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Park Honors Lincoln and Special Friends
February 18, 2009
With the historic Rylander Theater as a backdrop, the Friends of Andersonville presented its first ever Special Friend Award to Lang Sheffield and Joan Burnett for her late husband, Bill.
The event, entitled “An Evening with Abraham Lincoln,” was sponsored by the Friends of Andersonville and Andersonville National Historic Site.
Over 300 people attended a historic press conference on February 12th, where an actor portraying the 16th President took questions from members of the media and the audience.
Beth Alston, executive editor of the Americus Times Recorder, and Jay Polk, a member of the WALB Channel 10 news team, posed a dozen questions to Dennis Boggs. who has been a Lincoln re-enactor for many years. The questions allowed Lincoln to tell many stories that surround the life of the revered President.
When asked about his most memorable speeches, he offered excerpts from his second inaugural address in 1865 and then gave an emotional recitation of the Gettysburg Address. At that point, he took five questions from the audience. Boggs had been in area schools all week to talk to students about the life of Lincoln and to challenge them to follow his example by expanding their world through books.
Bill Burnett was the first president of the Friends of Andersonville. After a successful career in business, he moved from Ohio to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity and Andersonville. Bill loved to do research and write. Several of his books are sold in the Eastern National store in the park. Because of Bill’s service in the Army during World War II, he was buried in Andersonville National Cemetery.
Lang Sheffield led the way to organize a small group of citizen activists who formed in the 1960’s to have Andersonville included as a unit of the NPS. He also helped to raise awareness and private funding for the construction of a museum to tell the story of all POWs in American history. That dream was realized in 1998. Then, in 2002, he led the effort to acquire a critical piece of land for the park. He traveled to Washington and testified before the House National Parks Subcommittee in support of legislation to expand the park. The Friends purchased the land and then donated the land to the NPS.
The Andersonville Trust is an endowment fund established by the Friends to offer long term operational support to the site. Since its inception in 1996, the trust has contributed over $270,000 to park interpretive programs, event support, land acquisition, resource protection and public relations.
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