People First Language offers humane ways to refer to members of the nation's largest minority group

This article comes from the spring 2011 Wyoming Arts Council Artscapes newsletter set for an April 29 pub date. It was contributed by WAC staffer Marirose Morris. As Arts Access Specialist, Marirose oversees several grant programs and 504/ADA guidelines. Contact her at the WAC at 307-777-7742.

A person’s self-image is tied to the words used about him/her. People First Language was started by individuals who said, “We are not our disabilities!”

People First Language puts the person before the disability, and describes what a person has, not who a person is. Are you “cancerous” or do you have cancer? Is a person “handicapped/disabled” or does he/she “have a disability?” Using a diagnosis as a defining characteristic reflects prejudice, and robs the person of the opportunity to define him/herself.

People with disabilities comprise the nation’s largest minority group. It is also the most inclusive: all ages, genders, religions, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and socioeconomic levels are represented, and anyone can join it, at any time.

Say:	Instead of:
Children/adults with a disability	Handicapped, disabled, special needs
S/he has a cognitive disability	S/he is mentally retarded
S/he has Down syndrome	S/he’s mongoloid/Down’s
S/he has autism	An autistic person
S/he has a learning disability	S/he is learning disabled
S/he is deaf	The deaf
S/he has a speech disorder	Mute
S/he is blind, has a visual impairment	The blind
S/he has epilepsy	An epileptic
S/he uses a wheelchair	Wheelchair bound
S/he walks with a assistive device	A cripple
S/he is a little person	Dwarf or midget
People without disabilities	Normal or healthy people
Accessible parking, hotel rooms, etc.	Handicapped parking, hotel rooms, etc.

Call for entries: Split This Rock Adult Poetry Contest

Split This Rock Announces its Fourth Annual Adult Poetry Contest

Benefits Split This Rock Poetry Festival - Washington, D.C.

$1,000 awarded for poems of provocation and witness

Jan Beatty, Judge

Submission Guidelines:

Send up to 3 unpublished poems, no more than 6 pages total, in any style, in the spirit of Split This Rock (see below).

Postmark Deadline: November 1, 2010

Include one cover page containing your name, address, phone number, email, and the titles of your poems. This is the only part of the submission that should contain your name. Enclose a check or money order for $25 (made out to "Split This Rock") to:

Split This Rock Poetry Contest
1112 16th Street NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20036

The reading fee of $25 supports Split This Rock Poetry Festival. Simultaneous submissions OK, but please notify us immediately if the poem is accepted elsewhere. For more information, info@splitthisrock.org.

Prizes:
•First place receives $500; second and third place receive $250 each.
•Winners receive free 2012 festival registration.
•The 1st-place winner will be invited to read the winning poem at Split This Rock Poetry Festival, 2012.
•Winning poems will be published here, at SplitThisRock.org.

Details:
Submissions should be in the spirit of Split This Rock: socially engaged poems, poems that reach beyond the self to connect with the larger community or world, poems of provocation and witness.

This theme can be interpreted broadly and may include — but is not limited to — work addressing politics, economics, government, war,leadership; issues of identity (gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, disability, body image, immigration, heritage, etc.); community, civic engagement, education, activism; and poems about history, Americana, cultural icons.

Contest Judge Bio: Jan Beatty

Jan Beatty's new book, Red Sugar, was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in Spring, 2008. Other books include Boneshaker and Mad River, winner of the 1994 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize. Beatty's poetry has appeared in Quarterly West, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, and Court Green, and in anthologies published by Oxford University Press, University of Illinois Press, and University of Iowa Press. Awards include the $15,000 Creative Achievement Award in Literature from the Heinz Foundation, the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, and two fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. For the past thirteen years, she has hosted and produced "Prosody," a public radio show on NPR-affiliate WYEP-FM featuring the work of national writers. Beatty directs the creative writing program at Carlow University, where she runs the Madwomen in the Attic writing workshops and teaches in the MFA program.

FMI: http://www.splitthisrock.org/contests.html

Join today's conversation with The President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities

Today's Tuesday Talk from the White House features The President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.

On the White House blog, Kori Schulman has the following info:

Join us for two talks on Tuesday, October 19:

•1:30 p.m. EDT: Talk with Austan Goolsbee, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, on the economy.

•2:15 p.m. EDT: In celebration of National Arts and Humanities Month, talk about the arts and arts and humanities education with co-chairs and members of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities (PCAH), including:

Chuck Close, Member and visual artist
Margo Lion, Co-Chair
George Stevens, Jr., Co-Chair
Damian Woetzel, Member and ballet dancer

Here's how you can participate:

•Ask your questions in advance on Facebook
•Watch the chat through www.WhiteHouse.gov/live
•Join the discussion live through the White House Facebook application

Link up by going to http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/10/15/two-tuesday-talks-austan-goolsbee-economy-president-s-committee-arts-and-humanities

Record an interview for StoryCorps' National Day of Listening on Nov. 27

This comes from Wyoming Public Radio:

Wyoming Public Radio encourages listeners to record an interview with a loved one for StoryCorps’ second annual National Day of Listening on November 27, 2009.

On the day after Thanksgiving, November 27, 2009, Wyoming Public Radio and StoryCorps are asking all Americans to start a new holiday tradition: Set aside one hour to interview a friend, a loved one, or someone in their community about his or her life.

The process is simple: select an interview partner, create a question list, and sit down to record a meaningful conversation. StoryCorps has created a free Do-It-Yourself (DIY) interview guide with step-by-step interview instructions, equipment recommendations, and sample questions available online at nationaldayoflistening.org.

Sponsored by Corporation for National & Community Service, American Library Association, National Public Radio and Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

United We Serve -- the arts

This announcement comes from the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, or NASAA. The Wyoming Arts Council is a NASAA member:

United We Serve is a nationwide service initiative that kicks off on June 22, 2009. Led by the White House and coordinated by the Corporation for National and Community Service, United We Serve asks organizations across America to engage new volunteers in their work and encourages individuals to volunteer and develop community service projects with friends, family, and neighbors.

After an initial 81 days – June 22 to September 11 – the president hopes that the initiative will grow into a sustained, collaborative effort to promote service as a way of life for all Americans. More information about the initiative is available at http://www.Serve.gov.

By participating in United We Serve, artists and arts organizations can demonstrate the unique and vital contributions the arts make to every aspect of community life. Volunteer efforts may be centered on cultural activities or on those relating to one of United We Serve’s areas of focus: education; health; energy and the environment; and community renewal. In addition to the inherent benefits of volunteerism, either by engaging volunteers or serving as volunteers, artists and arts organizations can strengthen their community ties and make the arts more visible in local recovery efforts.

How to Participate:

• Post a call for volunteers. Invite members of the community to get involved with your organization and its programs. Go to Serve.gov and register your organization and your project(s) in the All for Good database, a national hub of volunteer opportunity listings. Record numbers of volunteers are expected to seek service opportunities this summer, so be sure to capitalize on this momentum.
• Become a volunteer. Contribute your time to a volunteer project taking place in your community – and identify yourself as an artist when you do! Search Serve.gov and All for Good for nearby opportunities.
• Create your own project. Consult the on-line toolkit for tips on how to design local service efforts that make a difference. The best practices profiled there can maximize the impact of any community arts or cultural engagement initiative.
• Share your story. Make the arts a visible part of America’s service movement by sharing your story on-line. Describe how you have engaged volunteers for arts projects and how those projects have transformed lives, galvanized community action or assisted populations in need. Include pictures for maximum appeal. A wealth of stories is being posted on the White House Delivering Change map.
• Promote your participation. A sample press release is available to help you get started.

Additional materials about United We Serve are available on-line, including a video announcement by President Obama, answers to Frequently Asked Questions and a Media Advisory Guide. National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, 1029 Vermont Avenue NW, 2nd Floor, Washington, D.C. 20005, 202-347-6352, http://www.nasaa-arts.org/

Poetry returns to presidential inauguration

After a long hiatus, poetry will return to the inauguration of the American president.

The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies announced today that Elizabeth Alexander, a prize-winning poet who grew up in Washington, D.C., will read at the swearing in Jan. 20 of President-elect Barack Obama.

Alexander will be the fourth poet to read at a swearing in after Robert Frost (John F. Kennedy, 1961), Maya Angelou (Bill Clinton, 1993) and Miller Williams (Bill Clinton, 1997).

Here’s a bio from the Inaugural Committee’s web site:

Elizabeth Alexander is a poet, essayist, playwright, and teacher. She is the author of four books and was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize. She has received many grants and honors, most recently the Alphonse Fletcher, Sr. Fellowship for work that "contributes to improving race relations in American society and furthers the broad social goals of the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954," and the 2007 Jackson Prize for Poetry. She is a professor at Yale University and was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University this year.

You can read a selection of Alexander's poems on her web site -- or read this one, "Apollo," from the Poetry Out Loud web site:

Apollo
By Elizabeth Alexander

We pull off
to a road shack
in Massachusetts
to watch men walk

on the moon. We did
the same thing
for three two one
blast off, and now

we watch the same men
bounce in and out
of craters. I want
a Coke and a hamburger.

Because the men
are walking on the moon
which is now irrefutably
not green, not cheese,

not a shiny dime floating
in a cold blue,
the way I'd thought,
the road shack people don't

notice we are a black
family not from there,
the way it mostly goes.
This talking through

static, bounces in space-
boots, tethered
to cords is much
stranger, stranger

even than we are.

Three points-of-view on democratic elections

This comes from Rebecca Huntington at the Teton County Public Library in Jackson:

Forget the polling data and hyperventilating pundits. What's the real-life experience of voters in America? How do local elections here differ from campaigns in countries such as Japan?

Find answers to these questions and more as Teton County Library offers three provocative views on elections during this year's campaign season as part of the library's new, monthly Documentary Film Club. The new club will feature films produced as part of the popular Point of View (P.O.V.) series, which is aired on PBS stations nationwide. The Film Club is free and open to the public. All films will be screened at 7 p.m. in the Library's Ordway Auditorium.

Here are the offerings:

Wed. Sept. 10: Campaign. What do you do when you find out that an old college friend has been selected by Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to run for a key city council seat? If you're Kazuhiro Soda, you grab your camera and make a film. Find out why the ruling party chose Soda's friend, and what it means for local Japanese politics.

Wed. Oct. 15: Election Day. Get personal. This film combines 11 election-day stories into one narrative. It was shot simultaneously on Nov. 2, 2004, from dawn until long past midnight. Follow voters in Chicago; on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation; from small-town Stockholm, Wisconsin (population 97) -- and the democratic values they bring to elections.

Thur. Nov. 13: Georgie Girl. This film chronicles a woman's journey from boy to diva to member of the New Zealand Parliament. Quite possibly the world's first transsexual person to be openly elected to office, Georgina Beyer actively serves a rural district, which is also New Zealand's largest district.

Like the weather, documentary themes for the library's new film club will change with the seasons. To keep up on the latest topics, subscribe to the library's e-calendar by sending a message to communications@tclib.org or stop by our site at http://www.tclib.org/.

For information about the Monthly Documentary Film Club, call the Adult Humanities Coordinator at 307-733-2164 ext. 135. This program is sponsored by Teton County Library Foundation.

The rise of the "artists' district" in Phoenix

You have to admire the chutzpah shown by the artists of Phoenix.

At the turn of the century, the Phoenix downtown area had about a dozen artist spaces. Five years later, there were more than 100.

"The change has been dramatic," says Greg Esser, founder of the Roosevelt Row Community Development Corporation. "We didn't want an arts district but an artists' district -- a vibrant urban community."

And that what Esser and other pioneering Phoenix artists have created with their "front-porch activism." It's a lively city neighborhood with live-in and exhibit spaces for artists with the coffee shops, restaurants and bars that go along with it. The Roosevelt Row First Friday Art Walk draws up to 20,000 people. It's become so popular that the group started a Third Fridays Gallery Night.

Esser spoke to a July 25 gathering of visual arts coordinators from the West, a meeting sponsored by Denver's Western States Arts Federation. Mike Shay was there to represent the Wyoming Arts Council. Esser's PowerPoint presentation included before-and-after images of the neighborhood -- and plenty of tips on "adaptive reuse" of old buildings.

When the artists first looked out upon Roosevelt Street just north of downtown's high-rises, they saw abandoned bungalows that housed squatters and crack dealers. It was such a dangerous neighborhood that, even after the first arts space opened, artists and arts-lovers were afraid to go there after dark. As more and more buildings were bought (or leased) and renovated, and traffic changed from drive-by drug buyers to drive-in arts patrons, the Roosevelt Row artists faced new problems in the form of city regulations -- and lack thereof.

"We had a lot of public resistance initially," says Esser, "and no public funding, at least in the beginning."

The initial resistance came from the City of Phoenix, the Downtown Phoenix Partnership, the Arizona Tourism and Sports Authority, and developers who thought the neighborhood would be a great place for a new football stadium. The land had been purchased and demolition had already begun in adjacent areas. Voters had passed a bond issue to fund the stadium in one of four locations in the valley, which included downtown.

But the battle was on. Artists were opposed to a new stadium being dropped on their heads. They wrote letters and attended meetings to voice their opposition. They also told their story through art. Esser's first installation at the new studio was on its floor. He designed a replica of the proposed stadium's 40-yard-line right at the very spot it was supposed to be. It brought home the fact that this very gallery was due to be replaced by a stadium that would be used a few weekends a year, and the rest of the time would sit there like a big silver barrel cactus, a native plant (the green kind, not the silver variety) that the architects allegedly used for inspiration.

The Phoenix Cardinals Stadium, host of the 2008 Super Bowl, now sits ten miles away from downtown in Glendale.

But, for Esser and the other Roosevelt Row artists, there were more meetings to attend and more paperwork to be filled out. Not all artists like the nuts-and-bolts of creating an artists' district.

"Engagement is a choice," says Esser. "Someone has to go to the city meeting. First, you have to find out which ones to go to." By going to these meetings, Esser became the de facto "artists' advocate" and schooled himself on the arcane laws of the city bureaucracy. It was rough going at first, especially when faced with zoning regulations.

"One of our big challenges were official policies that encouraged post-World War II single-family residences and the development that followed," according to Esser. "This city was not used to adaptive reuse." Phoenix had no old warehouse district to be renovated. These districts have been key to redevelopment in cities such as Denver and Baltimore. Ironically, the rise of downtown artists' districts in these cities were spurred by construction of retro-style baseball stadiums that either copied or used old brick warehouses in the facilities.

All is not sunny for artists in the Valley of the Sun. Old houses and buildings are still being torn down and, says Esser, "we're still surrounded by blight." While they now have allies in city hall, even an Office of Customer Relations to help citizen-artists find the right meetings to attend, they have to keep on their toes, lest new regulations be enacted that can derail their progress.

Artists in other urban areas can learn a lot from the Roosevelt Row experience. It takes money and time and persistence to create an artists' district. All that takes time away from your art, but can lead to your own live-in gallery in a thriving city neighborhood. It also offers many lessons in the civic engagement which is crucial to democracy.

For more on the Roosevelt Row CDC, go to http://www.rooseveltrow.org/. Of particular interest is the "planning" page at http://www.rooseveltrow.org/downtown.html. It includes a 2004 study of downtown Phoenix by Richard Florida's consulting firm Catalytix.

Terry Tempest Williams "Weather Report" project wraps-up

(l) Terry Tempest Williams

On May 5th, Terry Tempest Williams and the graduate student "Weather Report" team held their final "Report." The following story appeared in the Boomerang on May 6, by staff writer Eve Newman.

The energy boom in Wyoming means watching development taking over open spaces. It means jobs that keep families together. It means oil and gas executives feeling vilified. It means dead cottonwoods across ranch land.

Every Wyoming resident has a story about living in Wyoming. For many, those stories have to do with the latest boom cycle and the unprecedented change that’s affecting the land and the people. For others, their stories are about displacement, loss, love, racism, isolation, tolerance or opportunity.

Many Wyoming residents had the chance to share their stories in a public setting this year as part of a project organized by author Terry Tempest Williams, eminent writer-in-residence at the University of Wyoming, and a group of graduate students in the creative writing department at UW.

Through a series of "Weather Reports," Williams and the students visited seven towns around the state to give readings of their work, teach writing workshops and talk with several dozen residents at each stop about what it means to live in Wyoming. Yesterday they gave a report about the project. They talked about what they learned at each stop, the surprising complexity of the issues affecting the state, and the importance of listening.

In Pinedale, the group arrived as the town discovered wells polluted with benzene and was dealing with ozone alerts issued by the Department of Environmental Quality. "We just listened and took notes," said student Brendan Magone. He read a list of quotes the audience said that night:

"We didn’t know what we were up against."
"I like seeing new faces and diverse faces here in town."
"We have to go with it and learn to manage it better."
"We have to fight for it."

In Riverton, residents talked about wanting the same things for their community even though they started with different agendas, according to student Josh Olenslager. "I think people carried away a closer sense of understanding with their neighbors," he said.

In Ethete, the audience talked about social and emotional issues, from being an outsider to racism to tolerance and acceptance.

In Gillette, talk again turned to energy development — fitting for a town with 20 coal-bed methane wells in 1980 and more than 30,000 today, with plans to push that number to more than 80,000 by 2010. "Those facts were daunting," Williams said. "I didn’t know what to expect." She also remembered a trip one morning to a sage grouse lek in the area, surrounded by quiet because the drilling stops during breeding season. "It was just one of those sacred moments where you think, ‘I’m so grateful to be a resident in the state of Wyoming,’" she said.

She called the project and her year at UW "the greatest privilege of my writing life. … I see the state differently." As for the experience of the graduate students, she said, "I believe that our students were able to bear witness to the power of stories. And they heard the force of their own voices." She praised UW for the opportunity to engage her students and the state in the project."If a university cannot be at the forefront of this type of conversation, then what is a university?" she said.

Other cities they visited include Rawlins, Cheyenne and Casper.

Williams, the award-winning author of "Refuge," and other works, writes about nature and culture. Her latest book, "Mosaic: Finding Beauty in a Broken World," will be released this year.For more information about "Weather Reports," visit www.uwyo.edu/ttw.

Eve Newman’s email address is lbedit6@laramieboomerang.com.

New Deal celebration draws crowd to Guernsey

More than 250 people attended the 75th anniversary celebration of the New Deal on Saturday, May 3, at Guernsey State Park.

All of us were thankful that the ceremony was held Saturday under sunny skies and not on Friday, when 60 m.p.h. wind gusts pushed snow through the canyon, shutting down county roads. The wind had been so fierce that the umbrella tent set up for the band was lifted from its moorings and slammed into a tree. It took park service guys all day to get it down and find replacements for the poles bent in the storm.

Saturday's audience sat in folding chairs, munched homemade cookies and sipped lemonade while Prickly Pair of Dubois (shown above) serenaded them with songs from the 1930s. Others toured the park museum, an historic rock building constructed in 1936 by the New Deal's Civilian Conservation Corps. During the New Deal, Guernsey was home to two CCC camps. It was also one of the few camps in the U.S. that was allowed to use skilled labor, which contributed to the multitude of structures in the park that not only look good but are intact 75 years after their construction. That includes the displays inside the museum, as well as its sturdy exterior.

Wyoming State Parks and Cultural Resources Director Milward Simpson opened the ceremonies. The flag ceremony was conducted by the Wyoming Youth Challenge Color Guard. They posted flags representing the U.S., Wyoming, and the CCC, the same type of flag that flew here in 1936.

Next at the podium was Gov. Dave Freudenthal (shown above in front of museum). He said that he had a fondness for the museum, as the rock for its floor was quarried in his hometown of Thermopolis. His parents grew up prior to the Great Depression and were married right out of high school on March 6, 1929. The Depression began on Oct. 29, 1929, with the "Black Friday" stock market crash. Gov. Freudenthal's father would tell his eight children that the president thought that "the day that I married your mother was so important, he closed the banks."

That sort of humor was indicative of the can-do spirit that prompted President Franklin D. Roosevelt to launch the CCC as one of the first acts of his administration once he took office in 1933. Dr. David Kathka of Rock Springs followed the Governor and talked about the New Deal's history. There were eventually 19 CCC camps in Wyoming, each containing about 200 men. The two at Guernsey competed against one another and planted trees and built roads and trails. They built the museum, picnic shelters and the Million Dollar Biffy, one of the most elaborate and well-constructed outdoor restroom facilities in the country.

Dr. Kathka noted that the CCC workers woke up early to the bugle's call and labored most of the day. Each camp was run as if it was a military camp which also served as preparation for the world war that was on the horizon. But the men -- most of them in their twenties -- also played hard, especially at the park's summer water carnival. Photos of camp activities were on display in the museum.

Michael Pettigrew, the mayor of the town of Guernsey, also spoke. Todd Thibodeau from Wyoming State Parks talked about the camp's history. Not widely known, he said, is that Guernsey was the first collaboration between the CCC, Bureau of Reclamation (which built the reservoir dam) and the U.S. Forest Service to create the prototype of a public recreation area. It served as a model to build other recreation facilities at Bureau of Reclamation reservoirs across the U.S., especially in the West.

After the ceremony, there was more time for cookies and music. The event was funded by a grant from the Wyoming Arts Council via a grant from the NEA's American Masterpieces program. Prickly Pair is featured on the WAC's artist roster. Les Hamilton, one of the group's three members, grew up in the Big Horn Basin where his father worked for the CCC in the 1930s. The day's events concluded with guided tours provided by park personnel.

For a profile of Orman Millikin, the local rancher who, as a young man, worked with the CCC at Camp Guernsey and was honored by the Governor at Saturday's ceremony, go to http://www.trib.com/articles/2008/05/04/news/wyoming/doc481bd3f5289f0815347652.txt

Casper College stages "Fahrenheit 451" -- the play and the symposium

The Casper College Department of Theatre and Dance presents "Fahrenheit 451" May 1-3 and 6-10 at 7:30 p.m. on the McMurry Mainstage of the Krampert Theatre (2 p.m. matinee on Sunday, May 3). The play is from the novel by Ray Bradbury and directed by Douglas Garland. Tickets go on sale April 28 and are $12 for adults and $10 for children/students.

On Thursday, May 1, the department will host a symposium, "Future Hopes, Future fears," featuring Casper College faculty and staff of the Nicolaysen Art Museum and Natrona County Public Library. The topic will be the issues confronting humanity's future. In the college's black box theatre.

For those of you who haven't memorized the plot of Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451," here's a refresher, courtesy of a college press release:

"Fahrenheit 451" is a gripping story both disturbing and poetic: a visionary parable of a society gone awry, in which firemen burn books and the state suppresses learning. Meanwhile, the citizenry sits by in a
drug-induced and media-saturated indifference. More relevant than ever a half-century later, "Fahrenheit 451" has achieved the distinction of being both a literary classic and a perennial bestseller.

For ticket info, phone 1-800-442-2963 ext. 2500 or 307-268-2500. Or go to http://www.caspercollege.edu/.

Listen to Ray Bradbury reading the opening section of the novel at http://cetl.edtech.csulb.edu/f451/

The State Museum's upcoming lecutures

Life of prehistoric people living at high altitude is the subject of the Wyoming State Museum’s next lecture, December 13 at 7 p.m., in the Multi-purpose Room.

Titled “Life at 10,800 Feet: Late Prehistoric Alpine Archaeology in Northwest Wyoming,” the Richard Adams lecture will examine the Shoshone Indians who spent their summers at high altitudes in the mountains of the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. For more than 1000 years, these mountain-adapted people hunted bighorn sheep, dug abundant root crops, harvested whitebark pine nuts and constructed small villages at altitudes where few people today only visit.

Using vivid images, Adams will show the high mountains that were the preferred summertime destination, rather than a place to be avoided. Adams is a project director with the Office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist.

For more information about this or other Wyoming State Museum programs, please call 777-7022. The Wyoming State Museum is located in the Barrett Building, 2301 Central Avenue in Cheyenne.



John Voehl, an Abraham Lincoln presenter and historian, will present a living history performance at 4 p.m., December 14 at the Wyoming State Museum Multi-Purpose Room.

Voehl will also have on display copies of several of Lincoln’s writings including the Emancipation Proclamation, Gettysburg Address and other items. The public is invited to attend this presentation.

Voehl’s performance will take place after the first meeting of the Wyoming Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, also held at the State Museum.

The 14-member Wyoming Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission is the 14th state commission in the country. The purpose of the group is to engage Wyomingites in the celebration of Lincoln and his ideals of freedom, democracy and equal opportunity.
On February 12, the nation will officially begin a year-long celebration of the life of President Lincoln. The official bicentennial date of Lincoln’s birth is February 12, 2009.

The 14 members of the Commission, appointed by Gov. Dave Freudenthal, are: Ann Redman, Kara Hahn, Michell Howard, Mark Junge, Marirose Morris, Kathleen Urban and Supreme Court Justice Barton Voigt of Cheyenne; Tom Collins, Rick Ewig and Mike Massie of Laramie; Melvin Hamilton of Casper; David Kathka of Rock Springs; Linda Fabian of Wheatland; and Ken Roberts of Kemmerer.

For more information about the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commisison, please contact Mark Junge at 634-7462.

Bush and Bin Laden meet in Hix poems

From a University of Wyoming press release:

President George W. Bush and al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden have never had a conversation.

Until now.

In his latest book, "God Bless," released this month by Etruscan Press, UW English Professor H.L. Hix pits excerpts from Bush speeches against arguments from bin Laden in a unique poetic dialogue that embraces politics, literature, language and culture.

"These are two people who ought to be talking but aren't, so I'm going to make up a dialogue between them," says Hix, who also serves as director of UW's Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program. "I think there's important dialogue that hasn't happened, and I'm trying to generate that dialogue."

In his book, Hix, a finalist for this year's National Book Award, creates poems using Bush's own words from speeches, executive orders and other public statements. He also constructs poetry from the letters, speeches and other discourses of bin Laden.

"God Bless" also includes candid interviews with a diverse panel of experts, ranging from M. Javad Zarif, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations, to CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen.

"It's a weird book. It was even a weird book for me," says Hix, whose previous 10 books were poetry, philosophy or literary criticism. "I've never done anything like it before, and I don't think I'll ever do anything like it again."

He laughs and adds, "I don't know how it started happening, I just sort of found myself doing it."

As part of his research for the book, Hix says he read more than 8,000 pages of speeches by the president, obtained from the official White House Web site, and "pulled out language usage that I thought was interesting."

He then studied bin Laden's words and wrote what he called "interleaves" that use both direct quotations and reconstruction.

Unlike his previous books, Hix believes "God Bless" could receive mainstream media attention because of uniqueness and subject matter.

But, he says, "I have absolutely no idea what to expect because my previous books are philosophy, literary criticism and poetry and those types of books have tiny audiences, very few sales and very small press runs. In my 'fantasy life,' I hope it gets some real play and will be a prompt for dialogue."

"God Bless" is available for purchase at local bookstores or through Etruscan Press. The cost is $19.95.

Library grand opening Sept. 8

From a Laramie County Public Library press release:

It's taken years of planning, months of building, weeks of moving, but the big day is finally here.

Located at 2200 Pioneer Avenue in Cheyenne, the new Laramie County Library will hold a special grand opening celebration ceremony at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Sep. 8, near the library's east entrance. The event is open to the entire community.

The library will open the doors to the public at 10 a.m.Made possible through sixth penny funds approved by voters in 2003, this project has actually been years in the making, when the need for a new library was broached in the early 1990s. Voters approved $26.9 million in funds for the new library, a new bookmobile and improvements to the Pine Bluffs Branch Library.

The new library in Cheyenne is a three-story experience, featuring more than 100,000 square feet. Some of the highlights include:
"My Library Place," an interactive literacy center for children
five new meeting rooms, each with extensive audio-visual services
eight study rooms
a 50-station computer center (plus 23 more stations just for kids and teens)
a new coffeehouse, run by Synergy Café
a environmentally-friendly design and operation
The Capital Room, a quiet reading area that servers as the living room for the community
expanded collections of books, audiobooks, movies, music, and more
The Loft, an area made just for teens (with input from local teens)
self- check stations
improved customer service, including a greeter desk and "rovers" to help patrons
and so much more!

The Laramie County Library Foundation has also raised more than $1.6 million in funds for this project to provide additional improvements and amenities throughout the building.The entire community is encouraged to visit the library - on opening day and thereafter. The library is open 10 a.m.-9 p.m. (Monday-Thursday), 10 a.m.-6 p.m. (Friday-Saturday), and 1-5 p.m. (Sunday). For more information about the library, call 634-3561 or view our website.

Dick Kean: Civic education key to democracy

This comes from a University of Wyoming press release:

The Wyoming Partnership for Civic Education (WYPCE) provides a clearinghouse for civic education programs, says Dick Kean, the program's manager. The WYPCE provides learning opportunities through programs such as the "Wyoming/ Bolivia Partnership" sponsored by Civitas Latin America, "We the People," "Project Citizen," "Mock Election," and "Mock Trial."

Kean, a retired social studies teacher from Cheyenne, writes for Representative Democracy in America, a publication produced by the Center for Civic Education.

Two years ago, WYPCE received a Civitas Latin America grant to sponsor a partnership between educators in Wyoming and Bolivia. WYPCE is partnered with
Educadores para la Democracia (Educators for Democracy), a non-governmental
organization in Bolivia.

"These Bolivian teachers and government officials are working hard to provide civic education curriculum and training to the schools in their country," Kean says. "This is especially important for an emerging democracy."

In return, the Bolivian partners are giving Wyoming students and teachers an international perspective, the opportunity to exchange ideas with people in Latin America, and a platform for political understanding based on a common curriculum. "In the last two years, the program's success has been demonstrated by increased use of its curriculum in both Bolivia and Wyoming," Kean says.

The WYPCE also sponsors or supports a variety of other activities and programs in Wyoming. Participants used AHC materials to explore a research topic during a recent summer workshop at UW.

Kean says each WYPCE program offers diverse subjects for students and educators.
"We the People" curriculum is being taught at the upper Wyoming elementary, and middle and high school levels and across the nation. The program has reached more than 28 million students and 90,000 teachers nationwide during its 20-year history, Kean says.

Students from Casper Kelly Walsh High School recently traveled to Washington, D.C., representing Wyoming in the finals of a civics competition. More than 1,200 high school students from all 50 states and the District of Columbia participated in the academic competition that tested students' knowledge of the U.S. Constitution. The competition encouraged participants to understand the basis of America's democracy, Kean says.

"In 'Project Citizen' students learn to create public policies to solve a specific problem they identified and researched. "Mock Election" gives students an opportunity to vote for political candidates running for statewide offices. "Mock Trial," sponsored by the American Bar Association, allows students to learn about the judicial process through a competition in which they role play as witnesses and attorneys in a simulated case.

For more information about WYPCE programs, contact Kean, at 307-766-4986 or rkean@uwyo.edu.