1) Walker Center Presents Etta May & The Southern Fried Chicks on March 28
The Walker Center, on the campus of Wilkes Community College, will present Etta May & the Southern Fried Chicks on Friday, March 28 at 8 p.m. This performance is sponsored by InterFlex Group. What’s the best way to describe Etta May? “Minnie Pearl with a migrane” fits her best. To put it simply, when Etta May takes the stage, she is the reigning Queen of Southern Sass. Etta May will take you on a redneck ride through the Deep South. Born and raised in Bald Knob, Arkansas, Etta May grew up alongside nine older brothers. She won the prestigious American Comedy Awards’ prestigious “Stand-Up Comic of the Year” honor and has appeared on Oprah, Comic Strip Live, MTV, and as a guest commentator on “CBS Sunday Morning.” Etta May headlines the most successful all-female “Southern Fried Chicks Tour,” selling out theaters throughout the country. A limited number of tickets are available for this performance. For more information, or to purchase tickets, contact the Walker Center Box Office at 336-838-6260 or walker.boxoffice@wilkescc.edu<mailto:walker.boxoffice@wilkescc.edu>. The John A. Walker Community Center is dedicated to being the primary venue for cultural experience in Wilkes and surrounding areas and to serving as the preferred gathering place for meetings, receptions, conventions, banquets, and parties for our community. The Walker Center and Wilkes Community College are 100% Tobacco Free. Wilkes Community College, a member of the North Carolina Community College System, is a public, two-year, open-door institution serving the people of Wilkes, Ashe and Alleghany counties and beyond. Established in 1965, WCC continues to build on a strong history of meeting the educational needs and cultural interests of our students, community and workforce. WCC prepares learners for success in a dynamic world.
2) Concert Features Brazilian Compositions
Guitarist Welson Tremura joins Todd Wright and friends March 21 at 8 p.m. for an evening of Brazilian jazz at 8 p.m. at Appalachian State University. The performance in Broyhill Music Center’s Rosen Concert Hall is part of the Hayes School of Music’s Faculty Performance Series. Saxophonist Wright will be joined by Keith McCutchen, piano; Andy Page, guitar; Zack Page, bass; and Rick Dilling on drums for the special event. The program will feature compositions by Wright, Tremura, Antonio Carlos Jobim and others. Wright is director of Jazz Studies in the Hayes School of Music. Tremura is a native of Sao Paulo, Brazil and an associate professor in the School of Music an the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Florida. An acclaimed guitarist and singer, Tremura maintains an active performance schedule that has included performances and projects in Brazil, the United States, Europe and New Zealand. He is well versed in Brazilian Jazz, classical and vocal music as well as traditional European classical forms. Tremura is the co-director of Jacare Brazil, a Brazilian music ensemble. He has released two recordings and participated in recordings with musicians in Brazil and the United States.
3) ASU to Host Creative Writing Workshop for Veterans and Staged Reading of “Deployed”
Poet and Vietnam veteran Bruce Weigl will teach a creative writing workshop for veterans March 28 at Appalachian State University. The workshop for students who are veterans, as well as for area veterans and their families, will be held from 1-4 p.m. in Plemmons Student Union’s Three Top Mountain Room. Weigl is also the featured author March 27 at 7:30 p.m. in the student union’s Table Rock Room for the Hughelene Bostian Frank Visiting Writers Series. Weigl is a distinguished professor of English at Lorain County Community College in Lorain, Ohio. He received a bronze star for his service in Vietnam. His poetry collection “The Abundance of Nothing” was a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize. The workshop is sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, the Office of Academic Affairs, and the Department of English. A staged reading of “Deployed” will follow the workshop at 5:30 p.m., also in Three Top Mountain Room. Presented by the Touring Theatre of North Carolina, “Deployed” is an hour-long compilation of poetry and prose written by veterans and their families. It depicts the experiences of seven wars: World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, First Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan. It was adapted for the stage by Touring Theatre founder Brenda P. Schleunes and North Carolina Poet Laureate Joseph Bathanti, who also is a professor of creative writing at Appalachian. The production premiered in November 2013 in Greensboro. Lenise Willis wrote in the Greensboro-based publication YES! Weekly that “Deployed” was a “touching compilation of raw emotions and experiences, varying from the physical limitations of flying bombers for more than 16 hours a day in World War II missions, to the guilt felt by a Vietnam veteran” and that “there’s much to be absorbed from the heartfelt drama and the chance to really feel a part of something.” In an article published in the Greensboro News and Record, Dawn DeCwikiel-Kane wrote, “In dramatic detail, their stories describe the pressures of war preparation, deployment and battle, and returning home to readjust to a life never quite the same,” referring to the veterans’ whose writings comprise the script. “Deployed” is sponsored by Appalachian’s Office of Equity, Diversity and Compliance. “The performance of ‘Deployed’ – on the heels of Dr. Weigl’s workshop, delivered by one of the great living vet writers – will be a palpable, extremely valuable program for veterans and their families and will dramatically increase the visibility of veterans on campus,” Bathanti said. Bathanti’s signature project as North Carolina Poet Laureate has been to work with veterans and their families to harvest their stories through poetry, fiction, personal essay and playwriting. He has traveled the state during the past 17 months conducting writing workshops for veterans and their families, in a variety of settings. In an article published in Our State magazine, Bathanti wrote of the veterans’ writing project and the therapeutic benefit it brings its participants. “What astonishes me most when I’m teaching a workshop among veterans is how good the writing is, period. In fact, there’s reason to believe that an entire wave of a wholly new genre of literature, borne of our 21st-century wars, is being minted by this hybrid generation of combat veterans,” he wrote. “And, yes, it is therapeutic: Empirical scholarship shows that writing about trauma is instrumental in overcoming trauma. I often hear the injunction in veterans’ writing workshops: Either you control the memory or the memory controls you.”
4) Grandfather Mountain’s Fern the Opossum Dies
Grandfather Mountain said farewell Friday to Fern the opossum, who was humanely put to rest after veterinarians discovered a large tumor in her abdomen. Fern arrived at Grandfather Mountain in September 2012 at four months old. She was orphaned when her mother was hit by a car and was originally raised by a wildlife rehabilitator. Because she was imprinted to be around humans, she could not be released back into the wild. The opossum lived off-display inside the Habitats office and a fenced outdoor area. Fern lived an active life on Grandfather Mountain, participating in numerous educational programs to teach visitors about one of North America’s only marsupials. Habitat staff noticed on Thursday that Fern was having trouble breathing and took her Friday to veterinarian Dr. Lee Bolt in Asheville. Bolt located a large, cancerous tumor on the x-rays that was pressing against the opossum’s lungs and other organs. Fern would have been 2 years old in May, and most opossums in the wild live about two years. Not everyone considered Fern’s prehensile tail, opposable thumbs and eat-anything behaviors cute and lovable but she quickly integrated herself with the Habitat staff. Fern occasionally displayed strange behavior, including climbing onto the desk in the Habitats office and rubbing her neck against the phone. Her pursuits were chronicled in a video titled “Phoning with Fern,” available at bit.ly/1cR2G7t. “I got really attached to Fern,” said Emma Schlagal, assistant habitats curator for Grandfather Mountain. “People still think that they’re gross, but it’s good to let them see what they’re like and that they’re not that scary.”
5) Sharkmuffin Takes Sound on the Road in March
Slated to be one of Alt Press’s “100 Bands You Should Know” Sharkmuffin heads out on tour in March showcasing their scuzzed-up pop, loaded with sharp-edged guitars buried by crushing metallic fuzz. The band will play at Espresso News in Boone on March 18.
6) Documentary Filmmaker and Professor Joe Murphy to be Honored March 28 & 29
A 39-year career at Appalachian State University will be celebrated March 28-29 as friends, family and former students gather to honor Department of Curriculum and Instruction Professor Joe Murphy who will retire at the end of this semester. Murphy, who came to Appalachian in 1975 to teach video and audio production and documentary film, will be honored during the Joe Murphy Documentary Film Festival. Screenings of Murphy’s work will take place March 28 at 7 p.m. and March 29 at 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. in room 124 in the College of Education building on campus. Admission is free. The March 28 screening will feature shorts, clips and a showing of Murphy’s 1985 film “Doc and Merle” about the late musicians Doc and Merle Watson. Screenings the afternoon of March 29 will feature student work and Murphy’s films “Auto Bond” and “Shoes Required.” The weekend concludes at 7:30 p.m. with additional short selections from Murphy’s work as well as a screening of his film about barbecue in the Southeast, “Slow Food: Fast Times.” Segments of Murphy’s work have aired on CBS’s “Sunday Morning,” ABC’s “World News Tonight,” the Learning Channel and public television stations across the country. A fellowship being established in Murphy’s name, The Joe Murphy Educational Media Endowed Fellowship, will support undergraduate students working towards the Second Academic Concentration (SAC) in Media Studies in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction or the minor in media studies, as well as graduate students in the Master of Arts program in educational media. For more information call, Jeff Goodman at 828-262-2176