Obama’s day: Football and ambassadors
USA Today – April 15
President Obama dips into the athletic and diplomatic worlds on Monday, honoring a championship football team and welcoming five new ambassadors. In the early afternoon, Obama speaks at a ceremony for the reigning college football champions, the University of Alabama Crimson Tide. “Continuing his tradition of recognizing sports teams for their work off the field, President Obama will highlight the Crimson Tide’s ongoing efforts to give back to their community,” says the White House schedule. Later, Obama participates in a credentialing ceremony for new ambassadors, including one from China. Notes the White House:
Al.com – April 15
WRC-NBC (Washington, D.C.) – April 14
KVOA-NBC (Tuscon, Ariz.) – April 14
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – April 14
WALA-Fox (Mobile) – April 12
Crimson White – April 15
Mal Moore posthumously named athletic director emeritus
WAAY-ABC (Huntsville) – April 12
It may seem like just yesterday that we lost the legend Mal Moore but the University of Alabama system board of trustees made sure that we will never forget him. Today at UA-Huntsville, the board voted to posthumously name Moore athletic director emeritus at the University of Alabama. Moore passed away on March 30 and is recognized as one of the best athletic administrators ever, having reached new heights in athletic achievements and capital gains for the program.
WSFA-NBC (Montgomery) – April 12
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – April 12
WZDX-Fox (Huntsville) – April 12
WDHN-ABC (Dothan) – April 12
Tuscaloosa Civitan Club chooses Sarah Patterson as Citizen of the Year
Tuscaloosa News – April 15
Sarah Patterson, the University of Alabama’s gymnastics coach for 35 years, will be honored as Tuscaloosa County Citizen of the Year at an April 24 banquet sponsored by the Tuscaloosa Civitan Club and the Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama. “While (the award) bears my name, there is no doubt that this award honors the work that (Patterson’s husband) David and I, and everyone associated with the Alabama gymnastics program have done in the community over the past 30 years.” Patterson said Friday. “I am grateful to the Civitans for this honor and to everyone who has helped make a difference in our community through the years.” Brett Laney, immediate past president of the Civitan Club, said Patterson was chosen for the honor, the 80th time the club has bestowed the award, for her strong record of community service. “Her accomplishments in athletics speak for themselves,” Laney said, “but she was chosen for her body of work in the community.”
UA psychologists using federal grant to help people with pain
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – April 13
University of Alabama psychologists are using federal grant money to help give people better chronic pain management … their main focus is treating the groups most likely suffering this pain … Unfortunately, it’s those with low incomes, literacy and education levels. And the UA Psychology Department hopes to use this $1.27 million grant … Dr. Joshua Eyer: “The pain actually happens in the brain, it’s just a signal that comes up in our brain and interprets it as pain, so there’s a whole lot of ways we can work with the brain to diminish pain signals.” The first instinct for many is going to the emergency room, which can place a burden on the health care system. Dr. Beverly Thorn: “The person who works on a catfish farm, let’s say, with low back may be more likely to go when they have a pain flare up because they don t have a primary care physician, they don t have anywhere to go.”
Relay for Life raises $49 thousand for research
Crimson White – April 15
From 6 p.m. Friday until 6 a.m. Saturday, students walked to raise money and awareness for cancer research. Through emails and fundraisers, the UA Relay For Life teams collectively raised $49,889.77 for the American Cancer Society. Executive director Laura Lantrip said that about twice as many people attended Relay For Life this year than last year. “We were very surprised to have such a great turnout, but we had such a good turnout at team captain meetings, and the team captains said their teams were excited,” Lantrip said…The Athletic Training Students Association won the event, raising $6,517. Zeta Beta Tau fraternity, which raised $4,150, and Delta Zeta sorority, which raised $4,045, came in second and third place.
A country song, assumptions – and a racial outcry
Inforum (North Dakota) – April 14
Southern white men don’t usually drive racial dialogue. For as long as race has riven America, they have been depicted more often as the problem than the solution. So after country music star Brad Paisley released his new song “Accidental Racist” this week, what happened next was hardly surprising: days of widespread criticism about his attempt to detail the challenges facing a “white man from the Southland” and his recruitment of LL Cool J to rap a black perspective…Being Southern comes with its own set of assumptions and stereotypes, some of them negative ones created by the low points of the region’s history. Southern pride is largely a defensive reaction to such stigmas, said Eric Weisbard, a music critic and American Studies professor at the University of Alabama. So while some might see “Accidental Racist” as a ham-handed attempt to start a dialogue, it’s part of a long tradition in which Southern musicians “try to talk about who they are in answer to what others dismissively assume they are,” Weisbard wrote on NPR.org. Much of the friction around the song comes from people who don’t understand this history, Weisbard said in an interview: “We’re as segregated culturally as we often are socially.” Many people are proud of being from the “heartland,” New York City or other American places, Weisbard said. But “the South has been branded a problem for the country as a whole at least since the Civil War.” “In every generation, there’s a new way in which white Southerners have marginalized themselves,” he said, “and the rest of America has to think about what that means.”
Norwalk Hour (Conn.) – April 14
Batavia Daily News (N.Y.) – April 14
Office of Veteran and Military Affairs host Purple Up! Day
Crimson White – April 15
More than 2 million people in the United States serve in the nation’s military and many have families and children who are also impacted through their service. On Monday, the Office of Veteran and Military Affairs is encouraging people to wear purple and participate in its Purple Up! Day as a way to show support and thank military children for their sacrifices that come with having military family members. Purple Up! Day will be held in the basement of B.B. Comer Hall from 1 to 4 p.m. Monday, celebrating UA students who are military dependents and from 4 to 7 p.m. in honor of veteran and service members at the University and their families. Purple is known to symbolize all branches of the military…Alex Karagas, coordinator of the University’s Office of VMA, said Purple Up! Day is meant to let the University know that there are close to 1,500 children of veterans and service members on campus, which includes survivors of those who have passed away. “We want the University to honor and recognize them, and it’s our way of celebrating those students and showing the large number of those students that UA has and that they have a place in our office; we do all the same services for our dependents as we do for our service and veteran members,” Karagas said.
Alabama theatre department brings ‘Show Boat’ to cmapus
Crimson White – April 15
Last week, The University of Alabama’s theatre department left Tuscaloosa to feature its rendition of the musical, “Show Boat” at the Mobile Civic Center Theater. The production featured a cast of 43 actors as well as 12 orchestra members. Originally based on a novel by Edna Ferber, “Show Boat” tells the tale of three generations of show folk who work aboard a floating theater named “The Cotton Blossom.” The show carries various themes throughout each scene such as love, racial issues and the inevitable reality of growing older. Premiering in 1927, “Show Boat” became a very influential show in 20th century theater. “It’s considered to be the first real American musical theatre piece,” Bill Teague, chair of the department of theatre and dance, said. “It was written in 1927 and prior to then, all of the shows had been reviews and burlesques. This is the first show that took a story, a real honest to goodness story, and had music written for it. This sort of created the musical theatre genre that we’re used to today.”
Guest lecture to focus on ethnic, racial diversity
Crimson White – April 15
The University of Alabama will welcome Mireya Loza, a professor from the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, Monday to give a lecture titled “I was a Bracero: Indigeneity, Race, and the Bracero Program” at 6:30 p.m. in Gorgas Library. The lecture is part of the Smithsonian Institute exhibit, “Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program 1942-1964,” which is being displayed in the J. Wray and Joan Billingsley Pearce Foyer of Gorgas until April 28. In Loza’s lecture, she will discuss the Braceros, Hispanic workers who were a part of the largest guest worker program in the history of the United States. It began as a way to fulfill labor shortages during World War II in the agriculture and railroad industries, but quickly expanded across the entire United States. By the program’s end in 1964, an estimated 4.6 million workers had been involved in the program… “My lecture will focus particularly on the ethnic and racial diversity within communities that participated in the Bracero Program,” Loza said. “I hope students that attend will take away a greater understanding of the program and a more complicated vision of Mexican immigration to the United States.”
College students hold Unity Day
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – April 12
It was a unifying day between all the colleges and universities in Tuscaloosa. There was singing, grilling, and hanging out at unity day for the University of Alabama, Stillman and Shelton State. Students say it’s a much needed event … the tradition of bringing students from all the schools together started in 2006.
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – April 12
Float a lazy river, watch ‘Identity Thief’ this Saturday at UA
Al.com – April 12
The University of Alabama will host what they call a “Late Night Dive-In” in the Student Recreation Center outdoor pool’s lazy river on Saturday. Hop in an inner tube and float along the river while you watch this year’s hit comedy “Identity Thief” starring Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy. Worried about the weather being a little too cold for a ride in the river? The outdoor rec center’s lazy river is heated, so you’ll be warm all night long. The event starts at 7:30 p.m. for Alabama students and is free of charge.
Friendship came first for University of Alabama’s Cavell Trio
Tuscaloosa News – April 15
Musical groups, like other collectives, can form under friendships or missions. The best often have both. The Cavell Trio formed in 2007, when three University of Alabama woodwind professors came together to perform at the International Experience Villa-Lobos Festival, dedicated to the works of composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. The piece they chose to perform is one of the most challenging for their grouping of oboe, clarinet and bassoon, said clarinetist Osiris “Ozzy” Molina; it later wound up on the Cavell Trio’s debut recording, “The Art of Collective Invention.” Also like other friendly teams, the three of them — Molina, Jenny Mann on bassoon and Shelly Meggison on oboe — can overlap and finish each other’s thoughts and sentences in conversation…While the trio did begin with a goal, it’s not wrong to call the trio a family, Mann said. The three of them individually would be and are recognized as top musicians — they’re all principal players with the Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra — but working together improves them all. “You can want the piece to be great, but also, you don’t want to disappoint your friends,” Molina said.
It’s all in the tellin’: Rick Bragg coming home to speak at McWane Mayors’ Prayer Breakfast
Anniston Star – April 13
Rick Bragg likes to prove he hasn’t gotten too big for his britches by putting tired clichés to rest once and for all. Take the one that says, “you can’t go home again.” “What I think that really means is that some people think they’re too good to go home again,” Bragg says. “I think that’s ridiculous. My whole life I’ve been trying to live up to the kind of men that I grew up with. Why would I not want to come home and talk about those folks?” Calhoun County native and Pulitzer-Prize winning author of best-selling books including “Ava’s Man” and “All Over but the Shoutin’” will serve as the guest speaker for the McWane Mayors’ Prayer Breakfast on the morning of Wednesday, May 1. Not only will it give Bragg the chance to come home again, but he will also get to do what he does best — writing notwithstanding. “I do love to talk to people about my people,” says Bragg, who is a professor of writing at the University of Alabama.
Book Arts student displays work in Ferg
Crimson White – April 15
For Suzanne Sawyer, a soon-to-be graduate of The University of Alabama’s Book Arts Program, inspiration can strike simply from walking through campus. “My ideas often come very unexpectedly,” Sawyer said. “I might see something, such as the mistletoe that hangs in the trees next to Woods Quad, and get inspired to make something.” Sawyer is about to complete her third and final year toward earning her master of fine arts degree in the Book Arts Program…A collection of Sawyer’s work, including sculptures, prints and an artist’s book, is on display at the Ferguson Center Art Gallery as part of an exhibition titled “A Burlap Bloom.” The title of the exhibition, also the title of the artist’s book, was inspired by a line from a poem by Eder J. Williams McKnight, featured in the book.
New organization aims to aid abused children
Crimson White – April 15
University of Alabama sophomore Stephanie Ray knew she wanted to provide aid for local abused children, so she came up with a plan to start a student organization to do just that. Her program, Good Alabama, aims to offer support, mentorship, resources and meals to abused children in local areas. “Good Alabama is an organization that kind of developed into a student organization,” Ray said. “Good Alabama’s goal is to basically just really be there and be positive enforcement for the kids.” Since Good Alabama began in March, they have been working to grow to meet the needs of the children. Due to the sensitivity of the topic, members go through extensive training to prepare them for interacting with the children in the mentorship setting.
OUR VIEW: Truly the Hearts of Eagles
Gadsden Times – April 12
During Wednesday’s American Values Luncheon, the Lookout Mountain District of the Boy Scouts of America honored three Etowah County residents. We applaud the selection of H.M. Freeman, Jane Newman and Charles Pullin, each of whom received the Heart of an Eagle Award for service to the community…Newman has been the director of the University of Alabama Arts Board….