Northeast News
April 22, 2015

Dear Editor:

What’s up with the inaccurate quote of Northeast Kansas City Historic Society’s [NEKCHS] perspective of Thacher in last week’s Northeast News? Please see below and attached for many of the things that our group has done to show support to saving this important structure.

1) I attended the first meeting (about two years ago) of about 15 people at Bryan Stalder’s house where it was determined that action needed to be taken to save Thacher.

2) Also in 2014, based on a board decision, NEKCHS made a nominal financial contribution to the Save Thacher initiative.

3) On behalf of NEKCHS, I wrote a letter of support to the Kansas City School Board on behalf of NEKCHS. See attached.

4) I invited Bryan Stalder to attend an NEKCHS meeting when he was looking for a not-for-profit entity to house contributions toward Thacher.

5) I was one of six attendees at an additional meeting at the Northeast Library about a year ago.

6) I spoke to Amanda Crawley, president of the Historic Kansas City Foundation, on more than one occasion about what could be done to save Thacher.

7) Representing NEKCHS, I attended the “Thacher-a-Thon” last summer, along with about 30 others. This walk around the building to pick up trash was created to help raise awareness of Thacher’s value-add to the community.

8) I attended a more recent Save Thacher meeting at the Northeast Library this past February. At all of these meetings, I expressed support and suggestions for retaining Thacher.

9) I attended the Thacher walk-through earlier this month where I spoke with two of the demo crew, asking (among other things) if a portion of the facade could be retained.

10) After the walk-through, I corresponded with Shannon Jaax at the School Board, again, asking for a portion of the facade to be retained to honor the architecture and history (as was done with the Jenkins Music Company downtown on Walnut Street).

Kent T. Dicus

President, Northeast Kansas City Historical Society

www.nekchs.com