Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association
Founded, 1959 -- The nation’s oldest battlefield preservation organization
P.O. Box 4087, Gettysburg, PA 17325
NEWS RELEASE
Gettysburg License Plate VICTORY!
GETTYSBURG (August 6) --Anticipation is building among Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation
Association members to see the result of a long-awaited, but quiet, victory in Harrisburg on July 2.
Act 109 of 2014 was signed into law that day, allowing for the creation of a Pennsylvania Monuments
Restoration license plate 17 years after it was first proposed.
In 1997, soon after founding the Pennsylvania Gettysburg Monuments Project, state Rep. Harry
Readshaw of Allegheny County proposed the commonwealth authorize a custom license plate to benefit the
preservation of the state’s more than 140 monuments and markers on the Gettysburg battlefield.
His legislation gained considerable support but enactment proved elusive.
The hurdle led the Monuments Project to create and sell the Gettysburg 1863 unofficial license plate
that graces the fronts of many cars and trucks -- some as far away as Australia. The GBPA was among the early
backers of Readshaw’s preservation campaign and has sold the unofficial plate at virtually all of its events.
Readshaw successfully inserted the Monuments Preservation plate language into a Senate bill that
authorized several other new specialized plates.
The design by the Department of Transportation will feature a color photograph of the Pennsylvania
Memorial with the words “Gettysburg 1863.”
The cost of the plate will be $54, not including annual registration. Of that figure, $23 will go to a
dedicated state fund to provide grants to nonprofit organizations for the Gettysburg National Military Park to
clean, repair and restore a specific monument proposed by the organization. The key words are “repair” and
“restore.”
The Pennsylvania Gettysburg Monuments Project and GBPA will continue fundraising for the
perpetual endowment trust for each Pennsylvania monument to ensure periodic cleaning even if there is no
sponsoring organization filing for a state grant.
PennDOT will have the application and the plates beginning October 30, in time for vehicles to begin
sporting it for the annual Remembrance weekend parade on November 15 and for the actual Remembrance
Day on November 19, the date of President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
Celebratory Dinner: Rep. Readshaw and the Monuments Project will host a banquet November 14 at
the Dobbin House IN Gettysburg so project supporters can toast the license plate’s debute.
A social hour will begin at 6 p.m., followed by dinner at 7 p.m. The cost of an individual ticket is $35, or
$60 for a couple.
“This isn’t just about Gettysburg,” said Readshaw. “This is the story of the Pennsylvania volunteers
from communities large and small across the commonwealth who fought here to protect their nation and
their home state. “The monuments and markers of Gettysburg, North and South, are “icons of freedom” to
remind future generations of the valor and sacrifice of the combatants and that the unity of our nation must
never be so threatened again.
Readshaw said word of the dinner will be sent to all Pennsylvania reenactment units, Civil War
round tables, school groups, corporate and private donors, and civic and professional organizations that have
assisted the Pennsylvania Gettysburg Monuments project.
The 1st Pa. Reserve Fife and Drum Corps, the GBPA-sponsored Venture Troop 1863, will provide
music.
Questions and reservations can be directed to Barb Mowery at (717) 783-0411 or (717) 891-6369
or via e-mail at bmowery@pahouse.net. ###
The Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association is a 501c3 nonprofit organization under the Internal Revenue Code and is
registered as a charitable organization with the Pennsylvania Department of State, Bureau of Corporations and Charitable
Organizations. Contributions are tax deductible.
ATTACHMENTS:
1. Current Pennsylvania Gettysburg Monuments Project decorative front plate.
2. Rough approximation of what the new, official, Gettysburg 1863 Monuments Restoration license
plate will look like.