SHSU Update for Week of October 8

• La Salle is Program Subject
• Election 2000--Voting Made Easy
• Wind Ensemble and Octubafests
• Faculty Members Host Conference
• Language Training Promoted
• Candidates to Meet on Campus
• Doctoral Graduate Honred

La Salle is Program Subject

The La Salle saga is a fascinating one--about France, Spain and Britain's competition for the riches they expected to find in the New World, about pirate captures and shipwrecks, about a river missed by 400 miles, about mutiny on Matagorda Bay and failed dreams.

Jim Bruseth, director of the archaeology division of the Texas Historical Commission, picked an appropriate date for his Thursday presentation in the Walker Education Center of the Sam Houston Memorial Museum project. Not only is it on the traditional Columbus Day (Oct. 12), but October is Archaeology Awareness Month.

Sponsored by the collections department of the Sam Houston Memorial Museum, the event begins with a reception at 7 p.m. and program at 7:30. The program is entitled: "La Salle Odyssey in Texas; Update on La Belle and Fort St. Louis Archaeology Projects."

One of La Salle's ship's was the La Belle, which sank in Matagorda Bay southeast of the present day city of Victoria. La Salle had arrived in that area to establish a colony at what he thought at first was the mouth of the Mississippi. By that time (about 1684) his effort had been a victim of both pirates and mutineers.

What was left of the 300 men, women and children he had brought from France, about 180 in number, established Fort St. Louis. They only lasted a few years, however, and when the empty settlement was found in 1689 by Spanish troops, they burned Fort St. Louis and built their own, La Bahia, on that very spot.

In 1995 the La Belle was found. A year later eight iron cannons that the Spanish had buried were found, drawing archaeologists closer to the Fort St. Louis remains. Since then they have been recovering artifacts and searching for the exact settlement location and its cemetery believed to contain 50 to 100 of the settlers.

The Texas Historical Commission estimates there are more than 1 million archaeological sites in Texas, including several dozen active ones, but the La Belle and Fort St. Louis projects are their most important.

Election 2000--Voting Made Easy

For those qualified to vote in Walker County, early voting will be held from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Oct. 23 through Nov. 3 in the Walker County Courthouse Commissioner's Courtroom on the third floor. Early voting will be held in room 310 of the Lowman Student Center from 8 a.m. to noon Oct. 25 and noon to 5 p.m. Oct. 26.

Students who wish to vote by mail in their home counties may do so by picking up an application at the information desk on the second floor of the Lowman Student Center. Addresses of each county clerk or election administrator are also available there.

In order to vote early by mail in Walker County, the voting clerk must receive an application for a ballot by Oct. 31, the last day on which a ballot can be mailed out. Applications should be addressed to James D. Patton; Early Voting Clerk; PO Box 210; Huntsville, TX 77342-0210.

Ballots may also be requested by phone by calling 936.436.4922.

Wind Ensemble and Octubafests

The 66-member Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Matthew McInturf, will perform a piece by Johann Sebastian Bach in honor of the 250th anniversary of his death at their Thursday (Oct.12) concert at 7:30 p.m. in the Beto Criminal Justice Center Killinger Auditorium.

Robert Daniel and Henry Howey, SHSU's tubameisters, will present faculty recitals of traditional Octoberfest music at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday (Oct. 8-10) in the Recital Hall.

Penny Kershaw will present a student recital at 7:30 p.m. Saturday (Oct. 14) in the Recital Hall.

SHSU music faculty member Peggy DeMers will be the featured French horn soloist for the Wind Ensemble concert, performing a concerto by American composer David Amram. Other works on the program are by Vincent Persichetti, Dan Welcher, and Gustav Holst.

Robert Chreste, a graduate teaching assistant for both the Wind Ensemble and the Bearkat Marching Band, will conduct the ensemble in Holst's "Second Suite for Military Band in F."

According to Chreste's concert notes, the suite was composed in 1911 but not performed until 1922, and is based on material from English folk songs and morris dances. Movements include "March," "Song without Words, 'I'll love My Love,' "Song of the Blacksmith," and "Fantasia on the 'Dargason.'"

The Octubafest concerts and student recital are free. Admission to the Wind Ensemble is $8, or $5 for students and free to SHSU students and employees with SHSU IDs and free to Friends of Music.

Faculty Members Host Conference

SHSU will be the hosting institution for the three-day event (Oct. 12-14), and several faculty members will make or participate in presentations and discussions.

They include Joan Prouty, Marsha Harmon, Robin Zoubi, Kim Arp, Genevieve Brown, Marion Czaja, Beverly Irby, Stacey Edmonson, Alice Fisher, Fred Lunenburg, Ellene Polidore, Judy Christensen, Mary Nichter, Judy DeTrude, and Rebecca Robles Pina. Irby also serves as the group's chair elect.

The Research on Women and Education group, established in 1973, promotes scholarship on women and girls in education. It has two major purposes--to provide a structure within the American Education Research Association for the promotion of research concerning women and girls in education and to provide a mechanism to facilitate communication among researchers and practitioners who are concerned about women in education.

Irby and Brown also co-edit Advancing Women in Leadership, the Internet's first on-line, academic journal dedicated to examining and expanding feminine leadership worldwide.

Language Training Promoted

"Both German and French have 41 beginning students this semester," said Gutermuth, "a sure sign of a healthy subject."

While the major in German may be phased out in five years, she said, the language will continued to be offered. And the French major will be reviewed in three years.

"Both German and French are pretty much essential in the sciences and in music so the service will continue no matter what may happen to the majors," she said.

Gutermuth believes in emphasizing foreign language training because of the internationalization of our economy and the increasing global interaction caused by the Internet and other factors.

Candidates to Meet on Campus

The Sam Houston State University chapter of the Texas Association of College Teachers will sponsor a forum for the two candidates for Texas State Representative, District 18.

Incumbent Dan Ellis (Democrat) and challenger Ben Bius (Republican) will be available for comments and audience questions from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in Austin Hall. The program includes refreshments and a social hour.

John Holcombe, a TACT officer, said the event is open to the entire university community.

Doctoral Graduate Honored

Brown will be honored at a dinner Oct. 20 during Southeast Missouri homecoming activities.

Brown, who has chaired the Department of Criminal Justice at Southeast Missouri for 12 years, was the first member of his family to earn a college degree. He earned his bachelor's at the University of Kansas, master's at Wichita State, and doctorate in criminal justice with a concentration in administration and management from SHSU.

- END -

SHSU Media Contacts: Frank Krystyniak, Julia May
Oct. 8, 2000
Please send comments, corrections, news tips to Today@Sam.edu