Friday, July 8

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Tourism director resigns       Send a link to a friend

[JULY 8, 2005]  The Abraham Lincoln Tourism Bureau of Logan County board called an emergency meeting on Wednesday evening to discuss possible replacements for current director Celeste Rogers. Rogers submitted her resignation to the board at its regular monthly meeting on Tuesday.

Rogers was hired a year ago to do the 35-hour-per-week position after the former director Thressia Usherwood retired.

Rogers' bundle of energy, enthusiasm and resourcefulness not only boosted tourism activity but also compensated for big budget cuts that fell on the office this past year. She still managed to expand and bring new freshness to established tourism events such as the Railsplitter. She generated more state and national exposure for Logan County.

More specifically her focus has been multidimensional, calling attention to our historical buildings and highlights, as well as major sites throughout the county, increasing awareness of our link to Abraham Lincoln and getting in on the ground floor of a new state and national project, the National Scenic Byways Route 66 project.

This year's new focus is on developing business tourism. Rogers has established connections with local resources to service businesses and other entities that would like to host their conventions or conferences here. Along these lines Lincoln is in the bidding against one other location, Quincy, to host a regional dog show in 2007 and a national dog show in 2008.

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At the Logan County Board meeting in May, board chairman Bob McCue credited Rogers with keeping the office going with less funding by sharing resources and skills of her husband, Tim's, CITV5 business. McCue said her media contacts also helped promote tourism at little or no extra costs. She's done a great job, he said.

Rogers' letter of resignation was dated June 29, to be effective on July 13. She is currently on a week of vacation that extends to that time and has not been available for comment.

Tourism is at an all-time importance in Logan County. With many irons in the fire, the tourism board is looking for a replacement to start immediately. (See the position description in the classifieds.)

[Jan Youngquist]

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