Illinois State University’s Spring Speaker Series will bring authors, a chief financial officer and a popular television host to campus.
Bob Zellner, author of the memoir, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement, will speak at 7 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 24, on the main floor of Milner Library. A book signing will follow the presentation.
Raised in southern Alabama, with a father and grandfather active in the Ku Klux Klan, Bob Zellner became an unlikely civil rights activist. Yet today, he is well known as one of the most influential white southerners of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Zellner holds a Ph.D. in history, with a focus on the southern civil rights movement. Zellner will be the subject of a Spike Lee film adaptation of his life, which will include the sometimes horrific, yet always interesting story of his commitment to racial justice.
On Tuesday, March 15, at 7 p.m., Irene Spencer will present Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist’s Wife on the main floor of Milner Library. A book signing will follow her presentation.
Spencer came from five generations of polygamy. As the second of 10 wives, she was the mother of 14 of her husband’s 58 children. Her story provides an intimate look at the daily struggles Spencer faced as a plural wife. During her 28 years in a polygamous marriage, Spencer gave birth to 13 children. As she travels the country, Spencer shares with her audiences how they can find the strength, encouragement and self-empowerment to enable them to be the best they can be, no matter the circumstances. Spencer interweaves humor throughout her testimony of her former, unconventional lifestyle.
Author Lorenzo Pace will present on Thursday, March 17, at 7 p.m. on the main floor of Milner Library, with a book signing to follow his presentation.
Pace is an international artist and author, who is well known for his award-winning African American Heritage Children’s Book, Jalani and the Lock. Pace has created and installed a national monument in New York City, Triumph of the Human Spirit, to commemorate the oldest African American burial site in the U.S. As an artist, his work transcends race internationally through installation and performance. Pace recently had a major installation at the dedication of the first Contemporary Art Museum in China, The Sunshine Museum, in Beijing, China.
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of COUNTRY Insurance Dave Magers will present Winning with Integrity – The Importance of Principles in Achieving Success on Wednesday, March 30, at 2 p.m. in Braden Auditorium at the Bone Student Center.
Magers of Bloomington has been executive vice president and chief financial officer of COUNTRY Financial since 2003. As CFO, Magers is responsible for financial reporting and controls, investments, internal auditing, planning, risk management and administration at COUNTRY and its three alliance companies: Holyoke Mutual Insurance Company, Salem, Mass.; Middlesex Mutual Assurance Company, Middletown, Conn.; and Cotton States Insurance Group.
Author Shirin Yim Bridges will present More than Pretty and Pink on Thursday, April 7, at 7 p.m. on the main floor of Milner Library. A book signing will follow the presentation.
Bridges comes from a family of writers and artists. Her first book, Ruby’s Wish, was named one of the Best Children’s Books of 2002 by Publishers Weekly and won the Ezra Jack Keats award for Best Writer in 2003. It is on several state reading lists, has been translated into six languages and is now in its ninth edition. Bridges is also the head goose at Goosebottom Books, a fledgling new press with a focus on fun non-fiction.
Goosebottom Books launched their first series, The Thinking Girl’s Treasury of Real Princesses, in October 2010. A second series, The Thinking Girl’s Treasury of Dastardly Dames, will be released in 2011. Bridges has lived in many countries around the world, including Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and England. She now lives in California.
Educator James McLurkin will present Dances with Robots: The Story of One Engineer, 112 Little Robots, and the Toys, Insects, and Star Wars Movies that Made it all Possible on Thursday, April 14 at 7 p.m. in the Bone Student Center Brown Ballroom. A book signing will follow the presentation.
McLurkin is an assistant professor at Rice University in the Department of Computer Science. His research focuses on developing distributed algorithms for multi-robot systems, which is software that produces complex group behaviors from the interactions of many simple individuals. McLurkin was the 2003 recipient of the Lemelson-MIT student prize for invention. He holds a S.B. in electrical engineering with a minor in mechanical engineering from MIT, a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and a S.M. and Ph.D. in computer science from MIT.
Completing the series will be Jeff Corwin, who will present 100 Heartbeats
on Wednesday, April 20, at 3 p.m. as a question and answer session on the main floor of Milner Library. Corwin will also present Living on the Edge, Amazing Relationships in the Natural World at 7 p.m. the same day in Braden Auditorium at the Bone Student Center. A book signing will follow the presentation.
Corwin has worked for the conservation of endangered species and ecosystems around the globe. He is the host of a variety of popular television shows, including Animal Planet’s Jeff Corwin Experience, Giant Monsters, Realm of the Yeti, Corwin’s Quest, Spring Watch USA and King of the Jungle; Disney’s Going Wild with Jeff Corwin; Investigation Earth with the Discovery Networks; NBC’s Jeff Corwin Unleashed, which was nominated four times for an Emmy and won an Emmy for Outstanding Host; and the Travel Channel’s Into Alaska and Into the American West. For the Discovery Health Channel, Corwin hosted Pets and People, the Power of the Health Connection.
