By Jessica Brents

The fourth annual Juried Student Art Exhibition opening reception and awards presen tatioon will take place in the Kresge Gallery on Jan. 11, 2007, at 6 p.m. and everyone is invited to attend.

Outside juror Harry Ally’s award selections will be announced, including the coveted "Presidential Purchase." The artist who claims this award will not only take home $250, but his or her work will officially become the property of Lyon College and will be displayed on the campus.

A catalog of all the winners will also be revealed at the opening reception. It will include a statement from Harry Ally, as well as the list of this year’s award winners. It will also include photos of the works themselves.

Chris Valle, assistant professor of art, can take credit for establishing this opportunity for students to display their artwork in a real art show.

Valle says, "This is a good learning tool. It gives students the opportunity to get an outsider’s opinion. There’s a lot of excitement about who gets in and who doesn’t. There is always much discussion about what is and isn’t selected and why."

During the year, students are asked to submit five pieces of various types of works. An outside juror is brought in and is asked to select the top 25 – 30 pieces that will make it into the show. The juror also decides on a first, second and third place and two honorable mentions. Each of these awards includes a monetary prize. Finally, the juror selects the best of show piece – the "Presidential Purchase" award. This piece becomes part of the permanent collection and will be hung somewhere on campus. Last year’s big winner was Chris Watkins. His work made entirely of toast was too large, so a photograph of it is hanging in the Nichols Building. The year before, which was actually the first year the award was presented, the winner was Eric Bork. His work can been seen in the Mabee Simpson library.

Everyone is invited to attend the opening reception and the awards presentation, so please come out and support your fellow students.
 

Santa brings holiday cheer to annual holiday dinner
Santa Claus made time out from his busy schedule to stop by Edwards Commons on Friday for the annual Christmas dinner. Santa posed for photographs with children attending the dinner. Here, Santa introduces himself to Madison and McKenzee, beautiful twin daughters of Brian and Anita Lindsey. Brian is the nephew of Brenda Lindsey, a Lyon library staff member..		Santa poses with his two "elves," Cindy Gillaspie (left) and Willene Grimmett, of the President's Office. Cindy and Willene helped host the holiday event along with Terry Bryant and the Dining Services staff. Photos by Eric Stewart

Lyon College is now included in the online Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, a free and comprehensive source of information about the state.

The site is updated regularly to ensure an accurate, accessible resource to explore the state’s heritage. The Lyon College entry includes a history of the school and its notable personalities throughout the years, as well as several other related entries related to the college.

The site will add lesson plans in the future that will be based on Encyclopedia entries and media, plus other materials of particular use to teachers and students. Current educational resources are available on the Butler Center’s lesson plans page.

Browsing the text entries and media galleries will help viewers learn more about the Arkansas people, places, events, legends and lore. This site is a work in progress and organizers are continually adding new entries, photographs, maps, videos and audio files.

The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture is a project of the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies at the Central Arkansas Library System.

The Butler Center is "dedicated to exploring, preserving and interpreting the history of Arkansas," and focusing attention on the regions that include Arkansas to help people understand the broader contexts in which the state’s history unfolds, with a special emphases on genealogy and on African-American, business, cultural and political history.

The Center maintains a library and archival collection, a book publishing program, an oral history project, workshops and other training programs, a number of initiatives to assist teachers with curricular materials and several series of public events in which speakers address Arkansas history topics.

Poetry reading concludes writers series Writer-in-Residence Andrea Hollander Budy and her creating writing workshop held a poetry reading Tuesday, Nov. 28, in Bevens Music Room. Ms. Budy also held a prose reading of her work earlier in the day. The event was the last in the Contemporary Writers Series for this academic year. The students who read their poems were (from left) Nathan Reinhardt, Erin Moss, Amber Hood, Alison Sablick, Luke Frauenthal, Eric Ramirez, and Ms. Budy.                                                                                                                                            Photo by Eric Stewart

Kenton Adler appears on the cover of The Voice magazine

Kenton Adler, Lyon’s academic services coordinator, is appearing on the cover of the Fall edition of The Voice magazine, the official magazine of the Eastern United States Pipe Band Association, the world’s largest pipe band association.

The EUSPBA has over 2,000 solo members, and over 200 band memberships that account for nearly 4,000 people. The circulation of The Voice is over 4,000 and it’s distributed worldwide.

Adler’s cover photo was taken at the EUSPBA Grade III Championships in Anne Arundel, Md., in October, and shows him with EUSPBA President Joe McGonigal presenting the Championship trophy to Pipe Major Bill Caudill of the first place St. Andrews College Pipe Band. Lyon’s Director of Scottish Heritage and Pipe Major Jimmy Bell was also there that day in his role as a judge.

"A pipe tune that I wrote is also the featured tune in this issue," Adler said. "It’s a jig called The Dragonfly, written in honor of Angus John MacLellan last summer when he was here teaching at the Lyon piping and drumming summer school."

Adler also submitted an article about the Lyon’s pipe band’s trip to Scotland.

Lyon’s Japanese speech contest announces top finishers

Seven students stood out among their peers at this year’s annual Japanese speech contest at Lyon College, held Nov. 20.

Students of the Japanese language spend the last month of each semester preparing for a speech contest by writing, correcting, and memorizing an original composition. The objective of the speech contest is to improve the public speaking skills and confidence of students of Japanese through the drafting and presenting of a speech of moderate duration. The final product is the culmination of what they have learned each semester.

Students present their speech from memory in front of their classmates as well as judges who are native speakers of Japanese.

"I am pleased to report that the judges noted the significant improvement in Japanese language skills from one semester to the next.," said Mieko Peek, instructor of Japanese.

Certificates and awards were given to students for first, second, and third place.

Grand prize winner

Sarah Dunkerson

Japanese 201

First place: Eric Stewart

Second place: Drew McNutt

Third place: Cody Cox, Alex McClintock and Snezana Jovanovic

Japanese 101

First place: Mandee Cornyn

Second Place: Kimi Brown

Third place: Alex King

Recently, the college implemented a student exchange agreement with Akita International University in Akita, Japan. Lyon College also sponsors the Japan Lecture Series, which is made possible by the grant from the Freeman Foundation.

For more information on the Japanese program at Lyon College, contact Mieko Peek at: mpeek@lyon.edu.

Spring play is announced by Harlequin Theatre

By Amy Hancock

The Harlequin Theatre has chosen its spring production, and would like to invite those who are interested to audition. The production will be The Good Doctor by Neil Simon, and will be directed by Professor Gary Harris. Dr. Michael Counts, theatre director, will be on sabbatical in the spring semester.

The play is a comedy based on character sketches and themes by Anton Chekov, a Russian playwright. It is composed of eight vaudeville-like sketches with one character tying each sketch together.

An initial reading will be held at 3 p.m. on Reading Day, Monday, Dec. 4, in the Holloway Theatre. Auditions are scheduled to begin Feb. 6 at 7 p.m. Call backs will be announced after auditions. Performance dates are April 12, 13, 14 (8 p.m. curtain) and April 15 (2 p.m. matinee.)
 

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