Black History Banquet to be held Saturday night

An area man whose family has a long history as free African Americans in Jackson and Independence counties will soon share his insights and experiences at Lyon College’s Black History Banquet, hosted by the College's Black Students Association.

Ben Earls, director of business development with White River Planning and Development, will be the guest speaker at the banquet, which is slated for Saturday, Feb. 24, at 7 p.m., in Edwards Commons.

A newspaper column written for the Batesville Daily Guard in Feb. 2005, by Dr. Tom Carpenter, Lyon professor of education and adviser to the Black Students Association, tells part of Earls’ story.

His ancestor, a slave named Daniel, who used the surname Earls, was owned by a man named Peter Tidwell. When Tidwell died, his son emancipated Daniel.

Daniel operated a ferry on the White River in 1836. He became so respected that his house in Oil Trough was used as a local polling place. In 1838, Daniel bought 350 acres of bottomland between Oil Trough and Newport.

In 1841, the younger Tidwell sold Daniel’s wife Sukie and their two children to him for $1. Later that year, Daniel bought two more children from Tidwell and raised them as his own.

Those descendants continued to live and prosper in the area. Ben’s story starts in 1940 with his birth in Batesville, his graduation from the old E.M. Miller School, Shorter College from 1958-60 and graduation from Arkansas AM & N with a bachelor of science in biology in 1962.

In Batesville, Ben taught a year at the Miller School, moved to California and attended graduate school for a year in 1964.

In his job with the WRPDD, he works to secure funding for local projects.

According to the WRPDD Web site, the agency is a private, non-profit organization established by act of the Arkansas Legislature in 1967, to "spur economic and community growth within the White River District."

It is one of eight Planning & Development Districts established to provide planning services, assist local governments in obtaining and administering state and federal grant funds, and to coordinate multi-county economic and community development efforts.

At the banquet, awards will be presented for the Alumnus of the Year, the Dr. Jane Fagg Scholarship, an annual award, and the annual Friend of BSA Award.

For the past 40 years, Lyon’s College’s APPLE Project has had "appeal" for area high school students interested in going to college.

And on Saturday, Feb. 24, organizers will host an event celebrating those 40 years of academic success with an alumni reunion from 1 – 3 p.m. in Edwards Dining Hall.

The APPLE Project – Accelerated Program of Personalized Learning and Enrichment – works with eligible high school students who have the academic potential and desire to succeed in postsecondary education.

The Project is a TRIO program. Sponsored by the Council for Opportunity in Education, TRIO programs are committed to "providing educational opportunity for all Americans regardless of race, ethnic background or economic circumstance."

For more info on TRIO programs, go to: www.trioprograms.org.

Since 1967, Lyon College has offered an Upward Bound program serving high school students in North Central Arkansas.

The goal of this program, which is funded through the U.S. Department of Education, has been to increase the number of high school graduates from disadvantaged backgrounds who enter college and persist to become college graduates.

APPLE Project students make a long-term commitment from their 9th-grade summer through their summer of graduation from high school to weekly school-year attendance for tutoring, counseling, and enrichment and to the six-week summer program of college-preparatory and college-credit classes.

Lyon President Dr. Walter Roettger said many wonderful success stories attest to the program’s benefits.

"This College considers the Upward Bound Project a worthwhile and needed program in this area," he said. "Moreover, we have very skilled leadership that assures its vitality."

Dr. Bruce Johnston, vice president for Student Life and Dean of Students, agreed.

"The program is valued on this campus and Lyon College is proud to serve as the host for this valuable service to the young people of the area in and around Batesville," he said.

Through a 24-week Academic Session, a six-week Residential Summer Session, as well as a Bridge Component for its most recent high school graduates, the APPLE Project offers college-credit and college-preparatory courses.

The program also offers academic tutoring; learning skills development such as computer, study, and library skills; career counseling; academic advisement; personal counseling; cultural, social, and recreational enrichment; and an academic climate strengthening the students’ sense of well-being and security within a postsecondary environment.

Kim Boehm serves as the APPLE Project director.

For more information on the project, contact her at: kboehm@lyon.edu, or at (870) 698-4263.

The West Endowed Concert Series is giving a gift to area music lovers, but there are strings attached. In fact, they’re attached to two violins, a viola and one cello.

On Tuesday, Feb. 27, at 7:30 p.m., the Quapaw Quartet will take center stage in the Bevens Music Room to play compositions by various Classical composers.

The quartet’s performance at Lyon College is free and open to the public.

The Quapaw Quartet was founded in 1980 as the resident string quartet of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. The four members of the ensemble are Eric Hayward, first violin; Meredith Maddox, violin; Ryan Mooney, viola; and Melita Hunsinger on cello.

Eric Hayward, a native of Oregon, is the associate concertmaster, principal second violinist of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and is a founding member of the Quapaw Quartet. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Oregon State University, a master of music degree from Northwestern University, and continued his studies at the University of Iowa. Hayward teaches violin and viola at Mills High School, Fuller Junior High School and College Station Elementary, as well as private lessons in Little Rock.

Meredith Maddox joined the violin section of the Arkansas Symphony in 2002 after receiving her master’s degree in performance and completing doctoral work at the Florida State University. A native of Nashville, Tenn., she graduated from Belmont University with a bachelor’s degree in violin performance before becoming an exchange student in Moscow, Russia. She spent one year there studying music at the Russian Academy of Music, Gnessin Institute.

Her orchestral experience includes the concertmaster position at both of the universities she attended, as well as holding positions with the Jacksonville, Naples and New World symphony orchestras. As a chamber musician, she is a member of Quartet alla Turca, an ensemble founded at the Florida State University. In 2003, Meredith joined the Arkansas Symphony’s premier string quartet, the Quapaw Quartet, as their new violinist.

Ryan Mooney started violin at the age of four with his aunt, Margaret Pressley. He then switched to viola at age 15 and went on to study with Ian Swenson and Jodi Levitz at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He has attended such music festivals as Roundtop and Tanglewood where he had the pleasure of performing with the Mark Morris Dance Group at Jacob’s Pillow. He was also a fellow of the Carnegie Hall exchange program where he performed with his quartet in Carnegie Hall and on a Central Asian tour. Mooney has spent the last year playing in the Monterey Symphony.

Melita Hunsinger joined The Arkansas Symphony and the Quapaw Quartet for the 2002-2003 season, and in 2004 she was named principal cello of the Arkansas Symphony. In that year she also appeared as soloist with the orchestra, performing Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto No. 1 at Lyon College. A native of Grand Rapids, Mich., Ms. Hunsinger studied cello with string pedagogue Louis Potter Jr., of East Lansing, Mich. She was awarded the Winston Cassler Music Scholarship from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., where she graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in music.

The Dan C. and Sidney Childs West Endowment was established by Dr. and Mrs. West in May 1981 for the purpose of offering live musical performances or stringed instrument instruction at Lyon College.

Junior and senior high students from 13 counties will visit the Lyon College campus on Saturday, Feb. 24, to compete in the Regional Academic Day math and science contests.

The 2007 American Council of Teachers of Mathematics Regional Mathematics Contest will test students based on their current junior high or high school enrollment in algebra I, algebra II, geometry, trigonometry/pre-calculus or calculus respectively.

The science tests will be based on the students’ current junior high or high school enrollment in biology, earth science, life science, physical science, physiology, chemistry and physics.

Last year, 265 students from 11 Arkansas junior high and high schools came to Lyon to take 246 science exams and 185 mathematics exams at the annual event.

The tests will be conducted in designated testing areas under the administration and supervision of faculty and student volunteers and proctors. The test results will be ranked and students with the top three scores from each math field will have the chance to compete in the state contest held in Conway on April 28.

Math exams will be given from 10 – 11a.m., and science exams from 11:15 – 11:50 a.m., and from 12:05 – 12:40 p.m., and an awards ceremony will be held in Brown Chapel at 2:45 p.m. Most of the exams will be conducted in the Derby Center, and additional testing will be held in the Lyon Building.

By rule, a proctor must be present in each room where testing is going on, and those proctors will grade the tests and tally up the lists of winners.

For more information on Academic Day, or volunteering to serve as a proctor, contact Dr. Nathan Ponder, the regional director, at 870-698-4302, or Darlene Chiaromonte, the coordinator, at 870-698-4694.

Dr. Mahbubul Kabir’s paper titled, "Did Import Competition of 1970s and 1980s Enhance Production Efficiency of U.S. Manufacturing Industries?" has been accepted for presentation at the 82nd Annual Conference of the Western Economic Association International to be held in Seattle, June 29-July 3, 2007. Dr. Kabir is an assistant professor of economics at Lyon College.

Lyon College graduate Debra West, a teacher at Batesville’s Central Elementary Math and Science Magnet, has just garnered her second grant for an innovative project she’s created to get her students out of the classroom and into the sunshine.

The Weyerhaeuser Company Foundation honored 20 teachers from across the state at an awards luncheon Jan. 24 in Little Rock.

The winning 10 elementary and 10 secondary teachers in Arkansas public schools claimed a total of $10,000 in mini grants – $500 each – for creative ideas they will bring to life in the classroom.

West ’95, an elementary education major at Lyon, has spent her entire 12-year teaching career in the Batesville District. Currently serving as a math and science specialist, her plans call for an "outdoor classroom," where she and her students will build kitchen gardens, wildflower gardens and a wetlands garden.

"They’ll help me teach about various types of environments," she said.

West has already earned $2,000 from Independence Quorum Court turnback funds to be dedicated to the project, giving her $2,500 with which to work.

Kathy Stacey, Weyerhaeuser public affairs manager, said the teachers’ imaginations created project titles such as "It’s Just Water under the Bridge" and "Growing Is Knowing."

"When these projects hit the classrooms, it will make it more fun for the students to learn math, science and the environment," she said. "That’s what it’s all about."

The Weyerhaeuser Company Foundation is a non-profit organization funded from the earnings of Weyerhaeuser Company, an international forest products firm that manages more than 700,000 acres of commercial timberland in Arkansas.

Some old-time neighbors dedicated to fighting each other to the death will soon bring some of today’s neighbors together for a friendly good time at the Old Independence Regional Museum.

At noon on Wednesday, Feb. 21, Dr. Jeffrey Johnson will deliver a lecture, "Arkansas Feuds in Arkansas Sources," as part of the Brown Bag with a Book series at the museum.

Dr. Johnson earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees at Tennessee Tech University and his Ph.D. in American literature at Harvard University. His 2000 dissertation on feud narratives in American literature won both the Howard Mumford Jones Prize and Helen Choate Bell Prize for dissertations from Harvard. He is currently an assistant professor of English at the University of Central Arkansas.

Now in its third year. the Old Independence Regional Museum’s Brown Bag with a Book series will feature two additional presentations this semester. On March 29, Dr. Joseph Key (Lyon ’88) of Arkansas State University will discuss the history of the Quapaw Indians in Arkansas, and on April 18, Dr. Steve Striffler of the University of Arkansas will discuss Hispanic migration and labor issues and the modern poultry industry.

The Old Independence Regional Museum is located at 380 South 9th Street in Batesville. Plan to bring a sack lunch, and the museum will provide free water and soft drinks. Admission is free.

For more information, go to: www.oirm.org.

A group of Lyon College art students have been invited to show their work in an online exhibition hosted by the Saatchi Gallery in London – widely considered to be the best contemporary art gallery in the world.

The Saatchi Gallery designed the online gallery "STUART" (Student Art) to help find the next generation of talented artists. It gives artists the opportunity to show their work in a virtual exhibition space from where they can be picked up by collectors.

Artists who sell their work are not charged any commission fees.

In the first week of STUART’s being online, 600 young artists have signed up, and the Web site has attracted 20 million hits.

The Lyon students who have work in the exhibition are Eric Bork, Emily Fleming, Sarah Fendley, Megan Kinion and Jennifer Cross.

According to the gallery’s Web site, the Saatchi Gallery aims to provide an innovative forum for contemporary art, presenting work by largely unseen young artists or by established international artists whose work has been rarely or never exhibited in the UK.

The audience for exhibitions of contemporary art has increased widely during the last ten years as general awareness and interest in contemporary art has developed in Britain.

When The Saatchi Gallery first opened twenty years ago it was only those people who had a dedicated interest in contemporary art who sought out the gallery to see work by new artists. The audience, however, built steadily over the years and the gallery now receives over 600,000 visitors a year, and over 1,000 schools have organized student visits.

The Saatchi Gallery has worked with media sponsors on a number of shows including The Observer, The Sunday Times, Evening Standard, The Independent on Sunday and Time Out.

Many artists showing at The Saatchi Gallery are unknown when first exhibited, not only to the general public but also to the commercial art world. Many of these artists are subsequently offered shows by galleries and museums internationally.

For more information on the exhibition, contact Chris Valle, assistant professor of art, at (870) 698-4336.

From the gentle wisdom of Jed Clampett to the "hillbilly chic" movies of Burt Reynolds, the image of the Arkansas hillbilly has worn many faces, and an upcoming program at Lyon College will take an in-depth look at them all.

Dr. Brooks Blevins, Lyon’s assistant professor of history, will present his program, "Arkansaw: The Making of a Hillbilly State," at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 27, in the Mabee-Simpson Library.

The author of the books "Hill Folks: A History of Arkansas Ozarkers and Their Image," and "Lyon College, 1872 – 2002: The Perseverance and Promise of an Arkansas College," Blevins said no one is certain as to where the term "hillbilly" originated.

"Most likely, it comes from the British Isles and refers to a friend who lives in the hills," he said. "The first recorded written reference to the term doesn’t appear until 1900, in a magazine published in New York. But it was certainly in wide use before then."

That first reference in 1900 came in the New York Journal in a story about vote buying in Alabama.

Other sources cite the origin of this nickname as coming from Ulster. Scots-Irish settlers in the hills of Appalachia brought their traditional music with them, and many of their songs dealt with William, Prince of Orange.

Supporters of William were known as "Orangemen" and "Billy Boys," and their North American counterparts were soon referred to as "hillbillies."

Incidentally, the origins of the term "redneck" are also thought to be Scottish and refer to supporters of the National Covenant and The Solemn League and Covenant. The "Covenanters" were largely Lowland Presbyterians who signed in their own blood and wore red pieces of cloth around their necks as distinctive insignia.

The term "redneck" became slang for a Scottish dissenter. Since many Scots-Irish settlers in America – especially the South – were Presbyterian, the term was applied to them, and then, later, their Southern descendants.

One of the earliest recorded examples of its use comes from 1830, when an author noted that "red-neck" was a "name bestowed upon the Presbyterians."

Though people classified as "hillbillies" have historically lived from New York and Pennsylvania, to the Smokies and the Texas Hill Country, the term is often tied most closely with rural Southern Appalachia and the Ozarks region.

And despite the common perception that being a hillbilly carries with it a negative connotation, most references to the term have been cast in a favorable light, Blevins said.

"The interpretation of the hillbilly image has generally been positive," he said. "Those interpretations were tinged with the authors’ romantic views of pioneers and frontiersmen, living on their own terms."

The favorable, romantic view of the "Arkansawyer" stems from the pre-Civil War era, Blevins said. The folk tale of the "Arkansas Traveler" and the "Big Bear of Arkansas" by Thomas Bangs Thorpe, as well as the travel accounts of Albert Pike and Friedrich Gerstacker, were some of the earliest, and most favorable, accounts of Arkansas Ozarkers.

The "Arkansas Traveler" is the state’s most famous folklore legend. It spins a tale of a city gentleman who gets lost in the Arkansas wilderness during the 1840s. His encounter with a backwoods squatter produced a story that became a stage comedy, playing from New Orleans to Boston.

Radio programs in the 1930s and 1940s such as "Lum and Abner" and "The Arkansas Traveler," hosted by Arkansas native Bob Burns and named for the famous legend, continued the trend. Films such as John Wayne’s "Shepherd of the Hills," and television shows such as "The Beverly Hillbillies" soon cemented the image’s place in popular culture.

In the 1970s, Burt Reynolds’ string of successful movies such as "White Lightning," "Gator," and "Smokey and the Bandit" firmly established the Hillbilly Chic trend that had found its roots decades earlier.

However, Reynolds’ movie "Deliverance" cast hillbillies in an entirely different, and less favorable, light. One journalist is quoted as saying that "Deliverance" did for north Georgians what "Jaws" did for sharks.

Blevins’ presentation will be based on the new book he’s currently working on, which focuses on the notion that the image of Arkansas hillbillies is far more favorable and positive than what is normally believed by the people who live here.

"Arkansas people have too often been defensive about the hillbilly image and its negative implications," he said. "All in all, the image has usually been a favorable one."

In the Ozark region, the image has translated into millions of tourist dollars for places such as Silver Dollar City and Branson in Missouri. Dogpatch U.S.A., in the Arkansas Ozarks also attempted to capitalize on the image, though that venture went under long ago.

The lecture will also be a live webcast at: http://vidserv1.lyon.edu:8080/, and after the presentation, the lecture will be available on the library’s Web site for listening at: www.lyon.edu/webdata/groups/library/Librarynewsandevents.asp.

Blevins presentation is free and open to the public. For more information on upcoming events at the library, contact Camille Beary, assistant director of the library, at 698-4267.

Correction

In the Feb. 5 GreenSheet Online, the group of preschoolers who visited campus were from Castleberry Elementary at Newport, rather than Newark as reported. The preschoolers visited the Lyon campus Jan. 31 to listen to Dr. Tom Carpenter, professor of education, read to them at the Mabee-Simpson Library. The children's teacher, Darlene Crawford, is a 2004 graduate of Lyon College and a former student of Dr. Carpenter's. After the reading, Carpenter took the children to lunch at Edward's Commons.

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