Award-winning and Texas State Photographer Wyman Meinzer is the featured speaker for the second annual Guy Caldwell Western Heritage Lecture series on Friday, Feb. 23, 2007, at 8 p.m. in HSU’s Moody Center, Room 233. Meinzer's presentation is "Between Heaven and Texas," and is free and open to the public.

Meinzer’s interest in photography and photojournalism developed and expanded while he was involved in research at Texas Tech University, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in wildlife management in 1974.

An Image of West Texas

His editorial endeavors were first published in 1979, with photos appearing in National Wildlife and Texas Parks and Wildlife magazines. His work has since appeared on over 250 magazine covers, including more than 50 national and international covers. His photos have been seen in Smithsonian, Natural History, Time, Newsweek, Audubon, Texas Parks and Wildlife, Texas Highways, Sports Afield, Field and Stream, Outdoor Life, Korea GEO, German GEO, Das Tier, Airone, Horzu, BBC Wildlife, U.S. News & World Report, National Geographic, as well as many other publications.

Meinzer’s magazine assignments have taken him Mexico, Montana, Canada, Alaska, and Texas, and he was the official photographer for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s historic capture of the last remaining herd of southern Plains bison.
Proudly proclaimed Texas State Photographer in 1997 by the Texas State Legislature and then-Governor George Bush, Meinzer is renowned for his wildlife, landscape, architecture, and portrait photography. He and his wife, Sylinda, live in a restored 1887 jailhouse in Benjamin, Texas.

The Guy Caldwell Lecture series was made possible by an endowment established by Lee Caldwell, Clifton Caldwell, and Molly Cline in memory and honor of their father, local rancher Guy Caldwell. The purpose of the endowment is to preserve the western heritage of Hardin-Simmons University and the Abilene area.
For more information about the lecture, contact Dr. Tiffany Fink, 325.670.1512.

Posted by Dave Coffield · February 20, 2007 11:24 AM · Comments (0)

Nationally acclaimed resource on spiritual formation, Ruth Haley Barton, will be the guest of Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon School of Theology and Abilene Christian University’s College of Biblical Studies for an evening lecture on “Longing for God” at Logsdon Chapel, on the HSU campus, Feb 22, at 7:00 p.m.

Educated at Wheaton College and Northern Seminary (Lombard, IL), Barton is co-founder and president of The Transforming Center, a ministry dedicated to caring for the souls of pastors and the congregations they serve. She is a teacher, spiritual director, and retreat leader trained through the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation (Washington D.C.) and The Pathways Center for Spiritual Leadership (Nashville, TN).

Ruth Haley Barton

In addition to teaching, guiding, and consulting with leadership groups in the areas of spiritual formation, community building, and discernment, she is the author of numerous articles and books including: Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation (InterVarsity Press), Invitation to Solitude and Silence: Experiencing God’s Transforming Presence (InterVarsity Press), An Ordinary Day with Jesus: Experiencing the Reality of god in Your Everyday Life (co-author, Willow Creek Resources), Equal to the Task: Men and Women in Partnership (InterVarsity Press), and Ruth: Relationships that Bring Life (a Fisherman Bible student, Shaw).

Dr. Doug Foster, professor and associate dean of the graduate school of Theology at ACU’s College of Biblical Studies, served on the steering committee that is bringing Barton to Abilene, “My acquaintance with Ruth Haley Barton began a year ago when I read her most recent book, Sacred Rhythms: arranging Our Lives for Spiritual transformation. It had a massive effect on me and my self-understanding. She identified in startling ways the deep longing for God I, and all of us, have but don’t recognize it or even mask because we are afraid of such powerful desires. Working through the disciplines Barton writes about and models with a small group of seminary students, is proving to be an amazing journey.”

Dr. Ronnie Prevost, Professor of Church Ministry at HSU’s Logsdon School of Theology and Seminary is equally excited, “Spiritual growth requires more than just rote memory, ritual, and lip service. How, then can Christians find a deeper relationship with God? This is a question of increasing importance to churches and seminaries as well as individual Christians. Ruth Haley Barton is a well-respected and widely-known resource on spirituality and spiritual formation. We appreciate ACU’s partnering with Logsdon to bring her to Abilene to share with us regarding this important question.”

The public is invited to join Barton as she offers insights into how pastors can establish a rhythm that will sustain them in ministry, how a congregation can provide a safe experience of community, and thoughts on personal spiritual direction that will help all to uncover God’s intimate working in their lives.

Posted by Dave Coffield · February 20, 2007 11:03 AM · Comments (0)

Dr. Doyle and Inez Kelley, benefactors of the Kelley College of Business at HSU, have entrusted Hardin-Simmons University with the gift of a rare and valuable manuscript; the product of a South Arabian Jewish Scriptorium in the late 17th or early 18th century.

The manuscript, an ancient Sefer Torah scroll, contains over 200 columns comprising the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses, which appear as the first five books of the Christian Old Testament and the Jewish Bible. Scribed in Hebrew, on very highly finished white cow skin vellum panels, the scroll is exceptionally tall, at approximately 27 inches.

Dr. Kelley presents the Torah to HSU President, Dr. Craig Turner

Lee Biondi, rare documents dealer and appraisal expert, places the scroll as likely coming from Yemen, formerly the Biblical region of Sheba, in the southern area of the Arabian Peninsula.

According to Biondi, “The Jews there are known for their excellent scriptoriums, whose scribes have preserved the ancient sacred Scriptures from as far back as the early days of the First Temple period.” The Jews of Yemen have inhabited that country continuously from the Babylonian Captivity, and Biondi asserts, “They are qualified to be acclaimed as keepers of the Sacred Scriptures. An uninterrupted history of Scriptural scribing can be dated there through documentary evidence back to the 4th Century BC.”

Mr. Biondi is was the manager of Heritage Book Shop, Inc. of Los Angeles, California; the largest and most successful antiquarian book shop in the history of the United States, from 1990 to 2001. He has been a private dealer since 2001. Widely interviewed and highly sought after as an independent expert in the history of Biblical manuscripts, his paperback history of the Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls to the Bible in America has sold over 37,000 copies. He has appraised six and seven-figure collections for such institutions as Cornell University, Princeton University, Columbia University, Boston University, and the Rothschild Family Trust.

Biondi believes this example of the Sefer Torah to be extraordinary, “Sefer Torah Scrolls of this vintage and quality are excessively rare in private hands and even in major institutions. I have appraised at least 40 ancient to relatively modern Sefer Torah’s from virtually all parts of Asia, Europe, and the Middle East over the last ten years, and assert that this is one of the finest I have handled.” Although he places its fair-market value in the six-figures, many believe the document to be priceless.

The Torah scroll

Dr. Robert Ellis, Associate Dean & Phillips Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at
Logsdon Seminary says, “The only experience most Logsdon students have had of the
written scripture is in the form of a book or some electronic format. But the scripture was first recorded on scrolls, not in codices. In biblical classes we have the great opportunity of stretching students’ understanding of the remarkable history of the Bible. We encourage students to imagine the complex and fascinating process through which words spoken and written thousands of years ago have arrived in our hands as Holy Scripture."

"In my classes in Old Testament and Biblical Hebrew, we talk about ancient forms of writing on papyrus and parchment scrolls, and how the process of recording words in antiquity has helped shape the content and nature of the Bibles we read today. Our students look at photographs of antique scrolls and try to imagine their nature. Now, with this ancient Sefer Torah Scroll on campus, thanks to the remarkable generosity of Dr. Doyle Kelley, students will actually be able to see and explore the content of a 300 year old Torah scroll. Hebrew students will be able to read the words of scripture from an antique scroll, hand-written in a tradition that is thousands of years old. This Torah will certainly make the history of the Bible come alive for our students in a tangible way. Seeing, and especially reading, the scroll is a humbling experience, as it impresses on you again the great miracle of God, who has inspired and preserved the scripture through the millennia.”

Dr. Doyle and Inez Kelley are alumni of Hardin-Simmons University and met while attending the University. Dr. Kelley is a past chairman of the Board of trustees, a 1998 recipient of the John J. Keeter Alumni Service Award (the highest alumni award HSU can bestow), and received the Honorary Doctor of Laws from HSU in 2000. Inez was a member of the HSU Cowgirls as a student and currently serves on the Board of Trustees. The scroll, given out of love for the University, will eventually be on permanent display in the Betty Woods Fine and Rare Books Room of the Richardson Library. A permanent, climatically controlled, display case is currently being built specifically for this document with an anticipated construction time of 90 days.

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Posted by Dave Coffield · February 7, 2007 9:56 AM · Comments (0)

The 14th, and current, Poet Laureate of the United States, Donald Hall visits the Hardin-Simmons University campus as the featured author in the Lawrence Clayton Poets and Writers Speaker Series 19 Feb in the Johnson Building multipurpose room. Hall will hold an informal question and answer session at 4:00 p.m., followed at 8:00 p.m. by readings from his works, a reception, and book signing.

Donald Hall

The Lawrence Clayton Poets and Writers Speaker Series was established in honor of former HSU faculty member Dr. Lawrence Clayton, whose passion was the folklore, folk-life, and literature of the American West and Southwest.

The Library of Congress, which selects the laureate, deliberately avoids attaching specific duties to the post so that the poet can do his or her own writing. But in recent years, holders of the title have used the platform to enlarge the presence of poetry in the culture. Mr. Hall said that he would like to follow in the tradition of predecessors who have tried to expand poetry's reach.

Dana Gioia, himself a poet and chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, characterized Hall’s selection as “long-overdue recognition for one of America’s greatest and most-admired men of letters."

Hall was born in Connecticut in 1928. He was educated at Harvard, Oxford and Stanford universities and taught at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. For the past 30 years he has lived on an old family farm in rural New Hampshire, in the house where his grandmother and his mother were born. He has two children and five grandchildren.

Hall has published 15 books of poetry, beginning with “Exiles and Marriages” in 1955. Earlier this year, he brought out “White Apples and the Taste of Stone” (Houghton Mifflin), a selection of poems 1946-2006. In 2005 he published “The Best Day The Worst Day,” a memoir of his marriage to the poet Jane Kenyon, who died in 1995. Among his children’s books, “Ox-Cart Man” won the Caldecott Medal. Among his many books of prose are his essays on poetry, “Breakfast Served Any Time All Day” (2003).
For his poems he has received the Lenore Marshall/Nation Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the Ruth Lilly Prize for Poetry. He has also received two fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation. He is a member of the Academy of Arts and Letters.

Funding for Donald Hall’s appearance has been generously provided by Mr. James M.
Parker in memory of his wife Cynthia Ann Parker. Hall’s books may be purchased from the Hardin-Simmons University Bookstore, at the question & answer session, and the poetry reading. For further information, contact Dr. Robert A. Fink (325) 670-1214, Hardin-Simmons University Department of Literature and Languages.

Posted by Dave Coffield · February 2, 2007 9:29 AM · Comments (0)

There were so many responses to Mini Me's attack, that I want to give you an update.

Mini Me is fine. He sustained a number of deep puncture wounds and was so sore he wouldn't move without coaxing for several days. One publication reported that he wasn't taken to a veterinarian, and we don't want you to think his wounds weren't serious or that he didn't receive treatment. Debbie Jones, Six White Horses program director, was in close contact with the veterinarian she uses throughout the week following the attack. The puncture wounds did not require stitching, but the veterinarian recommended that Debbie administer a tetanus vaccination and 2 penicillin shots each day for a week. As with ranchers and farmers who care for livestock, a veterinarian's skills were not required to administer the antibiotics. The penicillin worked, the wounds healed, and the little guy is back to normal.

Although the city did not designate the attacking dog a "dangerous dog," the animal control office did give the owner until Jan 11 to find another location for the dog. The owner, apparently a temporary occupant of the house, moved to another location near Treadaway Blvd. Residents in that area will not be notified that a dog, with a history of aggressive behavior, has moved into the area. Apparently, according to animal control officers, the dog's owner is still a frequent visitor to the original home, and often brings the dog during visits.

Mini Me's troubles appear to be over for now.

Posted by Dave Coffield · February 1, 2007 10:12 AM · Comments (0)