the silver frame, lettering and other details to their original shine.
I thanked him, and he shared why he does what he does. 'Backstory on restoring historical markers is I was doom scrolling through Tik-Tok one day and came across a guy that made videos restoring markers all over Texas (chrisrestores),' he wrote on Nov. 23. 'I found a how-to video on the Texas Historical Committee website and started doing them two months ago. 'To date I have done around 20 throughout the North Texas area. Restoring the markers is just done on a volunteer basis to help keep the history of the area alive and keep the historical committee from having to replace markers at a cost of up to $2,500 for a larger marker.'
Keeping the history alive is something that hits home this week, especially when my colleagues at the Gatesville Messenger have lost every archived copy of the work that paper had done back to the 1800s in a fire that destroyed an entire side of their square.
To be a source of living history for our area matters.
To know that there are people like Estep out there who value the history of our state enough to spend their free time keeping it alive is a beautiful reminder of why it matters.
Abigail Bardwell is the Editor & Publisher of the Post-Signal. She can be reached at [email protected].
