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Patricia Zahn, Associate Director, grabs a sledgehammer to help with the tent-raising
Monthly E-News from Michael Bouman, Executive Director,
and Patricia Zahn, Associate Director
Missouri Humanities Council
Contents:
Introducing Patricia Zahn
My colleague, Patricia Zahn, has agreed to give me a two-month vacation from
this monthly newsletter. July and August tend to be months when my personal
hobbies take expression in the garden and on the concert stage, and I spend
less time in the office. In late June, when this issue is written, I'm helping
my local garden club host the international convention of the American Hemerocallis
Society, an association of people who are nuts about growing hybrid daylilies.
We're expecting six hundred and fifty people for an event in the first three
days of July. I'm a "bus captain" for the garden tours and an instructor
in the workshops for awards judges. The link below will take you to a picture
gallery of photos of my own hybrid creations, none of which have been formally
named and registered yet.
http://www.mohumanities.org/michael/sdlgs/index_sdlg.htm
My wife and I then spend the first two weeks of August at the International
Music Festival in Pitten, Lower Austria. A friend at the University of Vermont
has organized this biennial festival with help from Austrian friends ever since
1992. San and I have attended since 1994, she as a principal artist/faculty
and I as an artist. We're both singers, you see, and this festival is like going
to a music camp! You can see some of the scenery around Pitten at the festival
web site:
http://www.pittenfestival.org/
The rest of this newsletter, and all of the August one, is in Patricia's voice.
The Fun of Chautauqua; Hosts for 2005
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Patricia Zahn, Associate Director, grabs a sledgehammer to help with the tent-raising
As summer officially began, the Heartland Chautauqua 2004 tour started its final week. The weather could not have been more perfect as the Chautauqua tent was raised by over a hundred volunteers on a beautiful evening. For many of us, it was our first experience putting up a big top tent, and it was quite an exciting moment as everyone pulled the ropes attached to the 2,400 square foot tarp resting on the ground and the beams lifted into place. The tent was erected and the volunteers set up 200 chairs to accommodate the large audiences that would come during the week to hear from people whose lives were changed as a result of the Lewis & Clark expedition. After the work was complete, the volunteers and Chautauqua troupe were entertained by a local band and enjoyed a picnic dinner together. For more pictures of the Tent-Raising click here.
Heartland Chautauqua 2004 Changed Lives: Lewis &
Clark meet the West is now finished. Altogether this summer, over 3,300
people attended evening presentations and another 1,800 were able to participate
in day-time programs offered through the scholar-in-residence component of Heartland
Chautauqua.
right - Almost there! Chautauqua attendees help hoist the tent's center pole
We are very pleased to announce the communities that have been chosen to host Heartland Chautauqua in June of 2005. Residents of Pike County were thrilled to find out that they will host and have already begun to collaborate on activities to create a successful tour next year, spearheaded by the Pike County Museum Association. In the opposite corner of the state, residents of Diamond will also have the opportunity to experience Chautauqua in their community for the first time at the George Washington Carver National Monument Park. Surrounding communities have already expressed interest in participating.
ONE MORE COMMUNITY will be able to host Chautauqua 2005
The Missouri Humanities Council is pleased to announce that an additional community will now be able to host Heartland Chautauqua next summer thanks to special funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) "We the People" initiative. Proposals to host this additional week of Heartland Chautauqua 2005 will be accepted through August 31st. Information and applications are available online at http://www.mohumanities.org/programs/chautauqua/
Lewis & Clark Programs in Missouri
Changed Lives: Lewis & Clark Meet the West was not only the theme for our Heartland Chautauqua this year, but is also the title of one of our programs. In partnership with the Humanities Councils in Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa, MHC will be offering a series of 4 presentations related to the Lewis & Clark and the Corps of Discovery in 85 communities during 2004 and 2005.
Thus far this year, nine Missouri communities have been able to participate, including Hannibal, Marceline, Sainte Genevieve, Harrisonville, Miami, Maryville, Washington, St. Joseph, and Huntsdale. Presentations have varied for each community. Representatives of the Osage, Sac & Fox, Kanza, Shawnee, and Otoe and Missouria people have enlightened groups with information about cultures and communities that once considered Missouri home. Other programs have focused on the music of the era, food and wildlife, medical theory and practice, and French Creole cultural influences on the expedition. Programs exploring the mysterious death of Meriwether Lewis, the significance of Haitian leader Toussaint L'Overture, the institution of slavery, and the interactions with Native Americans have also been presented. A program description and schedule is available online at http://www.mohumanities.org/programs/manyfaces/changedlives.htm. You won’t want to miss this opportunity to learn about the “Journey of Discovery” from several different perspectives.
MHC Grant Developments and Opportunities
On June 15, people in the Lexington area got a first-hand look at how a local museum can move its exhibits and programs up a notch. A small grant to the Lexington Library and Historical Society enabled the museum to create new exhibits on the pioneers and the visit by Lewis and Clark.
MHC Board member Jim Tanner attended the opening and wrote enthusiastically the next morning, "A new panel in the museum focuses on some very old surveying instruments loaned by a local family, and so the panels themselves talk about the instruments and the processes of surveying the Louisiana Purchase. Before we got into the museum, however, we met at the Saluda memorial, dedicated to the people killed in April, 1852, when the boilers on the paddle-wheel steamship named Saluda exploded, killing about 75 of the 175 passengers on board. There Dan Lasher, himself a professional land surveyor, depicted himself as a member of the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery, showed his instruments (chain, compass on tripod, pocket compass, sextant), talked about how to use them and what to use them for, discussed Lewis's attempts to find the latitude and longitude of every important feature of the land they passed through, and then talked generally about the whole process of surveying the land of the Louisiana Purchase.
"I learned a lot of things I didn't know about that process and found it all quite interesting. He is very knowledgeable, both about surveying land and about the surveying and mapping Lewis and Clark did."
In connection with this new exhibit, the Lexington Library and Historical Society has been selected to develop a third exhibit related to the Osage Tribe as a historical presence and a contemporary people. The new exhibit is one of three demonstration projects at local museums in Missouri funded by a special grant to MHC from the NEH "We The People" initiative. The projects entail the development and production of a low-security, modestly-scaled exhibit on historical Native peoples in Missouri. Two more sites in Missouri will be chosen this summer. A Southeast Missouri site will interpret the communities of Shawnee and Delaware who came as invited settlers in the late 18th century. In Northeast Missouri, one or more institutions will focus on the Sac and Fox presence in that region.
If you want to learn about how your institution can apply for a grant from the Missouri Humanities Council, please visit our website, http://www.mohumanities.org, or contact Michael Bouman at michael@mohumanities.org or 1.800.357.0909.
Summer Reading
Summer is often referred to as a time to catch up on reading and relaxing. If you haven’t had the opportunity yet, don’t forget to read this year’s Read MOre selection, Mississippi Solo, by Eddie Harris. After this read you will never cross the river again without looking for someone paddling a canoe and wondering about such an adventure.
In
addition, don’t forget to take time to read aloud to your young children
or tell them a story. A hot summer day is the perfect time to explore our READ
from the START selection, The Snowy Day. For a complete list of our
RFTS books and links to sites with ideas for fun activities and literacy information,
click here: http://www.mohumanities.org/programs/readstart/index.htm
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Published monthly by the Missouri Humanities Council, a tax-exempt, non-profit
organization affiliated with the National Endowment for the Humanities, a Federal
agency.
http://www.mohumanities.org
Phone: (800) 357-0909
Fax: (314) 781-9681
543 Hanley Industrial Court
Suite 201
St. Louis, MO 63144