Are you ready for some football?

Are you rooting for the Colts this season? Or are you a fan of the Bears, Packers, Lions, Browns, Bengals, or another team entirely? Or maybe you are a college or high-school fan to the core. Whatever team you are cheering for, football season will quickly be in full swing, with the Colts’ first regular season game Sept. 13 against Jacksonville at home.

Before all of the action begins, we took a look at what types of resources were available in the Resource Connection. The 26 resources include a photo essay about Black Hoosiers’ Sports Heritage from the Indiana Humanities Council; a tribute to Cam Cameron, former football coach at Indiana University, from the Wabash Valley Visions and Voices; and a lesson plan from the Bill of Rights Institute about the legal rights involved in being searched and patted-down upon entering NFL games.

Remember, Sept. 13 is just around the corner. Check it out for yourself so you can wow your friends with some football trivia, and don’t forget to get the grill all cleaned up–-Are you ready for some football?

Elvis, the King, and Michael, Prince of Pop, had much in common

By Molly Armstrong Head

Coming up on Hoosier History Live! this Saturday is a reprise of our “Elvis at Market Square Remembered”  show, with eyewitnesses Zach Dunkin and Rita Rose, then reporters for the old Indianapolis News and Indianapolis Star, respectively.  Zach had given the King’s concert at Market Square Arena a devastating review, and continued, for some time, to receive hate mail for “having killed Elvis Presley!”

I reflected on the Elvis show when Michael Jackson died this summer at the age of 50.  Elvis was dead at  44.  On the Elvis show I had learned that Elvis had been surrounded by “yes men” who were not necessarily of a mind to confront the star about his alcohol and drug abuse and other excesses.  I mean,  who could pull off an “intervention” on a super star, whether it’s Elvis or Michael?!  There is some similarity in the ultimate demise of both of these men which is very sad.  Certainly,  being a super star is not always a bed of roses!

The Hoosier History Live! Elvis show will air Sat., Aug. 29, at 11:30 a.m. and  Wed., Sept. 2, at 9:30 a.m. on  WICR 88.7 fm.  Or you can listen online by clicking WICR.

Conner Prairie’s Spirit of the Prairie Award: Honoring America’s Innovators

By Ellen M. Rosenthal, President and CEO of Conner Prairie

As the President & CEO of Indiana’s only Smithsonian affiliate, Conner Prairie, I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to honor some extraordinary American trailblazers at this year’s Spirit of the Prairie awards dinner, September 12.

The annual Spirit of the Prairie dinner is Conner Prairie’s opportunity to recognize those who have created a distinctly American story with their vision, passion, dedication and courage. The honorees exemplify the spirit of endeavor that created the rich and ever changing tapestry of the United States.

Through the years Conner Prairie has given the Spirit of the Prairie Award to remarkable Hoosiers, talented, accomplished people with foresight, brilliance and perseverance. I’ve always loved the awards dinner, but I’ve never been as excited as I am this year.

Hoosier Heritage honorees include international opera star and Indianapolis native Angela Brown; Emmy-nominated journalist Janet Langhart Cohen; preservationist, philanthropist and Indiana native Richard E. Ford; and U.S. Senator Richard G. Lugar.

This year Conner Prairie has created a new award reaching beyond Indiana’s borders to honor someone who has fanned widespread interest in American history. The inaugural History Innovator Award will go to Pleasant Rowland, founder of Pleasant Company now known as American Girls, to whom I have a personal connection. In 1985 I was hired as one of several consultants to advise on the development of the history based stories and dolls. Quite frankly, I never suspected that Americans would be as wildly enthusiastic about the products as they turned out to be. Pleasant introduced an entire generation of girls to stories of American life in the past 250 years. I’ve waited nearly a quarter of a century to thank Pleasant for pursuing a dream that has had positive impact on our country – and on my life. Because of Pleasant, I learned that it’s the story that matters in inspiring an interest in history. The details, the facts are essential – but only as background.

It takes countless hours of dedication, work and commitment by our staff, volunteers and board members to pull together such a momentous event. We hope that you will join us for this truly amazing celebration as we honor an astonishing group of people on September 12. The cocktail reception begins at 5:45 p.m. and dinner at 7 p.m. For additional information and reservations, please visit connerprairie.org/spirit.aspx or call 317-776-6000 before September 4.

As we begin to think about awards for 2010, we would love to hear who you would choose as an American trailblazer.

Top three reasons to check out Indy Jazz Fest

By Rich Dole, a professional freelance trombone player in the Indianapolis area, currently doing PR and Media Relations for Indy Jazz Fest and Owl Studios

This year’s Indy Jazz Fest is going to be, well, for a lack of a better term or phrase, it will be OUT OF SIGHT!! Why? Well, allow me to explain:

1. Instead of a couple of days, the 2009 Indy Jazz Fest presented by MARSH will be a full week! Starting at Clowes Hall on Sat., September 19 and ending Sat./Sun. September 26/27 at The Lawn @ White River State Park, with everything in between, the Indy Jazz Fest will have something for everybody. THAT’s 9 (NINE) DAYS of JAZZ!!!

2. The artist line-up for the 2009 Indy Jazz Fest is virtually a Who’s Who of today’s jazz artists! Check out this list:
Branford Marsalis
Marcus Miller
Poncho Sanchez
Soulive
Garaj Mahal
Charlie Hunter
Nicholas Payton
Claudia Acuna
Randy Brecker
Rufus Reid
David Baker
Rob Dixon
Derrick Gardner
Buselli-Wallarab Jazz Orchestra

There is something for everybody there! Traditional Swingin’ Jazz, Salsa/Mambo/Latin jazz, Progressive/Modern Jazz, Brazillian Jazz, Big Band Jazz, Contemporary Jazz, Funky Jazz and Jam Bands!

3. Like the wide and varied artist line-up, the sponsors the Indy Jazz Fest has is also a Who’s Who of Indianapolis Arts sponsors, including MARSH Supermarkets, Printing Partners, St. Vincent Health, Take Note, DCG, United Water and 88.7fm WICR to name a few.

All information one could ever need is available on the website: www.indyjazzfest.net, including how/when/where to buy tickets to all concerts at all venues!

What are YOUR ‘Top Three’ reasons to attendIndy Jazz Fest?

Green thumbs (and not so green) welcome at the Resource Connection

Before the warm days draw to a close, why not drop by the Resource Connection and check out all of the great gardening resources we have to offer?

Learn what gardening was like 500 years ago when Christopher Columbus arrived in America with the Seeds of Change online exhibit from the Smithsonian Institution.

Don’t have a green thumb? Why not help the kids create a Japanese Rock Garden with these resource provided by the East Asian Studies Center?

A celebration of culture

By Dorothy Paunovich
“Serb Fest” is held at St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Church in Merrillville, Ind., on the first weekend in August.

This year, an exhibit (funded in part by the Indiana Humanities Council) called “Immigrants, Serbs of Steel” told the story of hard-working immigrants who labored in the dangerous steel mills from the early 1900s to the present day. The Serbian immigrants helped build Northwest Indiana’s steel mills, industries, and towns. The exhibit can still be viewed every Sunday after church.

On Sun., Aug. 2, co-authors Stephen McShane and Gary Wilks (Steel Giants) shared  their research about the early immigrants’ contributions to northwest Indiana’s steel industries. Nick Tarailo (Bronko’s Restaurant) spoke of the stories his grandfather  shared about the early days in Gary. You can learn more by watching a video about the project, here.

Included in the exhibit was a burgundy embroidered vest that is more than 200 years old, and was buried in the ground during two wars (WWI and the Turkish war). It belonged to the great-grandmother of one of our parishioners who is 70-years-old. She said that they had to hide their identities and things of value during those times.

Every Serbian family has a fascinating story related to the events that brought them to this great country. Serb Fest is a celebration of those stories, and a homecoming for the heart. Everyone is welcome at Serb Fest–it is attended by so many non-Serbs because they love the food and music.

It has become somewhat of a homecoming for college students, relatives, and for those who are even just slightly Serbian. They can count on things that are familiar: their favorite foods and music. There’s nothing like watching several hundred young people in their teens and early 20s singing and dancing to music that came from a foreign land several generations ago. They still want to dance and sing because it really means something special to them. They all bring friends from school and their neighbors. I remember my non-Serb friends in high school being envious because we had spent the weekends at church dances, basketball tournaments, or traveled to perform with our folklore dance groups or choir. We had so much fun and had so much to talk about. If you went to a Serbian church, it didn’t mean you were in church all of the time, but AT church, where you were surrounded by all this great culture.

What are your “ethnic” memories growing up in Indiana? How do you celebrate that culture today?

What-are-you-reading-Wednesday: Three Cheers for Schoolteachers

As students are heading back to school, this is a good time to think and read about schools and schoolteachers. In the Humanities To Go collection — multiple copies of books that can be borrowed by book clubs throughout Indiana — we have three titles that depict the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of schoolteachers, over the years and in different locales.

The first one, from I.U. Press’s Library of Indiana Classics, is The Hoosier School-Master, first published in 1871. The author, Edward Eggleston, captured a lighthearted backwoods world of the late 19th century, in a setting somewhere near Madison, Indiana. This humorous tale depicted the homespun dialect and social customs of courtship and recreation while dramatizing Ralph Hartsook, the teacher, in his fight to bring civilization to a largely resistant rural population.

Another book from the Ohio River Valley, Jesse Stuart’s The Thread That Runs So True, is a memoir, published in 1949. Stuart began his teaching career at the age of 18 in Greenwood County, Kentucky. Even more isolated than its Indiana counterpart, the one-room schoolhouse where Jesse teaches has little in the way of luxuries, but it has something even better – students who want to learn. For them Jesse is willing to walk 17 miles in the December snow carrying a suitcase of borrowed books because they have already read all of his.

Set in quite a different world from the first two books is perhaps the most beloved schoolteacher novel ever, Goodbye, Mr. Chips. Written by James Hilton, this story about a schoolmaster at an English boarding school takes place over the 50-year career of the hero, spanning World War I. A true character, Arthur Chipping seems stern at first but eventually comes to be loved for his Latin jokes and his eccentricity. (And for American readers unfamiliar with the English school system, this short novel is good background for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, another title available through Humanities to Go.)

As Jesse Stuart writes in his preface, “And I am firm in my belief that a teacher lives on and on through his students….Tell me how can good teaching ever die? Good teaching is forever and the teacher is immortal.”

Food for Thought: Indiana’s Food Culture

If you stopped by our booth at the Indiana State Fair during Hoosier Heritage Day and added your hometown’s food treasures to our map of Indiana–thanks! We’ve compiled some of the data into a map of Indiana’s food culture and identified things like food festivals and agribusinesses, as well as livestock and agricultural hot spots. Take a look, here.

Then, add your feedback below. We couldn’t fit everything on the map–and for that, we apologize. But, please continue to help us out by identifying what’s missing in your neck of the woods.

The Three Great Myths in Indiana History

Here are the “Three Great Myths in Indiana history” as reported by those who wander the state talking to Hoosiers, looking for and hearing all kinds of stories for the radio show Hoosier History Live!   Some are accurate and some are not so accurate. 

1. ”My house was on the Underground Railroad.”

2. “John Dillinger robbed this building and escaped out the back window.”

3. “The meaning of the Indiana State Seal is that–  a woodsman has to get up pretty darn early in the morning to catch a buffalo in Indiana!”

This week’s show addressese one of those myth vs. reality topics: the Underground Railroad.

Oral histories, diaries, notations in family Bibles, and letters. All of those have been crucial in figuring out which historic homes, inns, taverns, and other buildings may have been stops on the Underground Railroad – and which ones probably were not, according to Indiana Freedom Trails, Inc. But exaggerations and misconceptions abound. To hear some folks tell it, almost all 19th century homes with cellars, attics or other hiding places were used in the crusade to help African-Americans escape from slave owners in the South. How do we separate myth from fact? How can you verify folklore about an old building? And did you know that one of the nation’s best-known abolitionists and women’s rights activists Sojourner Truth had connections to Indiana?

To share insights on these and other aspects of the Underground Railroad, historic researcher and genealogist Dona Stokes-Lucas of Indianapolis will join Nelson in studio. Dona, who is on the board of directors of Indiana Freedom Trails, Inc., is helping organize a national Underground Railroad Conference 2009 set for Sept. 16-19 at the Hilton Indianapolis North, 8181 N. Shadeland Ave. Indiana Freedom Trails is a diverse group that seeks to identify, verify and preserve Hoosier sites that were part of the Underground Railroad network. If you ever have wondered about – or heard folklore concerning – a historic site and its possible link to the Underground Railroad, this compelling show will be for you.

Tune in at 11:30 a.m. Sat. on WICR 88.7 fm or listen online anywhere during the live broadcast by clicking here at  WICR.

Crazy for Cats

Okay cat lovers, it’s your turn now. Last week we devoted the Resource Connection update to dogs, but this week it is all about whiskers and cat nip as we turn our attention to our feline friends.

Included in the 16 resources devoted to cats are family-friendly cat-themed activities from Buddy2; a lesson using Dr. Seuss’s Cat in the Hat; and a PBS activity guide for young children based on the PBS show “Sagwa, The Chinese Siamese Cat.”

So, whether you are a dog or a cat lover, you can find plenty of resources to discover in the Resource Connection about both! Not a fan of cats or dogs, try out a different search at resource.smartdesktop.org.