Category Archives: Lecture

LR Cultural Touchstone: Charlotte Gadberry

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charlotte-gadberryCharlotte Gadberry has long been a supporter of Little Rock’s various cultural institutions. She has both served on boards and consulted with boards in strategic planning.  She is a Cultural Touchstone, however, because of her vision to found ACANSA Arts Festival.

A trip to Charleston, South Carolina, amid it’s Spoleto USA arts festival inspired her to dream that Little Rock could play host to a similar endeavor.  Using her fundraising prowess and connections, she started to raise funds, friends and awareness for this idea.

In September 2013, the inaugural ACANSA Arts Festival was announced for September 2014.  Under her leadership, ACANSA (a name derived from an early Native American variation of what is now called Arkansas) incorporated both local cultural institutions as well as performers brought in for the event.

It kicked off on a Tuesday with a reception at the Governor’s Mansion and concluded the following Sunday with a reception at Wildwood Park for the Arts.  In between there was theatre, dance, mime, puppetry, instrumental music, choral music, opera, jazz, painting, photography, history, lectures, and gallery tours.

Under her leadership as founder, plans are already underway for the next edition.  ACANSA Arts Festival 2015 is scheduled for September 16-20. Tickets go on sale next spring.

Mount Holly Cemetery Comes Alive Tonight with Tales of the Crypt

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A Parkview student portraying former LR Mayor Woodson.

A Parkview student portraying former LR Mayor Woodson.

The ghosts of Little Rock past will arise tonight at Mt. Holly Cemetery for the 20th Annual Tales from the Crypt.

Held the second Tuesday of October, Tales of the Crypt is an annual Mount Holly event.  Under the direction of Fred Boosey & Tamara Zinck, drama students from Parkview Arts & Science Magnet High School are each given a person buried in the cemetery to research. They then prepare short monologues or dialogues, complete with period costumes, to be performed in front of the researched person’s grave.

Former Little Rock Mayor James Woodson, and Juliet Neill Peay (whose family has been involved in Little Rock politics for 190 years) are two of the featured residents.  Others include Eleanor Counts, Albert DeShon,  David O. Dodd, Senhora Dodd, Sallie and Dr. Isaac Folsom, Katherine Eller Henderson, Mary Eliza Knapp, Eliza Miller, James Robbins, Quatie Ross, Lillian Scott, Albert Stocking, Mollie Stocking, Anne Warren, Edward Payson Washburn, Mary & Edward Wiegel.

Award-winning local costumer Debi Manire will once again provide the wonderful historical characters’ costumes.  Audiences are led through the cemetery from grave to grave by guides with candles. Although it takes place around the same time as the American holiday Halloween, the event is meant to be historic rather than spooky.  Many local teachers award extra credit to students who attend.

The Twentieth Annual “Tales of the Crypt” will be sponsored by Mount Holly Cemetery Association and Parkview Arts-Science Magnet High School.

The event will be held  at Mount Holly Cemetery, 1200 South Broadway, Little Rock, Arkansas on from 5:30 pm until 8:30 pm.  Admission is free to the public, however donations to Mount Holly Cemetery are appreciated and aid in the maintenance of the cemetery.

Today at Noon, Ed Bethune discusses newest book at Clinton School

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EdBethune-580x323Gay Panic in the Ozarks is the newest book from former Congressman Ed Bethune.  In the novel, the story follows the character of Aubrey Hatfield and the citizens of Campbell County as they get a second chance to grapple with man’s greatest vice – the refusal to see wrong happening and not do something about it.

The life journey of protagonist Aubrey Hatfield contrasts the culture of the turbulent sixties with today’s culture, and ponders how we should adapt to or resist the ever-changing notions of right and wrong. “Gay Panic in the Ozarks” is a novel that examines love, hate, morality, honor, and duty. 

Monday, October 13, 2014 at 12:00 p.m. *Book signing to follow

*Reserve your seats by emailing publicprograms@clintonschool.uasys.edu or calling (501) 683-5239.

Power of Glamour topic at Clinton School talk

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Postrel“The Power of Glamour: Longing and the Art of Visual Persuasion”

Virginia Postrel is an author, columnist, and speaker whose work spans a broad range of topics, from social science to fashion, concentrating on the intersection of culture and commerce. Her most recent work, “The Power of Glamour: Longing and the Art of Visual Persuasion,” lays out the case for glamour as a life-shaping force, whether for good or for ill. Postrel takes an exhaustive look not only at the history of glamour, but at how it works, developing a theory that explains just about anything – from “how Jackie Kennedy is like the Chrysler Building or a sports car is like a Moleskine notebook, to why some audiences might find glamour in nuns, wind turbines or ‘Star Trek.’”

She will speak at the Clinton School at noon today. A book signing will follow.

*Reserve your seats by emailing publicprograms@clintonschool.uasys.edu or calling (501) 683-5239.

Carl Moneyhon examines emergence of legend of David O. Dodd at tonight’s Evenings With History

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Carl_Moneyhon_smThis year marks the 24th year for the History Institutes’ Evenings with History.  This nationally recognized series has featured a variety of subjects.  The sessions take place at the Ottenheimer Auditorium of Historic Arkansas Museum. Refreshments are served at 7 with the program beginning at 7:30 pm. The cost is $50 for admission to all six programs.

Tonight’s program features Carl Moneyhon speaking on “David O. Dodd: A Legend Emerges.”

One hundred and fifty years ago this year, David O. Dodd, convicted of spying for the Confederacy, was executed outside his old school in Little Rock. In the years that followed, the story of this seventeen-year-old’s death steadily changed, with new and usually undocumented additions. Today it is difficult to separate facts from the legend that has emerged. This talk examines the development of the legend, showing the facts of the story, then the additions. A major focus of the talk is an examination of when and who added to the legend and the purposes that lay behind these alterations.

Friday, Eldredge, & Clark and the Union Pacific Railroad help make these lectures possible. Other sponsors are the Ottenheimer Library, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; Historic Arkansas Museum, a museum of the Department of Arkansas Heritage; UALR Public Radio—KUAR-KLRE; UALR public television; and Grapevine Spirits.

LR Cultural Touchstone: Phyllis D. Brandon

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phyllisbrandon_t180Phyllis D. Brandon has played a unique role in shaping and supporting Little Rock’s cultural life.  As the first and longtime editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette‘s High Profile section, she promoted cultural institutions, supporters and practitioners.

Since it started in 1986, being featured in High Profile has been akin to the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.  It exposes cultural institutions and events to new and wider audiences.  There is no way to put a monetary measure on the support Brandon gave to Little Rock’s cultural life during her time leading High Profile from 1986 to 2009.  From 2009 to 2011, she served as editor of Arkansas Life magazine, again supporting and promoting cultural life.

With her unassuming manner, she coaxed stories out of interview subjects and captured photos which highlighted events.  A journalist since her junior high school days in Little Rock, Brandon has also been a witness to history.  As a recent graduate of the University of Arkansas, Brandon returned to her alma mater, Little Rock Central High, to cover the events in early September 1957 for the Arkansas Democrat.  Eleven years later, she was in Chicago for the contentious and violent 1968 Democratic National Convention as a delegate.

From 1957 until 1986, she alternated between careers in journalism and the business world, as well as being a stay-at-home mother.  Upon becoming founding editor of High Profile, she came into her own combining her nose for news and her life-long connections within the Little Rock community.  As a writer and photographer, she created art in her own right. A look through High Profile provides a rich historical snapshot of the changes in Little Rock and Arkansas in the latter part of the 20th Century and start of the 21st Century.

Since retiring in 2011, Brandon has kept a relatively low profile. She can be seen from time to time spending time with friends and family and enjoying attending events. Only this time she generally does not have her trusty camera or notepad.

Ramifications of Nixon’s Win in 1968 is topic of Clinton School Program today at noon

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The 1968 general election was pivotal in the future of the U.S.  While locally it saw Arkansas voters re-electing GOP Governor Winthrop Rockefeller & Democratic Senator J. William Fulbright while tossing their electoral votes for independent (and segregationist) George Wallace, on the national scale the election of Richard M. Nixon set the tone for a new type of political partisanship.  Though the long-reaching outcomes of that election were not really apparent at the time.  The narrative in 1968 was more about Nixon’s career redemption, but it was also about the rise of the GOP in the formerly solidly Democratic South.

Michael Nelson, author of Resilient America: Electing Nixon in 1968, Channeling Dissent, and Dividing Government, will discuss his book at the Clinton School today at 12 noon.

Nelson is the Fulmer Professor of Political Science at Rhodes College, a Fellow of Southern Methodist University’s Center for Presidential History, and a Senior Fellow at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. He is the author of numerous books, including “How the South Joined the Gambling Nation: The Politics of State Policy Innovation,” with John L. Mason, winner of the 2009 V. O. Key Award for Outstanding Book on Southern Politics from the Southern Political Science Association. His new book, “Resilient America,” explores how urban riots and the Tet Offensive, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, the politics of outrage and race—all pointed to a reordering of party coalitions, of groups and regions, a hardening and widening of an ideological divide—and to the historical importance of the 1968 election as a watershed event.

With all the talk recently about the 40th anniversary of Nixon’s resignation, this talk will present an interesting take on the set-up to Nixon’s first term.  In addition, as both the GOP and Democrats have their eyes on Arkansas’ political future, Nelson’s book sets the stage for the seeds being sown of the rise of the two party system in the South.

Reserve your seats by emailing publicprograms@clintonschool.uasys.edu or calling (501) 683-5239.