Cultural historian to join PR firm at Hebron School open house

HEBRON — Cultural historian Steve Taylor will be joining Tracy Tilson, owner of Tilson PR, at an open house celebrating the town’s former one-room schoolhouse and the opening of the public relations company’s New England satellite office.

Tilson, who grew up in the area and attended Plymouth schools before going on to establish a public relations business in Boca Raton, Florida, has purchased and renovated the former East Hebron Schoolhouse to serve her northern clients — and give her a chance to spend time around Newfound Lake.

The open house, on Saturday, Aug. 11, from 2 to 4 p.m., will give visitors an opportunity to see what a one-room schoolhouse was like and learn about “the romance and the reality” of such schools.

Taylor, a popular speaker on the New Hampshire Humanities Council lecture circuit and the former state agriculture commissioner, will give a 20-minute talk about one-room schools in the Granite State, including games for recess, Christmas pageants, hopscotch, and nature walks.

He and Tilson will greet visitors, including at least one former student of the school, and those familiar with the school will be able to share their own stories and memories of the building.

The East Hebron Schoolhouse operated from 1882 to 1942. In recent years, it has served as a children’s bookstore.

Tilson, although born on Long Island, New York, grew up in Wentworth, where her family had moved when she was 5. She went on field trips to Wellington State Park and would pass by the Hebron school.

After graduating from Pemi-Baker Regional High School in Plymouth, she attended the University of New Hampshire, where she majored in Communications. She ended up in Boca Raton, Florida, where she built her public relations company.

“My husband and I have a home on Newfound Lake — it’s part of a balanced life,” she said. “I love this area. It’s an area where I can be creative, and feel this is where my roots are.”

She travels back and forth to Florida, where her team is located, “but this is special up here.”

When the East Hebron Schoolhouse came on the market about a year and a half ago, it fit into the plan, she said.

It works out well for her clients at RiverWalk Resort at Loon Mountain and the Western White Mountains Chamber of Commerce, as well as Boston clients such as Safeco.

“The schoolhouse is just adorable, so well-preserved,” she said. It has the original 1888 floorboards, slate chalkboards, wooden desks, and even separate boys’ and girls’ outhouses.

“We got the floors redone and added an area that was a woodshed, built so it looks like it had been there 100 years,” she said. “We also updated it because there was no septic and no water, but we kept the outhouses in the back.”

She also was able to take some old photographs that remained in the building and have Northern Exposures Photography of Plymouth frame them.

The East Hebron Schoolhouse is located at 33 Mayhew Turnpike (Route 3-A) in Hebron.