HAHA holds annual meeting

The Hermosa Arts and History Association (HAHA) held its annual member meeting to elect officers and appoint board members Jan. 11 after a potluck lunch and conversation.
Dan Martin was elected president, Tamara Rogers was elected vice president, Leta Campbell remained treasurer and Cathy Dahl remained secretary. Board members are Beverly Brophy Groth, Linda M. Hasselstrom, Marsha Knopf, Charlotte Lussier and Shelley Martin.
Linda M. Hasselstrom resigned as vice president, after serving since January 2018. Hasselstrom has been instrumental in the renovations of the HAHA Museum, helping with raising funds and promoting HAHA. Her late husband, Jerry Ellerman, supervised the structural plans, making it a safe and solid building that will last into the next century.
Hasselstrom will remain on the HAHA Board and will continue her historically significant project of filing alphabetized and dated obituaries—which include important information about occupations and family history—of Hermosa area residents, a collection that had been compiled informally for decades. Hasselstrom also serves as the head of the Collections Committee, which handles the donations of items to HAHA.
Donna Evjen, after serving as HAHA’s secretary for many years, was elected as president in January, 2022. Evjen stated her goal upon election: to finish the renovations on the ground floor of the HAHA Museum — delayed by COVID, labor shortages, and the death of Jerry Ellerman, the HAHA member spearheading the building committee — and to get the HAHA Museum open on a regular schedule through the summer months.
Evjen was relentless in pursuing her goals and on May 12 of last year HAHA held its grand (re)opening of the newly completed first floor, with an Open House on Mother’s Day. This event coincided with HAHA’s 25th Anniversary, as the group was founded in 1999 in order to preserve the old schoolhouse and Masonic Lodge.
During the summer of 2024, for the first time, the HAHA Museum was open for a few hours one day each weekend, staffed by volunteers. Evjen resigned as HAHA’s president, as she has moved from the Hermosa area, but will keep in touch.
HAHA has volunteers who continue HAHA’s mission to preserve the area’s history and cultural resources; educate citizens, especially the youth, about history; to promote the visual, written and performing arts in Hermosa; and to involve the community in all of these goals.