[5/22/03]Lenore Barkley, executive director of the Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau for 18 years, will step down Sept. 1, she told board members of the tourism agency today.

At the same time, Barkley announced she had formed Kudzu Public Relations Inc., and the board voted to hire the company to work with travel writers beginning in November.

Barkley, with the agency for 27 years, drew widespread and vocal support from the community last summer when a group of board members, in essence, assailed her competence.

In July, she and then-Director of Tourism and Films Al Elmore were instructed to come up with a new plan to promote Vicksburg and its attractions. They gave Barkley a month to come up with the plan. She presented a new plan and the budget to finance it in August.

Board members then discussed the plan at marathon sessions, but their implicit criticism of Barkley didn’t fade.

Today, Barkley’s retirement announcement followed an executive session called by board members to discuss “some personnel matters.”

“It has been a wonderful journey, a lot of good experiences and I feel we have made a lot of headway in the tourist industry,” Barkley said in announcing her retirement.

She said when she began Vicksburg had six attractions and now there are 27. The bureau’s budget, funded by a special tax on room rentals and restaurant and bar tabs, has grown from about $250,000 a year to about $850,000.

“I am proud to have served the community of Vicksburg, representing our destination to hundreds of thousands of consumers, travel journalists, travel agents and tour operators across the country and around the world,” she said.

“We ought to give Lenore applause for a great job over many years,” said Eric Biedenharn, chairman of the VCVB board, adding there would probably be a reception for Barkley before she leaves.

“There is one other thing we need to let the public be aware of,” Biedenharn said. “One of her great strengths is in working with travel writers, and what she has agreed to do is, after she retires, we are going to contract with her to work with travel writers for another year.”

For that year, he said, Barkley and her Kudzu Public Relations will be paid about $45,000.

Also at today’s meeting, the board voted to hire Lynn Foley of New Orleans as the new director of tourism and films. Elmore is now with the Mississippi Development Authority’s Division of Tourism.

Biedenharn said Foley has connections with Vicksburg and has been working in the tourism industry for a number of years in Florida and New Orleans.

She plans to begin work in early June.

The VCVB spends most of its budget on advertising Vicksburg as a tourism destination and designing and printing brochures for year-round use and special promotions. The agency, created by the Legislature and managed by a board members appointed by city and county officials, also operates tourist information centers on Clay Street across from the Vicksburg National Military Park and in the VCVB headquarters downtown.