The Dan River Basin Association’s Annual Membership Celebration on Saturday, March 1 at 10:00 a.m., in South Boston’s historic “Prizery” will include all the major elements of the Association’s mission in its business session, invited speakers and after-meeting hike.  The organization’s mission is preserving and promoting the region’s rivers and culture through education, recreation and stewardship.

 

The short business session will include election of officers and board members and the introduction of new employees for both the Virginia and the North Carolina activities of the Dan River Basin Association.

 

Carl Espy, Halifax, Virginia Town Manager and DRBA board member, has announced that the gathered members will be hearing from Chris Jones, Executive Director of the Prizery; Sandra Tanner, President of the Roanoke River Rails to Trails, Inc.; and local historian Douglas Powell, Committee Chair for the Crossing of the Dan exhibit at the Prizery.

 

Members and guests will meet the Association’s three new professional staff members. Jennifer Doss, Rivers and Trails Project Manager, and Brian Williams, Education, Outreach and Conservation Coordinator, both work out of DRBA’s Virginia office in Collinsville. Joining the staff in North Carolina is Brian Higgins, Nature and Heritage Tourism Project Manager, who is located with Executive Director Katherine Mull in the Association’s Eden headquarters.

 

Following the meeting, Paul Johnson, Outings Chair, will lead a hike on a proposed section of the Tobacco Heritage Trail from South Boston to Berry Hill Plantation.  The hike, rated as easy, will be a three-mile round-trip on a segment of rail right-of-way ceded to the Roanoke Rails-to-Trails by Norfolk Southern for recreational use.

 

The Prizery, a former tobacco processing facility, now a community, fine arts and welcome center, commands a view of the place where in February of 1781 General Nathaniel Greene’s Revolutionary Army, pursued by the British Army commanded by Lord Cornwallis, crossed the Dan to safety in Halifax County, then a hotbed of Revolutionary sympathy.

 

The crossing was a pivotal part of a strategy that changed the course of the Revolutionary War, resulting in Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown later that year.

 

The Prizery held two days of celebration of General Greene’s successful retreat and Dan River crossing February 8 and 9.

 

To reach the Prizery from US 58 in South Boston, turn north on US 501 (Huell Matthews Highway). After crossing the Dan River, turn left on Factory Street. The Prizery is located at the next intersection, at 700 Bruce Street.

 

Participants in the hike are urged to wear hiking boots, dress in layers and bring lunch and water. 

 

Meetings and outings of the Dan River Basin Association are free and open to the public.

 

For information about the hike, contact Paul Johnson, Outings Chair, at 434-579-7599 (home) or 434-476-3358 (work), kpauljohnson@yahoo.com.