Hall of Honour

A temporary location for the Canadian Country Music Hall of Honour will be open to the public in downtown Merritt by the summer of 2010. The long term goal is to open a permanent Hall of Honour and performing arts theatre will be opening in downtown Merritt within three to four years.

Director’s Report:

As a Director and also Chairperson of the Capital Development Committee for Merritt Walk of Stars Society (MWOS), I have had the rewarding pleasure of working with fellow Committee members Ron Sanders, Peter Moyes and Amber Papou as well as the Board and Affiliate Members of MWOS, for over two years now. We have undertaken many volunteer driven projects prior to and during my time as a Director.

Probably the most exciting project I have worked on, for many years now, is our current Hall of Fame project. We are, and have been, working hand in hand on this for some time with both the Canadian Country Music Association (CCMA) and the BC Country Music Associaton (BCCMA).

To date we have successfully signed a long term agreement with CCMA to take on the responsibility of providing a home for the display and public viewing of CCMA's national collection of Hall of Honour Placques. There are currently 37 Placques in this collection with many more to come, as they are awarded.

We are hoping to have a decision made soon on a temporary downtown location for the display of the Placques. This location will also be the temporary home of our new Hall of Fame, as we build our collection of memorabilia.

We have been involved in negotiations for some time now in an effort to purchase a wonderful collection of memorabilia from the estate of the late Mr. Gary Buck who, with his wife Deb, founded the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame Inc. in Calgary. This collection has been located in a custom building, built and operated by Gary, Deb and many faithful volunteers, on the Stampede Grounds in Calgary. Our negotiations are continuing with Deb Buck, through her lawyers representing the estate.

We have recently hired Nicole Hyette, the Executive Director for BCCMA, to assist us in securing items of memorabilia for our new Hall of Fame. Nicole will be working in cooperation with CCMA and BCCMA representatives to secure new items of memorabilia from Country Music Artists across our great country.

Amber Papou, our very successful grant writer, is currently busy preparing our Business Plan for securing long term Federal and Provincial funding, not only for the temporary Hall of Fame, but for our longer term goal of a permanent 'state of the art' Hall of Fame and Performing Arts Centre, all within the Merritt downtown core area.

This is an amazing project that can help tremendously with our efforts to attract many new visitors, both from Canada and abroad to Merritt, especially to the downtown area. As a tourism based project, it will also help transform Merritt into a city with less dependence on resource based industries, as the global fortunes evolve.

I would strongly encourage others to volunteer and become members of our very active MWOS organization. You may just have as much fun as I am, helping to create a new vibrant Merritt.