Carswell's Coker Singers Delight Audience

An upbeat program of Church music brought concert goers to their feet at the First Baptist Church in Hartsville on Sunday evening as the Coker Singers and the Coker Chamber Singers demonstrated their musical excellence.

This was a busy weekend for the Coker vocal musicians as they had two or three performances -- highlighting Earth Day (Chamber Singers) at Kalmia Gardens on Saturday and then the annual Spring Concert (both groups)on Sunday.

The First Baptist Sanctuary was a perfect setting for this concert and the students did an superior job demonstrating the amazing effect of combining hard work with talent. Dr. Will Carswell, who directs the Singers and Chamber Singers, again constructed a challenging, delightful concert. Can you tell, I really enjoy listening to these singers perform.

Alumns were visiting and celebrating at Coker College

Colleges of every size value their alumni because it is within the alumns that the traditions of the college are most fondly remembered. It is also the alumns who prove daily, yearly and over long careers the success of the college mission. On Saturday, April 10, several alumni classes had anniversaries of ten, twenty, thirty, forty and more years. Those with whom I talked as they left one of the programs in the Performing Arts Center were remembering lots of their favorite times and people from those formative college years.

And, on the other side of the campus there were male alumns from different generations who were here for what appeared to be an intense soccer match with the current Coker players.

Day in the life at Coker College

Presentations began today in the Communication Senior Seminar and Kimberly chose the first day.

The softball team played its last home game at Coker; the final home game for senior players.

The Language, Literature and Communication Honor Societies had their induction dinner and here Dr. Cuppett is with a few members of that society.

The Poetry Slam was a hit event in the Cobra Den. And that doesn't count so many other happenings like Emily's Senior Show in the Coker Art Gallery, the persuasive speeches in Com 101, the Outdoor Education trip to Myrtle Beach. And, it is the end of the semester and there is still LOTS of work to be accomplished.

Lamda Pi Eta Induction

The Language, Literature and Communication Department had the annual Honor Society Inductions on April 6, 2010 with a great dinner from ARAMark at Coker's Drengalen House.

The Communication Honor Society at Coker is Lamda Pi Eta and the requirements for getting in a pretty stiff. The members of the Honor Society at tonight's dinner included: Rachel Croyle, who was inducted last year, Adam Johnson, Bridgette Mulligan, Caitlin Allen and Jessica Welch, who were inducted this year. Dr. Lellis is the Faculty Sponsor of the Lambda Pi Eta Honor Society. Bridgette is not in this photo.

Advanced public speakers thinking SUN

We are working on persuasion as the goal for most of the speeches in Advanced Public Speaking this semester. Today we had a little convergence of topics -- maybe because the speakers knew the temperatures today would be the mid-90s and people would have their minds on the sun.

So, one of the speakers persuades the audience to forget about the sun totally -- it causes really bad cancer. He is followed a speaker or two later by the message that you really have to live life on the edge and among the things you might do to create memories would be a fun skinny dip and then maybe later laying out in the sun without the benefit of sunscreen. Two lifetime memories she said.

A third speaker urged that every one take full advantage of the sun but be sure you wear sunscreen -- not tanning lotion.

Seemed like it would be appropriate to mention that as I see some facebook messages from people who a) either spent too much time in today's sun; or b) ignored the advice about the sunscreen.

Golf Team wins Tournament

Coach Tommy Baker and his Cobra golf team won the Carolinas Sandhill Tourney at the University of North Carolina Pembroke for the third straight year this past weekend. One of the golfers, Jared Crane, is a communication major, so I like to keep up with how they are doing. This is the first tournament win this Spring and my guess is that it is putting the golfers into a golf frame of mind for the conference that will be coming up April 18-20.

Coker's Repetory Dance Company travels to Charleston

Thursday there was a bit more activity near my office that is normal at 7:05 in the morning. Six to eight dancers came through the doors apparently full of energy and excitement (unusual for that time of day for any students). The company was headed to Charleston to work with students at the Charleston School of the Arts. Erin Leigh, the professor who works with the Repertory Dance Company, said this was a way for the dancers to begin to get experience similar to that enjoyed by professional dance companies. The dancers performed a full program of guest artist and student pieces and they also designed and taught master classes for the dance students at the Charleston School. In describing the event, Professor Leign said, "This experience is modeled after the community outreach work that most professional dance companies do. It also provides students at CSOA an opportunity to see what our program offers and the type of work our undergraduates do." This was a great example of students getting real-world experience while contributing to the good of community and also getting in some recruiting for Coker.

I happened to be in my office as the Company returned about 5 p.m. The dancers must have worked hard. All the energy of early morning had disappeared. They obviously had put in a full day of work that drained all that early-in-the-day energy.

I was hoping to have a photo with this post but I have not yet figured how to transfer a phone photo to my computer.

The dance students who went to Charleston on April 1 included:
Eimile Davis, Qaadir Hicks, Devin Jennings, Amy Nelson, Kaitlin Owens,Tabitha Quick and Meagan Stone