A Lawrence tourism official is joining the reconstituted and newly empowered Kansas Council on Travel and Tourism.

Judy Billings, director of the Lawrence Convention & Visitors Bureau, is among 10 officials from across Kansas to be named to the council by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who announced the appointments Thursday.

Billings and her colleagues will serve three-year terms on the 21-member council, which is being reinvigorated after months of inactivity and will be used once again by the Kansas Department of Commerce as a resource for helping further the state’s tourism industry.

Sebelius noted that the new members’ diverse backgrounds and hometowns would help promote the state’s wide-ranging attractions.

“It’s great to get different perspectives,” Sebelius said, in a statement.

Billings’ selection comes as she prepares to travel to Washington, D.C., next week to attend a Kansas Humanities Council conference. While there, she plans to meet with congressional representatives to push for approval of a bill that would establish a national heritage area for much of eastern Kansas, including Lawrence.

The area – Freedom’s Frontier: Bleeding Kansas and the Enduring Struggle for Freedom National Heritage Area – would pump up to $10 million into heritage tourism efforts in 26 counties in Kansas and possibly another 12 in Missouri.