The Harbinger
December 19, 2005
Hiram to host teleplay author & world premiere movie event
On Wednesday, January 18, 2006, Hiram College will play host to the
world premiere of the Hallmark Hall of Fame television movie “The Water
Is Wide.” The teleplay was written by Hiram College alumnus Jonathan
Estrin ’69 and adapted from the Pat Conroy novel of the same title.
In
addition to the premiere showing of the film, Estrin will spend January
18 and 19 with the Hiram College community, participating in classes
and discussing his experiences as a producer and writer in Hollywood.
Mr. Estrin is the executive vice president of the American Film
Institute. He wrote and served as executive producer of the 2003 film
for television, “Jasper, Texas.” His other work for television includes
co-head writer for the series “Port Charles” and author of the
teleplays for the miniseries “Jewels” and the television movie
“Remember.” Estrin was the supervising producer of the series “Cagney
& Lacey” and executive producer of “Amazing Grace.”
“The Water Is Wide” is an autobiographical story that relates
Conroy’s experience as a teacher in 1969 on an island located off the
coast of South Carolina. The island residents were predominantly black
and illiterate, and Conroy was an unconventional, but enthusiastic,
young schoolteacher. After a year on the island, Conroy was fired, in
part for his unwillingness to allow corporal punishment in the
classroom. Published in 1972, the book won a humanitarian award from
the National Educational Association.
The Hiram premiere of “The Water Is Wide” will take place at 7:30
p.m. on January 18 in Hayden Auditorium. The world premiere broadcast
of the film will be Sunday, January 29, 2006 on CBS.
Rootstown researchers find Hiram is the answer
Sophomore Alisha Smith had come to Hiram College, along with about 90 of her Rootstown High School biology classmates, for just such a moment of discovery.
In a Gerstacker Science Hall computer lab, where Brad Goodner, a Hiram College associate professor of biology usually teaches bioinformatics to Hiram undergraduates, Smith had matched an unidentified strand of DNA with one on the National Center for Biotechnology Information website.Countless medical and biological researchers around the world use the site, seeking answers to help them in their research and inputting the results of their research to share their knowledge with others.
“You are,” Goodner told the students, “now linked with the rest of the world.”
With just a keystroke, Smith had moved from her match to a review of a research project involving her strand of DNA.
“They put this stuff into a Chinese hamster clone,” she said.
Smith frowned. She has been a 4-H Club member for nine years. She raises and cares for pygmy goats. She loves animals.
“I want to be a veterinarian,” she said. “I even give my goats their shots. Do veterinarians use these skills?”
When someone told her they did, Smith smiled.
“I’m excited,” she said.
For
three days last week, it was like this in Gerstacker, where Goodner
introduced high school students to bioinformatics that they could use
to identify the mutant Azotobacter cells similar to those they had
grown at their high school and then isolated in a Colton Hall lab, with
the help of Teaching Research Associates Cathy Wheeler and Willa
Schrlau.As part of the Hiram Genomics Initiative, high school students at Rootstown, Twinsburg, Cleveland Benedictine, and The Andrews School in Willoughby, help members of the Hiram biology department and their students and scientists at the Monsanto Company, Seattle Pacific University, and Virginia Tech University construct a map of reference points in the form of genetic mutations and DNA restriction cut sites.
“They did an outstanding job,” Goodner said, pointing out that, usually, only graduate students have such opportunities.
Pike takes her act on the road
Damaris Peters Pike, Hiram College Professor Emerita of Music, is taking her “Women of Note” performance on the road this winter.
Between January 5 and February 13, she will give 13 performances on the west coast of Florida. She will appear in Naples, Bonita Springs, Fort Myers, Sanibel, Captiva, and Sarasota.
Pike will perform five different one-woman shows during her southern swing:
• “Alias George Sand – Mistress of Chopin”
• “Irving Berlin: A Daughter Remembers”
• “Gertrude Lawrence: A Star Danced”
• “Thanks for the Memories: A Visit with Dolores Hope”
• “Frankie Gershwin: We Let George Do It!”
In previous Florida trips, Pike reports meeting people with Hiram connections at most of her appearances.
Peggy Beebe never had a rescue like this
Hiram College junior Peggy Beebe has rescued injured people from the water dozens of times, but Nanette Reilly was different.
Reilly has remained in Beebe’s life as no other rescued person has.
Beebe, a Californian who is majoring in environmental studies with an emphasis on photography, spent the Sunday
of Labor Day weekend at Miller Park beach in Avon Lake. She hadn’t
wanted to go, but her father, who was visiting from California,
insisted.“I guess it’s a good thing I went,” Beebe said.
In part because of Beebe’s presence and her response, Reilly has a 2006 to which she can look forward with husband Steve and their young daughter, Laura.
Diana Keough wrote of that Sunday in the cover story of the October 23 issue of The Plain Dealer Sunday Magazine. The story, titled “Fragility of Life,” can be found at: http://www.cleveland.com/sundaymag/features/index.ssf?/base/
sunday_mag/1129973847144530.xml&coll=2.
After another power ski struck the one she had been riding with Laura, Nan Reilly found herself in the water, bloody and moaning. Peggy and her sister, Lisa, who also was visiting from California, were riding power skis. Peggy immediately swam to where Steve Reilly was treading water, trying to aid his wife.
“I’m a lifeguard,” Beebe told Steve Reilly and a man in a boat who was moving in to help. “I know what to do.”
Beebe had just completed her fourth summer as a lifeguard at Newport Beach in California, where she is one of 15 women in a lifeguard division of 200.
Beebe told Reilly not to try to lift his wife onto the boat.
“What I was trying to do is what we do when we don’t know what has happened,” Beebe said. “I was trying to protect her spine, to stabilize her.”
Beebe got a knee board from the boat, placed it under Nan Reilly and began helping her husband propel her toward the beach.
“I was just doing what I normally do,” Beebe said, “what I’m trained to do.”
Paramedics, summoned by a 9-1-1 call made from the boat, arrived as Nan was being removed from the water. She had lost consciousness. Paramedics could not find a pulse. After 90 seconds of CPR, Nan was breathing again.
Catch the Terriers on the air
Home basketball games for both Hiram College teams are broadcast live online for fans who cannot attend the contests.
David Doney, the voice of the Terriers on the Hiram Sports Network, provides a play-by-play broadcast of each game, plus interviews with head coaches, players, and other College dignitaries in the pregame and halftime shows.
The broadcast can be accessed online at the Listen Online page on the athletics website - http://www.hiram.edu/athletics/listen.html - and requires Windows Media Player, which can be downloaded free from the Listen Online page.
The Price was packed!
Chad
Williams held the lucky ticket last Saturday at the Pack the Price
athletic event. Chad had a chance to win a semester of free tuition by
successfully making five consecutive baskets from behind the 3-point
line. Being a Hiram College soccer player, Chad could have successfully
kicked all five shots, but doing so was against the rules. Chad made a
fine effort, however, but will be paying his spring tuition from other
means.The limbo contest winner was Jamica Johnson, a freshman at Hiram. She won dinner for two at Dougan’s Restaurant in Aurora as well as movie passes for the Aurora Marquee Cinema.
Cassady Pelphrey, a seven-year-old girl from Garrettsville,
successfully competed against two other community youths by throwing a
paper wad into the front seat of a battery operated 4 x 4 toy
car. Cassady celebrated triumphantly by climbing in the car and
driving it off the center court of Price Gym. To make the day even more complete, the Hiram women’s and men’s basketball teams won their games. Congratulations to all our winners! See the Athletic Department Sports Link for more details at:
http://www.hiram.edu/athletics/packprice.html
Goodner explains the Nobel
Brad Goodner lectured in Gerstacker last Monday regarding this
year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. His address was titled:
“A Prize for Pure Guts, Literally.”Goodner explained for years physicians have believed that stomach ulcers resulted from too much acid which damaged the stomach lining. Discovering that stomach ulcers are really caused from bacteria known as Hp (H. pylori infection) is the basis for this year’s Nobel Prize.
The question perplexing many scientists was how the Hp bacteria can survive in stomach acid? Discovering that Hp has an electropositive potential enabling it to develop an active buffering against stomach acid explained the mystery. Now, if you have duodenal ulcers, your physician will most like prescribe an antibiotic to kill the invading bacteria instead of an antacid.
The Harbinger will be on a hiatus
Because of the holidays, the next issue of the Harbinger will be on January 9, 2006.
Please send correction for this issue to Roger Cram at: cramrf@hiram.edu.
Please send suggestions for future articles to Steve Love at: lovesh@hiram.edu
For Terrier Athletics updates
Visit http://www.hiram.edu/athletics. To read the weekly This Week in Sports email newsletter, visit http://www.hiram.edu/athletics/thisweek.html.