Peru State Foundation Chili Feed

My American Splendor and Bill's Most Excellent First Week of the Term

My semester began well, which is always a good thing to happen, setting the stage for what will be a must successful term.  

Former students in my Graphic Novel class--Sam Atkinson and Dawn Plympton--brought me a wonderful gift they had purchased from Joyce Brabner, the wife of the late Harvey Pekar, the great cartoonist of American Splendor Fame.

In addition to the doll that Brabner stiched, the package included a couple original volumes of the comic, including the one pictured on the left that includes an episode of Pekar's famous interviews on the David Letterman Show, discussed in the Washington Post.
 
In the fall, I will use American Splendor in class in addition to spending time talking about Pekar's significance.  And I will invite Brabner to campus. 

In addition to the Harvey Pekar Doll, the first week of the term also brought me a beautiful painting of Owls by PSC Art Student Melissa Pollard.  The mixed-media work now hangs in my office.

And to top off the week, word reached me from the Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies that my essay, Zombies Along the Malecon, a critical analysis of the Cuban film Juan of the Dead, will appear in the next edition of the journal.

Business Contest 2016

This year, I did not get to the Business Contest as early as I would have liked; however, after teaching, I took some pictures of this year's event for people to view and to download.

The pictures include shots of some morning events and then the high school students at lunch enjoying themselves and their time at Peru State College.

At the Awards Ceremony, in addition to random shots from the event, I tried to capture quick pictures of all the winners--for each of the sections, students earned awards for fifth to first place.

I believe that for this 26th Business Contest, Lisa Parriott organized the event with the help of many faculty members and students.

As always, great to see these stellar high-school students on our beautiful campus.

Dr. Naser Alsharif: Being Muslim in America

On February 9 in the Jindra Fine Arts Recital Hall,  Dr. Naser Alsharif, professor in the Department of Pharmacy Sciences at Creighton University, spoke to a full audience as part of Diversity Awareness Month at Peru State College.

For Dr. Alsharif, his appearance here marked a return to PSC, for he joined a group of others last February for an excellent discussion as part of a panel of speakers for Exploring Belief.  I did not create a blog

page for that event, but you can see photographs (that I did share on Facebook).

Thanks go to Kristi Nies for organizing this informative event.

I posted pictures from the reception and the first half hour of the talk.  Congratulations to everyone involved in this first of many events scheduled for Diversity Awareness Month.

Wade Talley Concet at Peru Stare College

Two most pleasant students shyly approached me yesterday and asked if I would take pictures and video of the Wade Talley concert at 7:00 pm in the evening in the College Theater.

 
I had not planned to attend the religious revival gathering but could not say no, especially as I promised a colleague to take pictures of the first practice for Dr. Charles Parrott's play, Frankenstein'd that very evening, from around 6:00-7:00.

The World Premier of the play will occur on March 3-5.  I loaded some pictures of the practice.

The Wade Talley concert attracted a good and enthusiastic croud, and Mr. Talley entertained and edified with stories and music.  The message of promise and redemption is appealing, and I enjoyed the experience.

I created a video of a dozen or so minutes of the performance befoe returning to the Frankenstein'd group.  Enjoy the concert pictures as well: