Our View
By HDN Editorial Board
People have already started helping the H. Earl and Margaret Turner Clack Memorial Museum Foundation in its time of need, but more help is needed to save its Heritage Center.
The foundation needs to raise $15,000 by Aug. 30 to make a lease payment so the city of Havre can make its final payment to purchase the old post office from the U.S. Postal Service. If that payment isn't made, the Postal Service could reclaim the building and evict the Clack museum and other tenants.
The services the foundation provide to the area are admirable. As well as providing the museum and shows in the art gallery at the center, it helps maintain the Wahkpa Chu'gn bison kill site and is working to restore the old post office, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, to its former glory.
Members of the foundation board have said Havreites seem to think that because it is the Clack Foundation, it must have money and not need any support. Not true, they say.
The money the foundation did have has been used up on lease payments, restoration, support of its programs and in matching payments it has to make to get grants. If the public doesn't help, the Heritage Center could well be gone.
We urge everyone who can to help this effort. Preserving the heritage of the area is something everyone should support.
The foundation is making efforts to make the center self-sustaining. The rent they could receive for space in the building should more than pay the expenses of maintaining it, but all of those spaces are not yet filled. Until they are, everyone should support the foundation in its efforts.
Members of the foundation will be at the Holiday Village Shopping Center Saturday from 10 a.m. to about 1:30 p.m. with information about the museum and the foundation and its programs and needs. Stop by and ask them questions, and help them in their time of need.
