SALISBURY — The annual meeting of the Lower Eastern Shore Heritage Area Council is Wednesday, May 4 in the Flanders Room of the Wicomico Youth & Civic Center. In addition to the Heritage Awards and exhibit of current mini-grant projects, guest speaker Daniel Carroll Toomey will speak about the Eastern Shore during the Civil War.

The luncheon is by advance reservation only and reservations may be made online at www.lowershoreheritage.org for $30 per person (plus a fee of $2.64) or by mailing a check for $30 to the LESHC, 212 W. Main Street, Suite 309, Salisbury, MD 21801. Call 410-677-4706 for more information.

The doors open at 10:15 a.m. with the silent auction. The program begins at 11 and ends at 1:15 p.m. Maryland Department of Planning Secretary David Craig will give the opening remarks.

Dan Toomey, the keynote speaker, has won numerous awards for his historical research and exhibits including the Gettysburg National Battlefield Award in 1985 and was the 2001 recipient of the Peterkin Award given by the National Park Service at Fort McHenry in 2001 for his many accomplishments in the field of writing and preservation.  He is currently the Guest Curator at the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum for their five-year project The War Came by Train commemorating the 150^th anniversary of the Civil War.

Dan Toomey will speak on the Eastern Shore during the Civil War during the LESHC's annual meeting May 4.

Mr. Toomey has lectured for a number of historical organizations as well as the National Park Service and the Smithsonian Institution. His course “The Civil War in Maryland” has been offered at a number of local colleges. He has also contributed to radio and television programs and two Civil War battle videos. He is a member of the Surratt Society, the Maryland Arms Collectors Association, and the Company of Military Historians. He serves on the Maryland Military Monuments Commission and was project historian for the Maryland Memorial erected at Gettysburg in 1994.