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Florida State University history students Chase Panish and Flora Domitrovic have been awarded the prestigious Historic Preservation Scholar Award by the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation. (College of Arts and Sciences)\t\t<\/p>\n\t\tFlorida State University history students Chase Panish and Flora Domitrovic have been awarded the prestigious Historic Preservation Scholar Award by the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation. (College of Arts and Sciences)\t\t<\/p>\n
Two Florida State University students from the\u00a0Department of History<\/a>\u00a0have earned prestigious awards for their work in the identification,\u00a0protection\u00a0and rehabilitation of historic sites around the state of Florida.\u00a0<\/p>\n Chase Panish and Flora Domitrovic, both Spring 2026 graduates, have won the\u00a0Historic Preservation Scholar Award<\/a>\u00a0from the\u00a0Florida Trust for Historic Preservation<\/a>, a statewide award recognizing outstanding scholarship in the field.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Florida Trust for Historic Preservation is a statewide non-profit founded in 1978 with the goal of promoting the preservation and sharing of Florida\u2019s heritage. The awards were first presented in 2024, and many of the recipients have hailed from FSU.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFlora and Chase are gifted preservationists who excel at archival research to create research projects that benefit their communities,\u201d said\u00a0Kathleen Powers Conti<\/a>, an assistant professor of history at FSU who nominated the students for this award. \u201cTwo of our students receiving this prestigious, statewide award showcases the important, community-engaged work that the Department of History does every day.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFlora and Chase are gifted preservationists who excel at archival research to create research projects that benefit their communities. Two of our students receiving this prestigious, statewide award showcases the important, community-engaged work that the Department of History does every day.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2014 Kathleen Powers Conti, assistant professor of history at FSU<\/p>\n Panish was\u00a0honored\u00a0with the Historic Preservation Scholar Award for his work nominating Tallahassee\u2019s Union Bank to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). When the NRHP \u2014 the official list of the U.S.\u2019s historically significant places \u2014 was created in 1966, there was a rush to build out the list. The Union Bank was originally listed in 1971, but like many of the original listings, the existing nomination was quite short and had\u00a0substantial\u00a0gaps. Panish authored an updated nomination for the Union Bank, the state\u2019s oldest surviving bank building, to include more substantive discussions about its history and architectural significance.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n A NRHP nomination requires months of archival research,\u00a0interviews\u00a0and site visits to create a detailed description of a site\u2019s long history and architectural significance. Panish worked closely with the Florida Department of State\u2019s Division of Historical Resources to develop the appropriate documentation to renominate the bank with a testament of its full history including its time as a plantation owner\u2019s bank and, later, a branch of the Freedman\u2019s Savings and Trust Company, a Congress-chartered bank serving formerly enslaved people.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t look past a small building. Every\u00a0patch of dirt has a history if you look far enough,\u201d Panish said. \u201cJust follow your interests because you never know where they may lead.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Prior to graduating this spring with a master\u2019s in history with a major in public history, Panish interned at\u00a0Heritage Village<\/a>, a public museum featuring a collection of a historic structures in Pinellas County,\u00a0Fla., during which he created several precise, digital, architectural drawings to help the museum complete its\u00a0catalog\u00a0of these structures.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Panish also used specialized software to design and build 3D virtual models of the structures to create an opportunity for people with disabilities who may not be able to fully access these sites a chance to experience them. As an advocate for accessibility in preservation, Panish was selected by the\u00a0National Council on Public History<\/a>\u00a0to partake in the Accessibility Working Group beginning in Jan.\u00a02025, a team dedicated to making public history more inclusive and accessible for people with disabilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m disabled but there are not a lot of disabled people in the preservation realm,\u201d Panish said. \u201cI\u2019m grateful for the research and to have received this\u00a0honor\u00a0so that I can represent the small amount of disabled people in my field.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n After graduation, Panish plans to continue his involvement in cultural resource management as an architectural historian, documenting and evaluating historic sites for preservation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Domitrovic earned the Historic Preservation Scholar Award for her Honors in the Major project, \u201cEarly Computers as a Tool for Ecologically Conscious City Planning.\u201d Her research examined how urban planners in the 1970s encouraged more environmentally conscious planning, in line with new environmental regulations of the time, through the integration of computers into urban planning systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n With support from an IDEA Grant from FSU\u2019s\u00a0Center for Undergraduate Research and Academic Engagement<\/a>, Domitrovic visited the Library of Congress\u2019 History of Computer Cartography and Geographic Information Sciences Archive during the summer of 2025 to examine primary sources related to the integration of these systems.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe can see the similarities between how people grappled with automation in the integration of computers into the city-planning in the 1970s and the emergence of AI today,\u201d said\u00a0Domitrovic. \u201cWe can also see the link between environmental conservation and historic preservation, and the early efforts to try to protect them both.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Domitrovic earned her bachelor\u2019s degree in history from FSU this spring, and during her time in the department, she completed internships at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. She also worked with the\u00a0Florida Resources and Environmental Analysis Center<\/a>, starting with her experience in the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program. Domitrovic also drafted a nomination to put Tallahassee\u2019s Coca-Cola Bottling Plant, built in 1940, on the National Register of Historic Places.\u00a0<\/p>\n In Fall 2026, she will join the University of Pennsylvania\u2019s Stuart Weitzman School of Design to purse a master\u2019s in city planning.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n