The national media are calling.

Since much of eastern Kansas and parts of western Missouri were designated last fall as a national heritage area, Judy Billings has been receiving calls from various media outlets seeking information about local Civil War-era historical sites.

“We’re on the (national) radar, but we’re not quite ready for it,” said Billings, director of the Lawrence Convention and Visitors Bureau. “We don’t have the tourism product here like they do on the East Coast and in Tennessee, but we’re starting to get the interest.”

Billings and others involved in the effort to get the Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area designation hope that will soon change. The area includes 29 Kansas and 12 Missouri counties. The federal designation allows access to millions of dollars in funding over 15 years, but it doesn’t guarantee the money.

Douglas County Commissioner Charles Jones thinks it will take the leadership of three key groups to reap the benefits of a heritage area: the heritage area steering committee, the Convention and Visitors Bureau and Watkins Community Museum of History, which is under the control of the Douglas County Historical Society.

“If those three groups can figure out how they are going to work together, we’ll be successful in figuring out how to pursue our goal,” Jones said.

The goal of the heritage area ultimately has a lot to do with tourism, Jones said. The visitors bureau needs to be in the middle of discussions about reaching that goal and developing a vision about what role various groups should play. He said he would be talking to people about who might serve on the panel.

During a County Commission meeting last week, Jones said he wanted to put together a “blue ribbon panel” of representatives from various entities to guide the way to that goal. Commissioners Bob Johnson and Jere McElhaney said they supported Jones’ proposal.

Jones also noted that there is no central office or “home” for the heritage area.

“It exists in various places, but it really doesn’t have a clear institutional setting and mission at this point,” he said. “I think it is really important to pull those pieces together.”

Watkins museum and the historical society would be willing to take on part of the leadership role, said Carmela Sibley, chairwoman of the society board of directors. The museum could serve as that home for the heritage area, she said.

“To me it seems like the natural repository for that sort of thing is Watkins,” Sibley said. “We already have a lot of the documents and related material. We also have meeting rooms. I think there are a lot of possibilities.”

Douglas County has taken the leadership in the heritage area pursuit since it began a few years ago, Billings said. Representatives from the various counties have been conducting monthly meetings. There has not been a discussion of where a central office could be, she said.

The heritage area legislation passed by Congress and signed by President Bush last year states that the area headquarters should be in Kansas. It also states that 75 percent of the representation on the heritage governing board be from Kansas and 25 percent from Missouri.

The Civil War will be commemorated in 2011, the sesquicentennial of the war’s start.

“If we have our heritage area up and running by then, I think we will be a significant player, because Lawrence is so well-known in terms of the history of the Civil War,” Jones said. “The first step in the process is to get the right people to the table and come up with a shared vision.”