On
behalf of our sponsors and the many volunteers who help make the 11th
annual Scissortail Festival possible, I welcome you to East Central University
and to Ada, Oklahoma. This year we welcome 18 new voices to the program. One of
my great delights is to see writers from across the country meet each other and
become friends, fellow voices continuing the call for common sense and
courageous virtue through the media of fiction and poetry. We also will award 8
collegiate writers from Texas and Oklahoma at the after party on Friday night.
Hope you can attend. As usual, on Saturday we will award 26 high school
students from over 600 entries from across the state. We salute all the
teachers who make this happen!
Some things are changing at ECU. Two
of the most enthusiastic supporters of the Scissortail Festival are moving on
to other places. Phyllis Danley, Executive Director of the ECU Foundation, and
Dr. Mark Hollingsworth, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social
Sciences, are leaving ECU. All of us associated with the Department of English
and the festival offer a great big thank you to both of you for your wonderful
support of the festival! You both will be missed.
There is much trouble in our world
today. You hear, as I do, about the bombing in Belgium. And we hear about the
subtle, and not-so-subtle attacks on our public school systems across the
nation, the aggressive assault on general education, budget cutbacks and other
misgivings about our relationship with each other in our democracy. Now, more
than ever, I think we need the voices of artists reminding us to be, first of
all, human, first of all, humane. I look forward to meeting each of you,
hearing your presentations. I hope the artists and all the visitors have a
truly fulfilling experience these three days.
I leave you with the lovely,
haunting words of Jonas Zdanys, part of his poem “The White Bend of the River”
from his book The Thin Light of Winter:
Time
drifts past.
Only
stones desire nothing.
The
air is filled
with
the sound of birds
murmuring
of love
And
despair.
See
you soon!
Ken
Hada
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