Kerry McCoy Preserve Arkansas Award

Floor Speech

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Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Ms. Kerry McCoy who is being honored with the 2019 Special Recognition for Outstanding Stewardship from Preserve Arkansas.

In 1975 Kerry founded her successful business, Arkansas Flag and Banner, with $400 in savings, and to start she sold flags door to door.

In 1990 she expanded the business by purchasing the famed, yet neglected, historic Taborian Hall in Little Rock, Arkansas. Built in 1916, Taborian Hall once hosted legendary entertainers like Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, B.B. King, and Etta James.

Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Kerry slowly and meticulously renovated Taborian Hall. In 2009 she founded the nonprofit Friends of the Dreamland Ballroom to save and protect the space that had once been the centerpiece of the hall. Kerry has since produced a documentary and published a book about the building. And I was proud to support her grant for a Civil Rights Preservation Grant from the National Park Service in 2018.

I applaud Kerry for the efforts to preserve Taborian Hall and the Dreamland Ballroom, and I congratulate her on this special recognition from Preserve Arkansas.

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