REGIONAL CONFERENCE

FALL 2005 Conference News

CONFERENCE CANCELLED DUE TO THE RECENT HURRICANE KATRINA!

Hello all,

I hope that this message finds each of you safe and well, considering the recent Hurricane Katrina disaster. You will be pleased to know that Deb Lillie is well and still making arrangements for our conference.

The conference hotel is booked indefinitely with evacuees, and air travel through the New Orleans airport would prove near impossible. For those of you who have already booked a room at the hotel, I ask that you call to cancel your reservation (1.800.952.2968) to ensure that evacuees are not displaced.

Deb would still like to host the exhibition; however, some FedEx and UPS deliveries to Thibodaux have been delayed or frozen. So, it is recommended that you ship your work via USPS. Deb has asked that you provide return shipping information when you send your work, and be sure to state whether and for how much it needs to be insured. The gallery will pay for the return shipment at the conclusion of the show. You may contact Deb for more details or to make alternative shipping arrangements.

In response to the Hurricane Relief efforts, Deb has suggested that we host a print auction at the St. Louis conference in which all the proceeds benefit hurricane victims. I find this to be a very appropriate and much needed event. And, I gladly welcome any suggestions that you may have for how to handle it.

Additionally, we still would like to offer students the opportunity to apply for travel scholarships in order to attend the St. Louis conference. The deadline will be postponed to Thursday, September 22, 2005. As originally requested, please include a letter of application, a letter of recommendation, and proof of student status. You may refer to the regional newsletter for more details.

However, I would like to thank Patrick Renschen (conference co-chair) of the Midwest Region for graciously extending an invitation to any South Central members who would like to attend their St. Louis conference instead (October 20-23) at a discounted rate. You may visit their website: www.mwspe.org for more information.

I hope to see you in St. Louis.

Respectfully,

Amy George
Chair, South Central Region
Stephen F. Austin State University
Nacogdoches, Texas
(o) 936.468.4563
(f) 936.468.4041

Deb Lillie
SC SPE Conference Chair
(h) 985-331-9448
(o) 985-493-2500

SEE MESSAGE BELOW:

I would like to extend an invitation to you and all your members to join us in St. Louis on Oct 20-23, for the Midwest Conference. We will waive the normal conference fee and only charge your members $15 and your students $5. We had talked of the possibility of having a joint conference sometime in the future. This is not the way I had hoped it would come about. Our schedule is filling up, but we could squeeze some of your speakers in. We can also offer you a room where you could hold a membership meeting.

You can get more specifics from our web site, mwspe.org.

Take care,

Patrick Renschen
SPE Midwest Chair
Fall Conference Co-Chair

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
As for speakers, we can give you a room of your own. Not that things have to be segregated, but you can bring 10 or so speakers and have a place for the south central membership meeting.

Here's a loose time line we are using.

Thursday evening there will be a reception at a near by gallery. Friday we will have presentations each hour from 9 to 12, an hour for lunch and then presentation from 1 to 3. At 3:30 there will be a bus run to some out lying galleries, eventually end up at the Contemporary Museum, where the Keynote address will be held. The lecture will be about the exhibition "Girls Night Out"which will be on display.

The same time frame will run on Saturday, but instead of a bus run, we will hold the Honored Educator Lecture from 3-4 and have our membership meeting afterward. Jim Stone is giving a lecture that night at 7 pm.

The hotel is not huge, but should have room for most of us. The $109.00 is an SPE rate. There are other hotels downtown, most within a 15 to 20 minute walk. For people flying in, they can take the Metro from the airport downtown to the 8th and Pine stop. The hotel is just 2
block from there.