Lamp accepts a major Ohio Main Street state award
Ohio Main Street Millersburg manager Judy Lamp, holding her award, is pictured with her son Brock, holding the flowers, as well as members of the Ohio Main Street Millersburg board after accepting the Heritage Ohio Main Street Manager of the Year award.
Judy Lamp will forever cherish her Heritage Ohio Main Street Manager of the Year award that was recently doled out, but she said it is not just hers but the Historic Downtown Millersburg community’s honor.
The Ohio Main Street Program, administered by Heritage Ohio, works with communities across the state to revitalize their historic or traditional commercial areas. Based in historic preservation, the Main Street approach was developed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation to save historic commercial architecture and the fabric of American communities’ built environment but has become a powerful economic development tool as well.
The Ohio Main Street program is designed to improve all aspects of the downtown or central business district, producing both tangible and intangible benefits.
“I was very excited, and it was a complete shock. It was quite an honor,” Lamp said of receiving the award at the annual meeting.
That her board members and even her own son Brock were in on pulling the wool over her eyes in not letting her know she had won the honor until it was presented only added to her surprise.
Lamp said usually nominations for the statewide award are submitted by various Ohio Main Street board members who see the value and hard work of their Ohio Main Street managers on an everyday basis, but this award nomination came not from one of her own, but from another Ohio Main Street manager.
“Your board knows how hard you work, but having the honor come from outside, from another Main Street director who recognized something and they realize what kind of effort and work goes into what we do annually to improve our towns, that was what made this such a special award to me,” Lamp said.
The nomination came from Matt Wiederhold, executive director of Ohio Main Street Medina. That marked the first time in the organization that an award was given to an Ohio Main Street manager that came not from its own board but from outside.
Lamp said the average tenure for an Ohio Main Street executive director is about three years. Now in her seventh year, she said her desire to uplift her hometown and make it the best it can be burns bright.
Lamp said when she first stepped into the role, she began learning as much as she could from the directors located near her, directors like Wiederhold and Sandra Hall of Wooster. She said having those types of gifted and giving people nearby was exactly what she needed in designing her own pathway into serving her hometown.
“I could watch them over the years, and I can pick up the phone and they are so welcoming and eager to help in any manner possible,” Lamp said. “That helps a lot.”
Lamp credited each of the Ohio Main Street managers throughout Ohio for their continuing successes, and she said each of them is making a difference in their community.
With Millersburg being the smallest city among all of Ohio’s Main Street cities, Lamp said she felt as though she had to work extra hard to make an impact. She has done so, spearheading a dozen different events in the Historic Downtown Millersburg area each year.
But while the award has Lamp’s name on it, she said it should be shared with her board, as well as with the many downtown businesses that have bought into what she wants HDM to portray. In doing so, the area business owners have helped ignite Millersburg’s regrowth and its current success.
Lamp said her board has been phenomenal, and she credited Millersburg Mayor Jeff Huebner with being a huge supporter, as well as the Millersburg village council. She said each manager that has come along since Ruth Waltman served as the very first Ohio Main Street manager in 2006 has moved the program forward. She then added the merchants, who have been so willing to dive into each of her projects, plus more.
“To be successful, you have to have business partners who are willing to move forward on their own with creative ideas, and we have a lot of them here,” Lamp said. “We had our business owners create First Fridays, they created the farmer’s market and even initiated the clean-up of Millersburg. They have been an integral part of this town’s success by going out and coming up with great ideas on their own and allowing us to just provide support while we work on our dozen major projects.”
Lamp said Millersburg was right on the verge of becoming something far greater than it was when she came on board, and the business owners vision along with the Main Street projects helped push it over the edge.
In fact it was in Lamp’s first week on the job that the Millersburg Brewing Co. opened its doors.
“It isn’t always easy, but everyone here has the same singular goal in mind of making Millersburg the best it can be,” Lamp said. “That makes what I do so much fun, knowing there are that many people who are working together to build something special. It takes everybody. The merchants are so creative and have their own vision; I just have to figure out what they want and help them get there.”
Receiving the award has only inspired Lamp to do even more, but she knows planning for big events like Thunder Over Holmes County, The Chocolate Walk and many others take plenty of time to prepare for and pull off, and it takes time to recover from each.
Lamp said her son has always been there to help her out whenever she runs into a snag. “When I got hired, he got hired,” she said.
While the award may be a singular one, it certainly has many names attached to it that have helped make Millersburg a thriving downtown area.