Illinois State Historical Society to honor Greg Koos with Lifetime Achievement Award

Illinois Route 66 Scenic Byway
Greg Koos

The Illinois State Historical Society (ISHS) will host its 124th Annual Meeting this year at the Hoogland Center for the Arts in Springfield in April. At this time, the ISHS will recognize the ISHS’s “Best of Illinois History” award recipients for 2023. Twenty-nine remarkable nominees will be honored and awarded for their outstanding achievements and publications on Illinois history.

McLean County Museum of History are pleased to announce that Greg Koos, will be honored with a lifetime achievement award at a luncheon event on Saturday April 29th, 2023, at 11:30.

Greg Koos is a published author and the Executive Director Emeritus of the McLean County Museum of History. He served in that museum from 1977 to 2016/19. He led the 1989 project to convert the Old McLean County Courthouse into a museum. This $2.4m project won the American Association of State and Local History’s highest award in 1992.

Koos worked with the board and a staff of fourteen to develop and sustain this nationally accredited museum which serves over 40,000 people a year. He led the successful “Extending Excellence” capital campaign, which raised $5.1m in private funding, for renewal of museum operations, construction of five long term interpretive exhibits, significant development of digital capacities, and endowment enhancement.

Koos’s scholarship has been published in the United States and Ireland. Works include histories of McLean County, articles on the material culture of American buildings, articles on the Irish American history, as well as articles on museum and community relations. His most recent book is Freedom, Land and Community: A History of McLean County Illinois 1730-1900.

Koos has a B.A. in Historic Administration from the Union Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio. He lives in Bloomington, Illinois with his wife, Carol.

Presentation of the awards will immediately follow the brief annual meeting. The price to ISHS members for this luncheon buffet is $50 per person, $60 for non-members. Please make your reservations early. Seating is limited. For more information about the event, feel free to call the office at 217-525-2781. Ext. 4.

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