MSU Launches Center for Great Lakes Culture

A new Center for Great Lakes Culture at Michigan State University is one of 16 regional centers in the country to receive planning funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities to encourage study and understanding of the history, people, traditions and customs of the multi-state area surrounding the Great Lakes. The center received $50,000 in planning funds from NEH as well as private support and MSU research funding.

Michigan Humanities Council is one of seven partners working with the MSU College of Arts and Letters in founding and developing the center, which will be housed in historic Linton Hall on the MSU campus. For more information on the center, contact Rick Knupfer at the Council office, call MSU at 517/355-0159.

New Council officers were elected at the fall meeting in Ludington, and a new appointee by Gov. John Engler joined the Council in early 2000. Two-year terms were approved by the Council for Chair Stephen Williams of Marysville, Vice Chair C. Kurt Dewhurst of East Lansing and Secretary-Treasurer Gloria Coles of Flint. Williams, who succeeds outgoing chair Sheila Cannatti of Battle Creek, is director of the Port Huron Museum. (In this issue of News, he adds his voice to the discussion of "community" in 2000.) Dewhurst is director of the Michigan State University Museum and succeeds Williams as vice chair, while Coles, director of the Flint Public Library, continues in the position of secretary-treasurer. Nedda N. Shayota of Bloomfield Hills officially joined the Council as its newest gubernatorial appointee at a Jan. 21 planning meeting in Dearborn. A 1997 art history graduate of Wayne State University, she is employed as director of business development at Sigma Associates, Inc, a consulting engineering firm.

A Local Guide to Happy Collaborating

In my last column, I discussed statewide networks and collaborations. As Michigan Humanities Council continues to develop its statewide cultural service collaborations, we want to help foster similar collaborations at the local level.

Throughout the state, there are successful and repeated examples of community collaborations that have produced public programs of astonishing quality. Some of these are Council-funded projects, and they include everything from local pageants and festivals to the clusters of public-participation programs complementing "Barn Again!" exhibits. Benefits of such collaborative programs are many (see our Collaborative Projects in Communities grant guidelines, for examples), but highlights of "what's in it for you" include:

• Opportunity to do programs collectively that cultural partners could not do alone;
• Development of membership across different organizations: arts participants experiencing heritage and historical programs, and vice versa;
• Joint calendars of cultural activity, resulting in better-coordinated audience development and marketing;
• Networking of best practices across collaborating cultural organizations;
• Shared resources;
• Integration of cultural assets from many different fields and venues (arts, heritage, history, libraries, schools, churches/temples, colleges, museums, trails and natural heritage), defining the depth and breadth of "community culture";
• Opportunity to combine these assets with economic development and planning and zoning;
• A "Total Community"/total area concept that uses cultural organizations and resources and a healthy concept of tourism, featuring rich local culture and heritage: good for insiders and good for outsiders.

• A Community Cultural Pageant, created locally, with the help of cultural interpreters, scholars and artists, utilizing locally gathered oral histories, drama classes and community theatre to develop the script, characters and production. The production could develop in portions, with perhaps smaller readers' theatres produced at various sites along the way. n Local oral histories developed into Readers' Theatres, featuring young actors and artists reading the roles of community elders at significant turning points in the community's past.
• A video tapestry, featuring any of the community's culture in video production.
• A Food Festival, featuring rural and immigrant meals of the past -- perhaps cooked, served and consumed by people in period clothing.
• A Chautauqua, featuring orators, actors and guest lecturers speaking on a variety of subjects, past and present.
• Scale models and exhibits of old Main Street, or of a historic district, developed by local art students, with capsule commentaries on historical significance and architectural features provided by history students. n Readings of area literary pieces -- poems, fiction, newspaper columns, past and present.
• Arts, craft and theatre presentations featuring local culture. Exhibits from area museums set up temporarily in bank lobbies, schools or other public places.
• A visiting scholar or Readers' Theatre presentation.
• An historic restoration project.
• A Library Reading/Discussion Series bringing books and scholars to the community, with community outreach components. (We have the programs ready to go. You just need to sign up for them.)
• A Main Street project.
• A series of locally produced historic columns in the local newspapers, featuring local history.
• A series of cultural itinerary corridors and tours that get people going from site to site, asset to asset, historic home to historic home, exhibit to exhibit, or that bring these features to indigent people in senior or nursing homes or hospitals.
• A trail network for bicyclists, hikers, bird-watchers and/or tourists interested in exploring all facets of community culture. Parts of the trail may include natural features such as a prairie, wetlands or forest school, bird sanctuary, and local lakes and rivers, together with historic and architectural assets and features, all linked and featured in a walking tour brochure and perhaps also in home-to-home tours.
• A local musical and/or theatrical pageant or arts and humanities festival, featuring local culture. (If you've been to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, you know what such a pageant does, not only for tourism but for local culture and heritage, instilling in youth the sense of belonging, of place, of pride in community, in addition to teaching them the skills of drama, oratory, singing, playing in a band. It could be the difference, for both insiders and outsiders, between making a future in a place featuring its own culture, or moving elsewhere.)

Some ways to coordinate and collaborate on collective projects, large or small (tailor these as your circumstances require):

1. Form a cultural alliance, network or heritage league. Such an alliance could dovetail its members and its plans with schools and governmental organizations. Plan to make your alliance a permanent cultural feature -- it will ensure reliable programming and networking of existing local cultural organizations well into the future. It's easier to write a grant with a full- area concept and the resources of many people than to ask one more overworked volunteer with a local historical society to do it alone.

   Set common, doable goals and a timetable for completion of activities. Troubleshoot each phase of the project: imagine the obstacles and commit to working together through them to the other side. Promise together that you will work together to get through the obstacles. Put hard-working people in charge of each area and request they elicit and delegate further support for their own portions of the project. Projects live and die on the successes of too few people. Get the commitment, get a timeline, and get them early.

2. Form planning committees for each major phase of a project, requesting the same doable goals and a timeline for each, shared on a regular basis with the alliance in general. Some examples: A trails committee (What trails linking what? Over what time period? At what cost? In town, architectural, historic homes tour or on the prairie or wetlands; a prairie or wetlands "school"?), a program/pageant committee (What programs, where, when and how? What scholars? What histories, presented how -- in drama only, or also in print, video, lectures, high school class themes, events at senior citizen homes, interviews with seniors, community dialogues/forums and/or exhibits? What programs over time, leading up to what grand program?), a restoration or preservation or conservation committee (Which places need what done over what time, with whose support?), a development/fund-raising grant-seeking committee (What kinds of funds does each phase/committee of the project need? From whom? By what rules and deadlines, with what resources needed? Which companies/individuals want to be patrons/contributors/sponsors for which projects?), a marketing/public relations committee with internal (inside-county) and external (outsiders) goals -- both are needed throughout the project.

   The internal needs to come first; that's what sells people on the project and on their own community culture. We must never forget this is the overall goal: as we define our own culture, we gain practitioners of it. The external marketing component features your community culture and makes each component attractive to outsiders/tourists. Very careful coordination with the other committees is needed throughout. Chairs of each committee can meet with the network steering committee to coordinate all activities over time.

3. Identify those parts of any projects that could gain by the counsel and insight of scholars and experts; identify them early and get them involved in developing projects and grant proposals.

4. Begin raising community consciousness, with fun kickoff events or social happenings at the theatre, the county museum, the resource center, the library, the school or a bank.

Our Web Site: Did You Know...

...nearly all activities that appear in Michigan Humanities Council's news are provided in more detail and updated regularly at our Internet web site -- http://mihumanities.h-net.msu.edu -- where you'll also find:

• grant applications and guidelines that you can download;
• descriptions of Resource Center materials available for loan and programs in the Michigan Arts & Humanities Touring Directory as well as the complete Michigan Sponsors of Arts & Cultural Programs directory listings;
• links to cultural, educational and project web sites around Michigan and the country as well as the Michigan Culture Link web site;
• an archive of past Council-funded project

• current news about Council-conducted projects like the "Barn Again!" exhibit, ROADS Culture Kits and Michigan's Great Outdoors Culture Tour;
• upcoming deadlines, new offers, news from the National Endowment for the Humanities;
• order forms for resource materials and "Arts & Humanities...adding balance to our lives!" campaign materials;
• a statewide arts, humanities and cultural calendar that you can use to promote your own organization's events.

Success Stories: Local Community Collaborations

Growing interest in collaboration as a community-building process has been reinforced by the benefits realized by constituents and partners in such cooperative efforts. "Going it alone" puts the workload, financial responsibility and audience-building tasks on the shoulders of a smaller group of staff and/or volunteers of cultural and educational organizations. Shared projects draw on the strengths and resources of all parties, capitalizing on them toward mutual goals and for mutual benefits.

Michigan Humanities Council projects provide numerous examples of successful collaborations and ways in which such projects have had broader and long-lasting results. Here are some success stories from local

communities, told in the words of their partners:

The Pleasure Yacht Verano (1999)
Project Director Valerie van Heest of the Southwest Michigan Underwater Preserve (SWMUP) of Spring Lake: "The Preserve has been affiliated with the Michigan Maritime Museum (South Haven) for several years, but this served as the first major joint venture project between our volunteers and museum staff. Ken Pott, curator of the museum was instrumental in conceptualizing the project and in doing the research that enabled us to delve into the lives of people associated with the ship, resulting in programs which brought the old stories to life. Without Ken, this project would not have been possible.

"This project brought the Underwater Archaeological Society of Chicago and SWMUP together for a joint venture project, and we have continued to work together on a shipwreck search project as well as a publication on shipwrecks in Lake Michigan."

One site where SWMUP volunteers showed the Verano slide show was the Holland Museum, which led to an ongoing relationship between the two organizations and the museum incorporating project photos, video and slide show into its "150 Years of Ships and Shipping" exhibit.

Nurturing Our Neighborhoods (1998-99)
Grand Rapids Area Council for the Humanities (GRACH)
Executive Director Linda Samuelson: "The most important new developments of the past year (are) the growing outreach in partnership activities with Michigan Humanities Council and the emerging alliance between GRACH and the Grand Rapids Public Library...the library has always been hospitable in providing a home for our office and a meeting place for our board for over 20 years; now we look forward to a new and closer relationship that will help us launch even stronger public programming and more effective outreach for the humanities using all the resources the library has to offer...."

One of those resources was the involvement of Grand Rapids City Historian Gordon Olson in a class research project by fifth-grade students at Fountain Street School to document the history of their houses in Grand Rapids' Heritage Hills neighborhood. Results of the Children's Neighborhood History, which helped the students develop research skills and increased their interest in their neighbors and neighborhood, were shared with the school, community and public at large. This effort was stimulated by GRACH's Grand Rapids neighborhood history project.

"Barn Again! Celebrating an American Icon" Exhibit/Programs
Local sites: Wolcott Mill, Ray, and Iron County Museum, Caspian
Wolcott Mill project director William Thomas: "Local blacksmiths demonstrated their craft, a storytellling group from a local library provided a program, local women who grew up on a farm talked about farm life in the 1930s, a barn restorer provided a workshop on barn problems and their remedies, a local farmer gave a program about hay storage through the ages, and our Farm Learning Center provided several programs."

Iron County Museum project director Audrey Ridolphi: "Throughout the spring, summer and fall, the community at large was involved in the special events hosted by the museum...organizations involved in the planning and/or implementation: the Carrie Jacobs- Bond Composing Quilters, the LeBlanc Art Festival, the Iron County Fair Board, the LeBlanc Audubon Society, West Iron District Library, Michigan Centennial Farm Committee...planning committee members, docents...demonstrators, musicians...truck drivers for parades...student computer program developer/photographer plus uncounted school personnel: teachers, parent chaperones, bus drivers and students! The project definitely raised the visibility of the museum in our region." Their list of partners also includes numerous businesses and service groups.

First Night/New Years Celebrations
New Years Eve Fest of Kalamazoo, Cultural Council of Birmingham, Midnight at the Creek (Battle Creek), New Year Jubilee (Ann Arbor)
These organizations used Arts and Humanities Touring Program grants to sponsor live programs during their recent year-end celebrations with a variety of host sites in their areas -- churches, schools, libraries, museums, community centers, arts centers, etc. -- making each of their observances a community-wide event.

My relationship with Michigan Humanities Council goes back nearly 18 years, and my life is so much richer, thanks to this organization and the remarkable people in it. Richer, not in monetary terms, but in opportunities to interact with diverse personalities from all walks of life and to learn what it means to be human.

My first such lesson was made possible with a Mini Grant from the Council, which gave me the opportunity to gather stories of traditional musicians in Michigan's Thumb area. One of these colorful tradition bearers was Ralph Flowers.

Ralph and I have remained close friends. He is an 84-year-old elf with a perpetual grin on his face and sparkle in his eyes. He is an inventor -- his brainchildren include a giant wind-powered generator, an hydraulic home-heating device, various musical instruments and a picture-hanging apparatus. Some 50 years ago, he built his own home of adobe -- a rarity in Michigan.

Ralph shuns doctors, preferring a single drop of turpentine on his tongue every morning, just as his father had done throughout his long life, to ward off disease and infection. Recently, as a precaution so as not to be totally disabled in the event he might suffer a stroke someday, Ralph has taught himself to write quite legibly left-handed. Since childhood, he has taught himself to play a wide range of musical instruments -- fiddle (which he now can play both right- and left-handed, just in case that dreaded stroke occurs), guitar, banjo and his own invention, the rhythm sticks -- but he is probably best known in Port Huron for his virtuosity on the musical saw. Ralph is a happy man who finds enjoyment in sharing his happiness with other people.

During our Council-funded project some 18 years ago, Ralph recalled an incident from his younger days which prompts us to reflect on issues of community. Ralph's story provides a homespun glimpse of the traditions, values and social customs of the rural community of his youth and the effects of preconceptions and misconceptions on human interaction within that community. It is a story which illustrates Ralph's belief in the goodness of people and their need to share...

"There was a lady. She was a maiden lady -- never married. She had this little farm, probably about 12-5 acres. She always hired women to work on it. She never hired any men at all; she just didn't.

"But this one fall she was sick, and she couldn't get her corn in out of the field. Getting late -- starting to get cold -- corn was cut and shocked in the field. And so a bunch of us young fellas, we went to work. Had about four or five wagons and teams, and the rest of the fellas then went, too. And they would load the stuff on our wagons, and took it in and put it on her barn floor. Set it all around. Filled the barn right up with it. Well, then, she didn't have that much. It wasn't like they do now. But we had five or six good loads. I remember we went back for more.

"And then we went home, had our supper, got our girlfriends -- and they had, in the meantime, made like a potluck lunch to have -- and we went back after supper. I took my fiddle and another boy had a guitar. And we went, and we husked out that corn. Husked it all out. The ones that was fastest husking would be husking, and the others was carrying the corn and the fodder out and setting the fodder up in the barnyard for her, so she could get it. And the corn went in the crib. When we got done, we had real teamwork. Boy! Everybody was pitching right in, you know, going to work, and it was fun!

"Every time you found a red ear, why you got to kiss the prettiest girl in the place. Depend on which girl you thought was the prettiest, you see. It didn't always mean the same one all the time. Every once in a while you'd run across a red ear, and the fun would start. Well, we got it all husked out and in the crib, and everything all clean. Swept the floor up, and then we had our square dance.

"Boy! We had a ball! Played there until, oh, probably 12:00-1:00. Then we'd gone home. But everybody just had a grand old time; and she just never got over that. It changed her whole attitude towards men, and she realized that it wasn't all bad. From then on, she would come to the parties and things like that and really enjoyed herself. And she'd dance with us. But that really impressed her, that we would do that with no charge or nobody looking for anything."

Ralph's story reminds us that "community" is defined by time, place, culture and a host of other variables. But interdependence and interaction among individuals seem to remain constant, as we all continue to search for our own "red ears."

-Stephen Williams, Council Chair, 2000-2001

And the Winners Are... Eighteen applications to host "Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Visions of An American Future," the next Smithsonian traveling exhibit scheduled to arrive in Michigan in March, 2001, have been reviewed and the five sites selected are ... waiting on our web site for you to access.

NEH Jefferson Lecture March 27

Princeton University history professor James M. McPherson, considered among the greatest historians of the Civil War, has been named the 2000 Jefferson Lecturer in the Humanities by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The annual NEH-sponsored Jefferson Lecture, named in honor of the third U.S. president, will be March 27 in the Concert Hall of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. McPherson's lecture: "'For a Vast Future Also': Lincoln and the Millennium." The 7:30 p.m. lecture is free and open to the public. Call 202/606-8446 or send e-mail to info@neh.gov to request an invitation.

Grants Awarded in Fall

Communities of interest ranging from the Michigan Fiber Festival and agricultural fairs to a symposium on transition of modern speech and language and collaborations of two regional humanities councils received Collaborative Projects in Communities grants this fall.

Council grants of up to $12,000 are awarded for partnership projects that explore community issues and concerns through the humanities and involve at least three community organizations. The Council's newest grantees are:

• Michigan Association of Fairs and Exhibitions, sponsor of "It's Fair Time! ReDISCOVER Our Agricultural Roots," an eight-month exhibit and related activities about the history of American agricultural fairs at the Michigan State University Museum in East Lansing October, 2000, to June, 2001.
• Cranbrook Academy of Art of Bloomfield Hills, which will host a March 9 symposium on "Language and Change: Poetry, Politics and Common Usage" to explore the evolution of popular language resulting from technology, politics and the media and public activities March 10 to discuss ethical and cultural implications of everyday speech.
• Michigan Fiber Festival, Inc. of Hastings will bring to their annual August festival a global component, an "International Felters Conference," to examine the historical and cultural significance of the traditional process of felt-making from the perspective of five well-known felters from around the world. A touring exhibit will precede the festival.

Support for ongoing community outreach in the humanities by the Grand Rapids Area Council for the Humanities and the Humanities Council of West Central Michigan, serving Lake, Mason, Mecosta, Newaygo and Osceola counties, was also continued into 2000 and 2001.

Applications for awards under the Collaborative Projects in Communities grantline are reviewed twice annually, with April 15 and Sept. 1 deadlines for proposals.

Call Out for Touring Programs, Reviewers

Live arts, humanities and other cultural programs in the areas of music, dance, theater, visual and folk arts, historical interpretation, storytelling are being sought for inclusion in the 2000- 2002 Arts & Humanities Touring Directory. The deadline for applications is Feb. 15.

Groups and individuals interested in being listed in the directory may request an application from the Council's Lansing office or can find it on-line at the Michigan Culture Link web site. Applications and accompanying documentation are due in the Council office Feb. 15 and may not be submitted electronically. For more information, contact the Touring Programs staff at 517/372-7770.

Reviewers are still needed to assist with the March 20-21 adjudication of applicants for the 2000-2002 directory.

Persons with professional experience in dance, music, theater, visual and folk arts and the various disciplines of the humanities may apply to participate in adjudication at Lansing's Holiday Inn West Conference Center where they will review application materials submitted for prospective directory programs.

If you are interested in serving as a reviewer, contact Touring Program Director Jan Fedewa at the Council's Lansing office (517/372-7770) or submit an on-line reviewer form available on the Council's web site.

Regional Council News

The Humanities Council of West Central Michigan has published a collection of columns from its long-running "Up and Down the River" newspaper feature as part of a project to mark the transition to a new millennium.

The 13-chapter "One Hundred for 2000" volume includes 100 columns that have run weekly in the Big Rapids Pioneer, illustrated with artwork and photographs of the Muskegon River and the community. Columns relate local residents' and Ferris State University faculty members' travel experiences, historical accounts related to the Big Rapids community and Michigan and children's poetry, according to project director Betty Stolarek. For more information, contact the council's office at 231/796-9365.

Special Poster Offer

Take advantage of a half-off rate of $5 (plus shipping and handling) for the "Native Peoples" Culture Kit poster featuring a montage of Native American images, created for the Council by Sault Ste. Marie artist Debra Ann Pine. The full-color 22-by-38-inch poster is a striking representation of the spirit and beauty of Michigan's indigenous people and is suitable for framing.

To order, contact Michael Pankow, Resource Center coordinator, at 800/837-4532 or by e- mail (resources@voyager.net) or access the poster order form on the Council's web site (http://mihumanities.h-net.msu.edu/roads/).

Resource Center: Programs for a New Year

Take the opportunity of a new year, a new century and a new millennium to create an innovative public program in your community using educational multimedia materials from the Council's Resource Center. Its collection of more than 500 titles includes informative and handy resources in formats ranging from videotapes and packaged cultural lesson materials to exhibits and books for group reading and discussion sessions.

You'll find complete Media Guide listings under a variety of topics in the Resource Center section of our web site. just look for the Media Guide icon and "click" your way through this helpful catalogue to select materials you'd like to borrow.

Each month, the center promotes a topical theme and some suggested resources for programming around that theme. Use the theme or create your own package of resources to meet your program needs.

Themes for this quarter are:

• January: Middle Eastern History & Cultures
  Some resources: Arab World Notebook, (curriculum unit), Introduction to the Arab World (video, guidebook), "Arabesque" (audiotapes)
• February: African-American Heritage
  Some resources: "Eyes on the Prize" Part I: America's Civil Rights Years (video), The African American Image: Lessons for the Next Millennium (lecture series materials), "Miles of Smiles, Years of Struggle": The Untold Story of the Black Pullman Porter (video)
• March: Women's History & Heritage
  Some resources: "One Woman, One Vote" (video, teacher's guide), "With Babies and Banners" (film, discussion guide, handbook) "Scribbling Women" (audiotapes, reading guide, classroom activities),
• April: Reflecting on Language & Literature
  Some resources: "The Power of Myth" (video series) An Introduction to William Faulkner's Fiction (video, lecture guide), "Voices and Visions" (video, discussion guide)

Popular Touring Grants Closed for Year

The "good news": an infusion of $126,894 in Michigan Arts and Humanities Touring Program Grants support nearly 650 cultural programs in communities and schools of 52 of the state's 83 counties during 1999 and 2000.

The "bad news": money for Touring Program grants has been exhausted for the rest of the fiscal year and won't be available again until October. The lesson: apply early!

The popular grants are awarded annually by the Council in partnership with the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs to assist nonprofit organizations, schools, colleges and other cultural groups hosting live dance, music, theater and storytelling programs and other visual arts presentations from the Michigan Arts and Humanities Touring Directory.

For calendar 1999, 58 percent of the 647 Touring Program awards went to public and private schools, or 61 percent of total applicants. The remainder supported community festivals, library programs and cultural events hosted by other nonprofit organizations, or 39 percent of applicants.

Of 52 counties where Touring Program grants supported arts and humanities programs, 21 are considered "underserved" by MCACA due to limited access to arts and cultural programs, services or resources primarily because of location, economic condition and/or cultural background.

A full list of touring grant recipients for 1999-2000 is available from the Touring Program staff in the Lansing office and on our web site.

Culture Kit Update: Volunteers Needed

Help the Council revitalize its popular ROADS Culture Kits on African, African-American and Middle Eastern traditions, heritage and culture -- volunteer to help update educational resources, examine existing lesson plans and draft new ones and review kit materials.

The work involves about 20 hours of your time at home reviewing, researching and making recommendations as part of a team of teachers and scholars to update elementary and secondary level kits. Each volunteer will receive a $250 honorarium and reimbursement of travel, telephone and supply expenses, plus substitute teacher fees if school-day meetings are involved. In addition, volunteers can designate five complimentary rentals of Culture Kits (a $250 value) to an organization or school of their choice; this offer does not include security deposit or return shipping costs on such rentals.

Interested? Contact LuAnn Kern, director of grants and education, at the Council's Lansing office -- 800/837-4532 or by e-mail at lkernmihum@voyager.net -- for additional details about the process.

Smithsonian Exhibit to Recall Visions of Future

Do you have a love of science fiction novels and films? Own a collection of toy robots? Have a "thing" for past and future modes of transportation? Does your line of work deal with advancements in technology? Or city planning?

If so, the Michigan Humanities Council hopes to tap your expertise as part of its preparation for the upcoming 2001 visit by the Smithsonian traveling exhibit, "Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Visions of an American Future."

The Council is seeking experts, scholars, presenters and advisors on a variety of topics examining historical visions of the future and the society that created them and is compiling information about such individuals into a statewide directory for cultural organizations who will develop and plan programming around the exhibit's visit to their communities. Planning for the exhibit will continue through March, 2001; the exhibit will visit five rural Michigan communities between March, 2001, and January, 2002.

Individuals may be contacted to give presentations about their interests to adult and youth audiences; consult on local community program efforts; write brief articles for newsletters, newspapers and magazines; lead book or film discussions; assist in researching information for local exhibits, or evaluate a program. Modest compensation would be provided and some travel may be required.

Exhibit themes and possible related topics include "Finding the Future" (secular/religious utopias; robots/robotics; science fiction; Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Edward Bellamy and other visionaries; the future in film and television; toys about the future; advertising the future, and revolutions in computer, communication and medicine, science and other technology); "Home of Tomorrow" (architecture, design, function, building and production); "Community of Tomorrow" (urban planning, planned communities, World's Fairs, agricultural advancements), and "Transportation of Tomorrow" (autos, trains, airplanes, mass transit, space).

Scholars and presenters interested in participating may contact LuAnn Kern at 517/372-7770 or by e-mail (lkernmihum@voyager.net) for an information form to complete about their interests and expertise or access it on-line at the Council web site (http://mihumanities.h- net.msu.edu) and send it to the Council office.

Connect With A&H Cultural Campaign

"Arts & Humanities ... adding balance to our lives!" campaign materials are now available in a variety of formats and media for use by local cultural organizations around Michigan.

The campaign, which was launched last May by the Council and the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, includes six full-color images in poster form, a 60-second radio spot, advertising slick sheets, tee-shirts and other ready-to-use promotional items designed to profile the enrichment that culture brings to Michigan residents.

The variety of images accompanying the basic campaign message allows organizations to select one that best represents their interest or promote regional or local cultural interests with a variety of campaign visuals on everything from billboards and banners to press packets and giveaway items.

This April, as an example, use "The Agony & The Ecstasy" image during tax-time to contrast the efforts involved in completing annual tax calculations with those of the creative writing process to show the balance cultural enrichment gives our lives. Wear the striking black tee- shirts with the colorful "Metropolitan Horn Section" or "Work & Play" images for local concerts or festivals. Take the free advertising slicks or radio tape to local media or supplement your own fundraising or event promotion mailings with a colorful "Exploring Ancient Cultures" refrigerator magnet.

The campaign theme and materials were created by ZimmerFish, Inc., of East Lansing.

Millennium Evenings at the White House

The "Millennium Evenings at the White House" series, a new addition to the Resource Center's offerings in its "American Experience" section, includes seven videos featuring recent lectures and cultural showcases hosted by President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton that highlight creativity and inventiveness through our ideas, art and scientific discoveries. The series is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

'Barn Again!': Real, Virtual Visits

Haven't had a chance to visit one of the "Barn Again! Celebrating An American Icon" traveling exhibit sites yet? There's still time to see the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) display and participate in local activities celebrating barns and farms through April 15. "Barn Again!" will be at the Missaukee District Library in Lake City through Feb. 26 and will conclude its tour of the state March 6-April 15 at Rawson Memorial Library in Michigan's Thumb community of Cass City.

Each of the seven host sites has scheduled community activities around the exhibit, some with lasting value and impact for the residents of these rural areas. At Coloma, the North Berrien Historical Society attracted more than 800 visitors (see photo) and, say project directors Marc and Mary Alyce Hettig, "the 'Barn Again!' exhibit made people aware of the importance of preserving the American barn.

"We live in a changing agricultural community and few barns are used in the old traditional way but are now 'recycled' as homes for people as well as businesses...The traditional barns can and are being renovated to meet the changing needs of the times. We feel we have played a part in encouraging these changes," they wrote.

In the Upper Peninsula, Iron County Museum's experience has yielded a number of "products." Museum director Marcia Bernhardt has published a 120-page photographic essay on county barns, "Barns, Farms and Yarns," in conjunction with the "Barn Again!" exhibit and a local exhibit, "Barnstorming Iron County," which was displayed during the SITES visit. Inspired by the barn activities, life-long Iron River resident Sharon Olson Johnson tells her heart-warming recollections of life on the farm on the pages of our on-line "scrapbook" (at http://mihumanities.h-net.msu.edu/barnexhibit/scrapbook/), along with items submitted by other "Barn Again!" participants. Check it out!

Another barn-related publication from the Michigan State University Press is "Michigan's Heritage Barns" by photographer Mary Keithan of Ray, a celebration of the state's agricultural structures captured on film from the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula to the Ohio border. The 180-page book, featuring more than 80 duotone photos, is available for $39.95 plus tax and shipping through the Council's Lansing office; sale of the book supports "Barn Again!" program activities.

Project Updates

In December, the Houghton Lake Public Library initiated its first adult reading club, Page- Turners, with enthusiastic response from library patrons. Participants used copies of "Loon Feather" and "The Shipping News" borrowed from the Council's Resource Center. "The evening went well, and I have had requests for another Page-Turners evening," wrote Director Donna Alward, who expects to follow up with another session in February.

Michigan Arts & Humanities Touring Program musician-storyteller Patty Clark has produced an audiotape of "Stories and Songs for the Michigan Environment" drawn from her experience at parks and campgrounds last summer as a participant in the 1999 Michigan's Great Outdoors Culture Tour. She also has been researching Native American traditions of the Grand Island area of the Upper Peninsula.

Other Culture Tour presenters who report they have expanded their repertoire based on research they've completed during the tour include historical roleplayer Michael Deren who is adding a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enrollee to his "Past in Person" cast of characters; traditional musician Neil Woodward who has new material on lighthouse keepers, workers in Franklin Roosevelt's CCC "tree army" and a colorful clash with the law in Iron River; and Great Lakes musician Lee Murdock whose new work includes tales of Upper Peninsula forest fires and the rescue of lighthouse keepers and the enduring SS Badger carferry.

Culture Tour hosts at the Lake Michigan Campground on the Manistee National Forest near Manistee have erected a new outdoor pavilion in the campground to improve facilities for tour programs for their campers. Other programming plans for the 2000 Culture Tour were discussed Nov. 8 at Higgins Lake during a debriefing session for hosts and presenters from the 1999 tour, sponsored jointly by the Council and the State Parks division of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.