The Board of Directors of the Preservation Association of Lincoln is pleased to announce that Eileen E. Bergt, immediate past president of PAL, has received a “Heritage Hero Award” from the History Nebraska Board of Trustees. The award was presented to Eileen by Sean Flowerday, a member of the History Nebraska Board of Trustees, at PAL’s annual meeting on June 26th , 2022, at the recently-rehabilitated historic Sky Park Apartments at 1301 Lincoln Mall. Eileen was presented a certificate and a “Heritage Hero” pin. The History Nebraska Board of Trustees presents this award to individuals statewide who have been doing “unsung volunteer work for years” on behalf of their organizations.

In its 2020 letter nominating Eileen for this award, the PAL Board of Directors stated that she epitomizes “unsung volunteer work,” not only for PAL, but also as an example for other volunteer organizations. Eileen’s award was designated by the History Nebraska Board of Trustees as a 2021 award, but due to the pandemic, it was not publicly presented to her until PAL’s annual meeting in June 2022.

A major thrust of PAL is preservation education, and a keystone project for fulfilling that mission has been regular monthly Brown Bag Lectures on preservation-related topics, presented by a wide variety of individuals. Eileen has continuously served as the organizer and coordinator of PAL’s Brown Bag Lectures since 1993; that means that she has personally and single-handedly arranged over 320 monthly one-hour Brown Bag Lectures on a wide range of historic preservation-related topics in the past 30 years! The Lectures have been scheduled (prior to the pandemic) during the noon hour on the second Tuesday of each month and have been presented in the Blackman Auditorium at the Nebraska History Museum in Lincoln.

PAL has arranged for the City of Lincoln’s public channel television to videorecord each Brown Bag Lecture and telecast all of them on the LNKTV-City station. Also, the PAL Brown Bag Lectures are posted on the PAL website and are available, as well, online via YouTube. Eileen’s work on this 30-year project has included identifying speakers, communicating the unique details of the format to the speakers, preparing postcard announcements of each Lecture for mailing to PAL members and various public officials, coordinating with the media staff at LNKTV-City, and introducing the speaker at the time of the Lecture — a wide range of major responsibilities requiring a very significant amount of time and effort. Eileen also has been active in seeking and arranging financial support to pay for the cost of video recording many of these lectures. Eileen has seriously and willingly taken on all of these responsibilities without complaint and without fail for 30 years!

And that’s not all! Eileen has served as president of the Preservation Association of Lincoln during the past three years (including the 2020 and 2021 pandemic years), but she also served a term as PAL president in the earlier years of the organization. She has been a member of the PAL Board of Directors since the organization was founded in 1993. She has helped organize various fundraising events, as well as PAL’s annual cluster of activities during Preservation Month. She has actively served on various PAL committees over the years. Eileen is a tireless volunteer!

Eileen is a native Nebraskan who grew up on a farm near Schuyler, Nebraska. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies (BSAS) degree at the University of Nebraska‒Lincoln and her Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) degree at Kansas State University. She is a licensed professional landscape architect in Nebraska. Her early professional employment was with private-sector consulting firms in Lincoln. She has been employed at the University of Nebraska‒Lincoln for several years and is currently Assistant Director of Landscape Services in the Facilities Maintenance and Operations Division of UNL’s Business and Finance Department.

The PAL Board of Directors believes that Eileen E. Bergt is exceedingly well-qualified and deserving as a volunteer to be recognized and honored with the Heritage Hero Award! We congratulate her for receiving this award, and we thank her for her generous service to PAL!

Eileen E. Bergt Receives Heritage Hero Award