Newton to speak at LCHS quarterly meeting
Oct. 11—Melanie Barksdale Newton will be the guest speaker at the Limestone County Historical Society's quarterly meeting Sunday, Oct. 15, at the First Presbyterian Church Rodgers Center. She will be speaking on the history of the American Foursquare home.
Newton, an Athens native, serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for JBS Solutions, Inc., an engineering services firm headquartered in Huntsville with employees in Alabama, Maryland, Texas and Virginia, supporting the Department of Defense and NASA.
Her background in business development for technology start-ups and as president of Women in Defense- Tennessee Valley Chapter, she has vaulted the urgency of STEM education for women entering higher education and the workforce.
In her spare time, Newton and her husband, Tom, enjoy the outdoors and traveling. She also enjoys reading about history and has lived in several historical homes, including a 1930 cottage in the Five Points Historic District of Huntsville, a 1918 bungalow in Historic Thornton Park in Orlando and a 1916 Craftsman style in Old Wythe Historic District in Hampton, Va.
The Newtons recently moved back to Athens and live in a 1913 Foursquare located in the Beaty Historic District. Newton is the descendant of James Daniel and Nancy McElroy Barksdale who settled in Limestone County in the late 1820s.
The Limestone County Historical Society meeting will begin with refreshments at 2:30 p.m. followed by Newton's talk "An Economic Home Built to Last: History of the American Foursquare" at 3 p.m. The meeting is free to attend, and the public is invited.
