SGA Fall 2014 Chautauqua Series

The Somerset Community College Student Government Association,
in collaboration with the Kentucky Humanities Council,
present the SCC SGA Fall 2014 Chautauqua Series.

All performances are free and open to the public.

Please make plans to attend!

L. Henry Dowell as:

HARLAND “COLONEL” SANDERS
“More than Fried Chicken”
Although he is most well-known for the eleven herbs and spices that made Kentucky Fried Chicken famous world-wide, Harland "Colonel" Sanders' life was about much more than fried chicken. The man whose face became synonymous with "finger-lickin' good" chicken used hard work and perseverance-- not to mention a little luck along the way-- to become recognized as Kentucky's most famous citizen.
Armed with only a sixth-grade education, Sanders worked a number of jobs over the years -- an army mule tender, railroad worker, tire salesman, and farmhand.
In 1930, he moved to Corbin and opened a lunchroom behind a service station that had room for six people sitting at one table. His restaurant grew rapidly , and in a short time, he was operating Sanders' Cafe, which seated 142 patrons. His customers made fried chicken the most popular item on the menu. He might have worked in that cafe for the rest of his life if it weren't for the building of interstate 75, forcing him to sell his place at auction.
Sanders was now in his mid-sixties, an age when most people take the opportunity to retire. He decided to go out on the road, traveling the country showing restaurants how to make Colonel Sanders' Kentucky Fried Chicken. By 1963, there were more than 600 outlets selling his chicken.

Somerset Campus
September 25, 2014
11:00 AM

L. Henry Dowell as:

DR. EPHRAIM MC DOWELL
“Frontier Surgeon”

On Christmas Day 1809, a thousand miles away from the nearest hospital and thirty-five years before the discovery of anesthesia, Dr. Ephraim McDowell removed a 22-pound ovarian tumor from the abdomen of a 46-year-old woman. It was the world’s first ovariotomy, and it eventually brought McDowell worldwide acclaim as the Father of Abdominal Surgery. The patient, Jane Todd Crawford, had ridden three days on horseback to reach McDowell’s home in Danville, Kentucky, to have the operation. The medical authorities of the day were convinced that opening the abdomen meant certain death, so McDowell was far from sure that the surgery would succeed. He told Crawford he would proceed only if she “thought herself prepared to die.” She said she was ready, but they needn’t have worried. Mrs. Crawford came through with flying colors and in less than a month was on the way home to Green County.

She lived another 32 years. Dr. McDowell’s boldness had saved Crawford’s life and paved the way for surgeries that have since saved untold numbers of lives.

Laurel Campus
October 14, 2014
1:00 PM

Clinton Center
October 21, 2014
1:00 PM

Jim Sayre as:

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
“I, too, am a Kentuckian”

Born on a farm in what is now Larue County, Kentucky, Abraham Lincoln spent his early years in the Commonwealth. His family moved to Indiana when he was seven, partly because of his father’s opposition to slavery, and never returned. But as his native brilliance and burning political ambition carried him to the presidency and greatness—a panel of historians recently chose him as the most influential American who ever lived—Lincoln always had connections with his native state.

In his law office in Springfield, Illinois, he had a law partner from Green County, Kentucky—William Herndon, who later wrote a biography of Lincoln. His best friend in Springfield was Joshua Speed, a son of Louisville’s prominent Speed family; and in Springfield he found a wife from Kentucky—Mary Todd, the daughter of a well-known Lexington family. Lincoln visited Kentucky to see the Speeds and his in-laws, and took the great Kentucky statesman Henry Clay as his political hero. During the Civil War Lincoln was very unpopular in Kentucky, but when he said, “I too am a Kentuckian,” no one could dispute it.

McCreary Center
October 15, 2014
11:00 AM

Robert Brock as:

Mark Twain
“American Icon”

Mark Twain, born Samuel Clemens, was a powerful observer of human nature. Born November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri, Twain penned several novels including two major classics of American literature, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He was also a riverboat pilot, humorist, lecturer, journalist, publisher and inventor. His mother, Jane Lampton, was born in Adair County, Kentucky, where she met Clemens' father, who was clerking at a law office in Columbia, Kentucky. They married and lived two years in Columbia before moving to Tennessee and then on to Missouri.

Through his characters and stories, Twain single-handedly put American literature on the map. Ernest Hemingway was quoted as saying, "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since." Mark Twain lived many lifetimes in one, traveled much and entertained multitudes with his particular sense of humor. But that humor was borne on the back of great sorrow and many personal tragedies. He was irreverent, irascible, and had a razor-sharp wit. He is an American icon.

McCreary Center
October 15, 2014
1:00 PM

Russell Center
October 20, 2014
1:00 PM

David Hurt as:

Grandpa Jones
“Country Musician and Comic”

Louis Marshall Jones, better known as Grandpa, was the son of Henderson County sharecroppers. Hard times drove the family north to Akron, Ohio in the late 1920s. Jones, who had a repertoire of songs learned from his parents and the radio, won a talent contest that led to regular work on an Akron radio station. That launched a career that lasted more than sixty years. It was during tours with country music star (and fellow Kentuckian) Bradley Kincaid in the 1930s that Jones developed the Grandpa persona he used the rest of his life.

Jones wrote many of his most popular songs. Like many old-time musicians, he struggled during the rock-and-roll craze of the 1950s—he toured Canada and tried his hand at early television. Beginning in 1969, television brought Jones fame as a member of the original cast of "Hee Haw," which showcased his skills as a vaudeville comic. Grandpa Jones was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1978. He never retired, suffering a fatal stroke after a performance at the Grand Ole Opry in 1998.

Casey Center
October 23, 2014
6:00 PM