First Place -- Erika Lanham

Second Place -- Stacie Baugh

Third Place -- Kat Dettloff

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Zev Buffman is a legendary Broadway producer who has produced more than 40 shows and 100 national tours. He brought Elizabeth Taylor and Dustin Hoffman to Broadway and was a founding member of the NBA’s Miami Heat. He has spent the last eight years as the director of Owensboro’s RiverPark Center.

Laura Early, assistant professor of theatre arts at KWC, arranged for Buffman to spend last evening at KWC reminiscing about his life and career. The story that follows was in the Messenger-Inquirer today.

Buffman shares tales of his past and announces his departure at KWC
By Dariush Shafa, Messenger-Inquirer
Published: Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Nearly every seat was taken in Roger’s Hall at Kentucky Wesleyan College on Tuesday night as students, faculty and residents turned out to hear Zev Buffman talk about his experiences in show business. The crowd got an extra treat as Buffman also shared his favorite stories and some of the lessons he learned along the way.

Buffman’s stories ranged from his first big break as a director and producer to working with celebrities such as Dustin Hoffman, Elizabeth Taylor and Muhammad Ali.

Laughter and applause turned to disappointment though, as the president and CEO of the RiverPark Center also shared the news of his pending departure. Buffman’s eight-year contract at the RiverPark Center was not renewed in a Tuesday meeting of the RiverPark Center’s board, and Buffman announced he has accepted a job in Clearwater, Fla.

Still, Buffman said Tuesday’s event at KWC was something that he was glad to do, even with the day’s events weighing on his heart.

“I’ve been looking forward to this for the two or three months it’s been in the works. I’m only sorry we didn’t do it more often,” Buffman said.

Those in attendance said they not only enjoyed Buffman’s stories and advice, but are sad that his time in Owensboro is drawing to a close.

“I am a Broadway child. My mother was a Broadway dancer, and I’m from New York City,” said Ginny Weant, a vocal performance sophomore at KWC. “Every story (he told) was meaningful and can be applied not only to theater but to life in general.

“I’m very heartbroken I don’t get to spend more time with him, but I’m very grateful for the opportunity (tonight),” Weant said.

Buffman’s departure will be difficult to overcome, said Matt Ruark, Assistant Director for Development at KWC, who came to see Buffman’s event.

“He’s done a lot for Owensboro, and I just wanted to hear about it straight from his mouth,” Ruark said. “That’s a great loss for Owensboro. I don’t think we’ll be able to replace him.”

Laura Early, assistant professor of theater arts at KWC, said she’s glad Buffman was able to come for the event.

“It’s huge. How many times do you have the opportunity to have someone who’s produced 40 Broadway shows speak to students?” Early said. “You can tell the students love it. They’re just ecstatic to meet him.”

Phoenix Jenkins, a senior studying sociology at KWC, also said she was happy to be there and talk to Buffman.

“I felt honored,” Jenkins said. “He’s humble and he shows you that you can be all you can be.”

Buffman said he is especially enthusiastic about the future show business and educational possibilities that exist in Owensboro thanks to the partnership between the RiverPark Center and local educational institutions.

“The marriage between the performing arts center and theater students is not always possible,” Buffman said. “You don’t get that in Miami or New York because you can’t get them (students) across the line because there are strict (labor and union) rules.

“This is not only going to be a more important college town when the new downtown arrives, but also a major destination for theater students,” Buffman said.”There is a great future for this town just around the corner.”

During the event, Buffman said that the opportunity to talk to and share experiences with students is a joy because it’s a chance to pass on the little things that helped make him successful.

“You should never stop dreaming just because you wake up in the morning,” Buffman said, noting how that is one of his favorite sayings.

Buffman later said he felt Tuesday night’s event helped take away some of the sorrow from the end of his time in Owensboro.

“On a day like today, which was a day of departure and moving on, this to me was a phenomenal catharsis of just feeling free and happy about my eight years here and knowing I can still make contact with young people,” Buffman said.

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The crowd on the front lawn ...

The annual Concert on the Lawn with the Owensboro Symphony Orchestra is this Saturday, August 20, at 7:00 p.m. on the front lawn of Kentucky Wesleyan College.

Great Movies — Grand Piano will feature movie music with pianist Rich Ridenour, who performed with the OSO last year in Canon Hall at the RiverPark Center.

This free, family-friendly event (sit anywhere on the lawn you like!) also features a table-decorating contest — the winner will perform with the OSO. The theme for this year’s decorating contest is “My Favorite Movie!” If you want to reserve a table for eight for $100, call the OSO at 270-684-0661.

Pre-concert festivities include a performance by the Owensboro Community Band, while the US Bank Home Mortgage will sponsor children’s activities, including an instrument petting zoo guided by Owensboro Public School teachers. The fun starts at 5:00 p.m.

2nd Street will be playing during intermission, so come ready to kick your shoes off and dance on the lawn!

Contact the Owensboro Symphony Orchestra at 270-684-0661 or check their website at www.theoso.com for more information.

She’s been on campus since we moved to Owensboro in 1951. However, we do blast the paint layers off occasionally. See these photos for evidence of what she looks like naked, from a couple of months ago.

Imagine for a moment, though, that we didn’t strip her down. What would a cross section of 60 years of accumulated paint look like?

Probably something like this:

This is a composite photomicrograph of a rock at the main intersection in White Rock, New Mexico. The rock is painted often — usually a few times a week — as a community tradition. You know, like Minerva. 

A couple of guys got to wondering what all the paint layers from the last 40 years looked like, so they took a core sample on the front of the rock. Turns out the paint was five-and-a-half inches thick!

You can view the original size for full effect. And here’s the long view, as well as an explanation of how they got the photo. And here’s a photo of the entire rock, in case you were wondering — she’s larger than Minerva.

Maybe we should just let Minerva’s paint layers accumulate over the next 50 years or so. Then our grandkids can do a paint sample of her and we can say, “Hey, some of those paint layers were mine!”

(HT: Kottke)

Another successful commencement has now come and gone — 164 students graduated from KWC last Saturday, and while we had to move the ceremony inside because of the rain, it was still a great day.

CNN’s Ali Velshi delivered the commencement address and did a wonderful job. His executive producer is Kelly Frank, a 1996 graduate of KWC. She briefly addressed the graduates at their Senior Farewell/Honor Breakfast Saturday morning.

We have photos and a couple videos from the weekend now posted online. You can see links to the various Flickr photo sets from the Photos page in the Commencement section of our website.

 Sets posted on Flickr include:
- Graduation
- Senior Breakfast
- Senior Dinner
- Miscellaneous (rehearsal, class photo, etc.)
- Class of 1961 50-Year Reunion

We’ve also got some new videos on YouTube, including:

- Highlights from Ali Velshi’s Commencement Address
- A clip of the Faculty/Staff Chorale’s enthusiastic rendition of “Wesleyan” (complete with instruments)
- A clip of remarks from Kelly Frank ‘96 at Senior Breakfast

We should have more graduation photos soon, as well as the complete text of Ali Velshi’s speech and a video of the entire ceremony. Until then, enjoy – if you see a photo you’d like a copy of, just send an email to bhoak[AT]kwc[DOT]edu.

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The Kentucky Wesleyan College History Department will host a Kentucky Humanities Council Chautauqua about U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan on Monday, November 29, 2010, at 7:30 p.m. in Hager Hall at the Ralph Center. Edward B. Smith of Cynthiana, Ky., will portray Harlan (1833-1911), a Kentucky lawyer and politician. The public is invited.

During Harlan’s 33-year tenure on the Supreme Court, he dissented in some of the court’s most important civil rights cases, earning him the title, “The Great Dissenter.” In one of the most famous dissents in U.S. Supreme Court history, Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld the constitutionality of segregation, Harlan wrote, “Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows or tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law.”

His words were an inspiration to Thurgood Marshall during the Civil Rights Movement. Marshall was the NAACP chief counsel who would later be appointed to the Supreme Court. He cited Harlan’s dissent as he argued to end segregation in the 1954 case, Brown v. Board of Education.

Kentucky Chautauqua brings fascinating characters from Kentucky’s past to life. The Kentucky Humanities Council tells Kentucky’s story and celebrates the contributions of Kentuckians to the quality of life in the Commonwealth.

For more, visit the website for the Kentucky Humanities Council. Here’s a video describing the Kentucky Chautauqua series:

* You know you were wondering — from merriam-webster.com: Chautauqua — any of various traveling shows and local assemblies that flourished in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, that provided popular education combined with entertainment in the form of lectures, concerts, and plays, and that were modeled after activities at the Chautauqua Institution of western New York.

When someone makes a late night run to Steak N’ Shake, go. The food might not be the best in the world, or remotely good for you, but those late night conversations will stay with you longer than the calories on the plate. When the World Series occurs, and people start converging in the common areas to root and watch, hang around. You may not like baseball, or either team playing, but in the end you will be richer for a communal moment that is harder to come by in a technology based world. For the record, in 1996 the Yankees played the Braves.  I am a diehard Yankees fan, and I took more grief than I care to remember for yelling for the pinstripes. Memories of watching those games, amongst my roommates, football players, random people from class, and those I still call friends still bring excitement and joy to me.

Use these same acquaintances along the way to battle the hard classes and laugh at the great ones. Embrace study groups, but don’t pester professors for review days. More often than not, those don’t happen. Instead, rely on yourself and your cadre of friends to amass the understanding needed for the task at hand. I firmly believe ninety percent of the college experience teaches you to make decisions on your own, stand your own ground and learn how to maneuver this thing we call life.

Notice, I did not say ace the exam. Why? Much like life, academic scores come from understanding. If you understand the material, you will show that in your answers. If you try to dryly memorize the data your answers will show a lack of understanding with jumbled and convoluted phrases sloppily laid on your page. This sense of understanding should carry you through your days. Do not worry if you don’t have a major in your first year. Do not worry if you still don’t have one in your second year. If you reach your junior year and still have no direction, then you should certainly seek some guidance. Why shouldn’t you worry? Those pesky classes called the deck requirements aren’t put there to drum you into submission. They give you a sampling of skills, subjects, and tasks. They should help you find what your true passion is. I have to say, if your true passion is history, don’t worry about how much money you won’t make. Instead, relish in the fact of how you will do something you love and love what you do.  

I see that this year the freshman class logo is “Your future is so bright you gotta wear shades.” What was mine? I transferred to KWC in 1996, and I think we were “Foundations.” Honestly, I cannot remember. What I do recall is that within a matter of weeks – like many college coeds – my wardrobe became a poster board for KWC. My friends were a hop and skip away.  Watching the football team lose wasn’t so bad because we knew them and knew they had heart. The basketball team brought up bragging rights for that blue and white school on the other side of the state. And . . . dubbing my favorite professor Captain History, later to be named “The Grinch who Stole My GPA,” and when he turned thirty, we painted Minerva in his honor.

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Annessa Ann Babic ’98 majored in English and History at KWC. She earned a Ph.D. in U.S. History from Stony Brook University in 2008 and currently teaches at New York Institute of Technology and SUNY College at Old Westbury. She is the co-editor of The Globetrotting Shopaholic (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008), has written scores of academic pieces and uses a pen name to write fiction. She lives in Astoria (Queens), NY.

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It’s that time of year again, when young and old all across the land head back to school.  Back in the day, I stood in line as a new kid to get my polyester gym shorts and white tee. You could smell the fear in the room. Ugh, gym class and middle school. Neither were good combinations, particularly those polyester shorts. Ugh, gym shorts.

The power of literary technique allows me to jump forward seven or so years to my days at Kentucky Wesleyan. Those first days for new freshmen are always filled with wonder and awe, and in many cases a lot of angst arises. Unfortunately, this angst does not necessarily dissipate with the swing of the new semester. More often than not, though, this angst can pass rather seamlessly like the turns of the seasons. These are the things I often try to convey to my own timid freshman, or drifting and worried upperclassmen.

I graduated college in 1998, and yes we had the internet. My college days were shortly before the birth of Google, long before the advent of internet blackmail known as YouTube, at the beginning of cell phones becoming commonplace, right before the installation of key cards versus keys, when the computer lab was the only place to do your work, and at the end of the era when cable was not in dorm rooms. We gathered in common rooms to watch South Park and yell at ESPN games. In the midst of this, course work fell and campus legends loomed.

First, professors do not sharpen their pencils with their teeth or grade your papers with their blood. Trust me. We do not idle away at our desks and computers looking for ways to make your life miserable, and when we say come speak to us you should. Course syllabi are like maps for the semester, and like any good road trip, things may change. So when a professor adds a reading, or changes a due date, he or she is doing it because the nature of the group calls for it. Believe it or not, we have lives. We like ball games, we like dinner with friends, and we like to do things non-academic. Hence, when something is due turn it in. When you have trouble, don’t wait until the last minute to get help. Emailing a professor at 1:00 a.m. the night before the final will not help your grade.

On that same note, but slightly different, college is about more than the books. My fondest memories of KWC involve strolling through the quad and sharing a soda with those I met along the way. There used to be an infant tree outside what is now the Old Grill. In 2000 a tornado came and took it down, and to this day I am still saddened. Why? I read Jack Kerouac under that tree, studied for my favorite class, and Melanie Basham, Sonya Martin and I planned how we would change the world.

My point: remember in the hustle and bustle to stop and talk to those around you. Those first few days you won’t know many or even anyone. Within a week you will certainly know at least twenty-five, and the beauty and joy of KWC is that it is a small campus. There is always a friend around a corner. Though too, the pain of KWC is that it is small. If you do something outlandishly stupid you will be reminded four years later after you walk across the stage. More so, remember to have fun.

Stay tuned for Part 2, coming soon …

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–Disclaimer: I wrote this post back in March when the event actually happened. Then I kind of forgot to actually post it. Found it the other day and decided to post it anyway. Hey, it’s Friday, right?–

Miss KWC is a pageant held annually at Kentucky Wesleyan where female students compete for the opportunity to represent our college on campus, the community and globally.

This year five young woman competed for the title — Bailey Goebel, Phoenix Jenkins, Cassandra Best, Courtney Grant and Courtney Chinn. The ladies competed in three categories, business casual with an introduction, formal with a talent and business professional attire with a question and answer session.

All woman performed beautifully; scoring was very difficult for the judges. When all the votes were tallied, Courtney Grant was the runner up and Courtney Chinn took home the tiara, sash and lovely bouquet.

Miss KWC 2010 Courtney Chinn (right) and runner-up Courtney Grant

As part of her reign as Miss KWC, Courtney will be working with Court Appointed Special Advocates. Judges appoint CASA volunteers to watch over and advocate for abused and neglected children so they do not get lost in the overburdened legal and social service system or languish in an inappropriate group or foster home.

CASA volunteers stay with each case until it is closed and the child is placed in a safe, permanent home. We are proud of our new Miss KWC and look forward to our collaboration with CASA.

Congratulations to all the Miss KWC 2010 contestants!

Miss KWC 2010 Contestants

Below is a video featuring Bailey Goebel’s talent portion of the competition — she set some of her photography to music:

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