September 26, 2005

GREENSHEET HEADLINES • Harlequin Theatre announces cast for fall play • Rana Rochat: Paintings in Encaustic • Arkansas Symphony Orchestra to perform • Art students' works displayed at Leslie museum • Rule is guest speaker at Constitution Day program • Lyon College Service Day 2005 • Lyon Pipe Band competes and wins • Andrea Budy's summer writing activities reported • Blevins’s essay appears in new book • Sports		President's Council holds first fall meeting on campus President Walter Roettger leads a group discussion in a session devoted to “Image, Marketing and Student Recruitment” at Friday's meeting of the Lyon President's Council.   Eighty-five members of the Lyon College President’s Council gathered for the group’s first fall meeting Friday at the campus. Members from as far away as Massachusetts and as close as Batesville were in attendance. Traveling the farthest were Dr. Vicky Crittenden of Lexington, Massachusetts, and Jonathan McGowens of Providence, Rhode Island. Also present was Mrs. Lois Ferguson of Lake Charles, Louisiana, who arrived in Batesville as Hurricane Rita was heading toward her hometown. The President’s Council is composed of distinguished business and civic leaders from across the state and nation who provide support and counsel to President Roettger, the college’s Board of Trustees, administration and faculty. The group held its inaugural meeting last February in Little Rock’s Clinton Presidential Center. Journalist Carl Bernstein was the keynote speaker at that meeting. Mr. and Mrs. Doyle Rogers Sr. of Batesville are co-chairs of the President’s Council. The fall meeting was devoted to a discussion of critical issues facing the college. The council members were divided into discussion groups and college officials sought input from the council members on the challenges and opportunities ahead for Lyon. The topics included “Image, Marketing and Student Recruitment,” “Business and Finance,” “Community Relations and Campus Planning,” and “Academics and Student Life.” At a luncheon gathering, the group heard from Josh Manning, president of the student body and Student Government Association, and Dr. Alan McNamee, the Lyon Professor of Accounting, who expressed the faculty’s gratitude for the council’s help. Devon Dudley, a senior from Jonesboro, told the group why she chose to attend Lyon College. First of all, she said, she was looking for a college with a good reputation and she heard about Lyon and the excellence of its faculty. The, when she visited the campus, she was impressed by the friendliness of the students, faculty and staff. “I was amazed at how happy they were (at Lyon),” she said. She was so impressed that Lyon was the first and only college to which she applied. The President’s Council’s next meeting will be Feb. 22, 2006, at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock. Former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey will be the guest speaker.

Harlequin Theatre announces cast for fall play

The Theatre Department has cast the fall play, “The Stick Wife.” Cast members include: Christina Cody ( Jessie Bliss), Jance Floyd (Ed Bliss), Alyssa Starkey (Marguerite Pullet), Luke Frauenthal (Tom Pullet), Emily Fleming (Betty Connor), Jason Bugeja (Big Albert Connor). Michael L. Counts, professor of theatre and director of the Harlequin Theatre, is directing and Gary M. Harris, associate professor of theatre, is designing sets and lights. Alyssa Starkey is the costume designer. The play deals with the lives of the wives of the KKK members who blew up an African-American church, killing four little girls, in 1963. It will be performed Oct. 28-31 and then travel to Arkadelphia for the state Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival.

Rana Rochat: 'Paintings in Encaustic' Artist Rana Rochat’s paintings (represented by David Lusk Gallery, Memphis, Tenn.) will be displayed in Kresge Gallery from Sept. 26-Oct. 26. There will be an opening reception at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 5. Rana Rochat received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island. A description of her work, provided by Professor Chris Valle, follows: "Through her paintings, she tries to capture the elusive transition from order to chaos. Forms and marks dissolve in multi-layered surfaces, at times peaceful, but also dissonant. Vessels, symbols, calligraphic signs, fragmented marks are dispersed across the painting to create a visual dialogue. Spills, stains, scratches and drawings are traces left behind on a surface that leaves clues as to what might have happened. Rochat’s paintings are reflections of these traces of past actions and urban decay. They emerge from her investigation of implied symbolism and half-hidden histories recorded on abraded surfaces. It becomes a map-like construction that charts the transience of the man-made landscape. The dynamic between the order suggested by the drawn patterns and the chaos of the field of color and surface texture creates a vitality that is both pleasing and intriguing. This tension allows the viewer to enjoy the painting both at a distance and within very close range, a paradox benefiting Rochat’s prevalent themes."

Arkansas Symphony Orchestra to perform

The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra will perform a concert of classical music at 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 2, in Brown Chapel Auditorium.

Conductor David Itkin leads the orchestra in Johannes Brahms’ Violin Concerto (with soloist Kiril Laskarov) and Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 7. Maestro Itkin will present a pre-concert lecture at 1:15 p.m. in the Bevens Music Room.

The concert is sponsored by the Batesville Symphony League, First Community Bank and Lyon College. Tickets are $15 for adults and $5 for students. To purchase tickets, call (870) 793-4657. Lyon students with IDs admitted free.

Art students works displayed at Museum The Lyon College Art Department is exhibiting its work at the Ozark Heritage Museum in Leslie, Arkansas. The exhibition will feature artwork by Professor Chris Valle and his students. This opportunity allows our students to showcase their talents while promoting Lyon College in the region. This exhibition is sponsored by Kappi Pi International Honorary Art Fraternity.  The work will be exhibited Oct.1-31. An opening reception will begin at 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 8, at the Ozark Heritage Museum, 410 Oak Street, Leslie, Arkansas.

Rule is guest speaker at Constitution Day program

Trustee Herbert C Rule III (left) chats with Josh Manning, president of the SGA and student body, and Dr. Scott Roulier, associate professor of political science, after Rule's lecture on the U.S. Constitution on Sept. 19.                                                                              Photo by Bob Qualls

By Josh Manning

Presenting an educational lecture filled with humor and insight, Herbert C. Rule III spoke to a crowd of approximately 30 students, faculty members and community members in Lyon College’s Nucor Auditorium Monday evening, Sept. 19..

Rule was guest speaker at the federally mandated Constitution Day program at the college. A lawyer and member of Lyon’s Board of Trustees, Rule picked abortion and affirmative action, two hot-button issues, because of their high profile and direct relation to issues of the Constitution and how it is to be interpreted.

Many conservatives would like to see the courts use a strict-constructionist view of the Constitution, holding it to be set in stone and unchanging, whereas those with more liberal leanings tend to prefer loose-constructionism in which the Constitution is regarded as a living document that evolves over time. Rule, a lawyer, said, “The battle over constructionism will never be won by either side, I’m afraid.”

Rule also took the opportunity to humorously disagree with some articles written by his friend and colleague, Dr. Bradley Gitz, Lyon’s William Jefferson Clinton Professor of International Politics. When asked to speak at Lyon, Rule invited Gitz to participate also, but he was out of town and unable to attend the event.

Before taking questions from the crowd, Rule concluded his lecture by reminding the audience of “the law’s ability to smooth some of the rough places in our citizens’ lives …  it’s power to soar to a majesty that is indescribable … to protect the weak from the strong.”

Rule is an attorney and partner in the Rose Law Firm of Little Rock. He has been a member of the Lyon College Board of Trustees since 1980 and has been a member of the Board’s Student Life Committee since 1998.

Congress passed a law in 2004 mandating that every school and college that receives federal money must teach about the Constitution on Sept. 17, the day the document was adopted in 1787.

Schools can determine what kind of educational program they want, but they must hold one every year on the now-named “Constitution Day and Citizenship Day.” If Sept. 17 falls on a weekend, as it did this year, schools must schedule a program immediately before or after that date.

Lyon Pipe Band competes and wins

The Lyon College Pipe Band competed for the first time this school year in Tulsa on Saturday, Sept. 17. The band was given firsts by both piping judges, the drumming judge, and the ensemble judge, ensuring a first place finish in the Grade IV contest. This was also the deciding contest for the Eastern United States Pipe Band Association’s Southwest Branch Championship, and so Lyon College brought home that honor as well.  Lyon would represent the Southwest Branch in the event of a championship competition on the east coast in the EUSPBA this year.

Many of our pipers and drummers also competed in solo categories. John Coates and Tristen Dean won the aggregates for Grade V and III respectively. And one of our outreach pipers, Will Sayre, won the Grade II. Neil McCarthy and Sergei Kuzin tied for the aggregate in Grade IV. Frankie and Will Boehm also won medals for solo drumming. So Lyon won the aggregates in four of the five solo categories as well as the band category.

Pipers from the band will travel next to Nashville, Tennessee, for solos the first weekend of October. The entire band will compete again in St. Louis on Oct. 8, and then another group of soloists will compete in Atlanta the following weekend at the Stone Mountain Highland Games.

Andrea Budy had a busy summer Writer-in-Residence Andrea Hollander Budy spent her summer in writing-related activities: She was on the faculty of the Taos Summer Writers’ Conference, gave readings in New Mexico, Colorado, and Mississippi, and attended the Savage River Writers’ Retreat in Maryland. In September and October she will be the visiting Writer-in-Residence at St. Bede’s School in England. While in the United Kingdom, she’ll also give readings of her work in London, Eastbourne, Alfriston, and Falmer.

Blevins’s essay appears in new book

A new book released this month by the University of South Carolina Press features an essay by Dr. Brooks Blevins, assistant professor of history at Lyon.  Blevins’s essay, “Back to the Land:  Academe, The Agrarian Ideal, and A Sense of Place,” appears in the collection of essays, Black Earth and Ivory Tower:  New American Essays from Farm and Classroom, edited by Zachary Michael Jack.  The collection features the writings of academics and intellectuals, such as Wendell Berry and Victor Davis Hanson, who come from agrarian backgrounds or who maintain ties to modern farming. 

According to the University of South Carolina Press:  “At a time when less than two percent of Americans count themselves as farmers, these writers—all of whom have cultivated the earth and climbed the ivory tower—underscore the diversity of the American farm as a wellspring of learning. Their plainspoken commentaries on modern farming, teaching, and living will remind older generations of time-honored, agrarian values and provide a new generation with a literate, critical account of shifting national priorities.”  For more information on Black Earth and Ivory Tower visit the book’s webpage at http://www.sc.edu/uscpress/2005/3588.html#book.

Sports

Volleyball

Pipers move into first place in TranSouth

The Lyon College volleyball team improved to 2-0 in the TranSouth on Saturday afternoon with a 3-0 sweep over conference rival Trevecca Nazarene, 30-25, 30-26,30-17. This moves Lyon into first place with Union (1-0 in TranSouth play).  The matchup of first- place teams happens in Jackson, Tennessee, Tuesday night.

The Pipers took the lead right off and held it most of the first game, finishing off with some momentum to enter game #2.  In game two though, Lyon saw a 24-13 lead get worked down to five at 25-20. After a timeout and regroup, the ladies came out and finished the game, 30-25. The third game started with the Pipers and ended with the Pipers, as Lyon led throughout. They took the game commandingly, 30-17. Leading the way for the Pipers was junior Madeline Homer with 13 kills and an ace. Alison Sablick and Daria Paunovic added 15 and 12 kills respectively. Susie Harper controlled a great defensive match with 29 digs. This was a battle of liberos as the #1 (Harper) and #2 (TNU's Valerie Hicks) liberos in the nation battled. Both performing unbelievably. Lyon travels to Jackson on Tuesday to try to take sole possession of first place in the TranSouth.

Soccer

ARKADELPHIA - The Ouachita Baptist Tigers handed the Lyon Scots their first loss of the soccer season with a 5-2 decision here Wednesday. Cory Leeder paced the Tigers with a hat trick. OBU, a NCAA Division II school, got on the scoreboard in the 30th minute when David Cook's shot ricocheted of the right post, Joey Speers got the rebound and passed to Ross Ellis, and Ellis found the net.

Leeder's first of three came in the 34th minute, with help from Phillip Presley. His second, and the game-winner, found the net nine minutes later when OBU goalkeeper Kale Krammer punted the ball across midfield, Presley headed it forward to Leeder, and Leeder broke away. The third tickled the twine in the 48th minute.

Lyon's Jacob Mattern kicked in an unassisted goal in the 53rd minute.

Presley picked up his third assist when he found Matt Knips for OBU's final goal in the 69th minute.
Scot Joey Nottingham set the final score with an unassisted goal with five minutes to play.

Lyon fell to 6-1 while OBU improved to 3-2.

The Pipers dropped to 0-7 with a 3-0 loss to the Lady Tigers (4-3). Rachel Folk scored the game-winner with a penalty kick in the 17th minute. Insurance came in the 69th minute from Cassidy Leach. Just 29 seconds later, Ciera Lima set the final.
Bethany Ebbert and Sarah Emfinger were credited with one assist each. Lyon managed just one shot on goal as the Lady Tigers earned their first shutout of the season.


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