Arts & Culture Story Archives - Page 329 of 330 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Can Marshall Basketball rebound after tough 2012-2013 season?

Marshall Men's basketball began practice this week for the 2013-2014 season. After finishing last season with a 13-19 record, there were not many…

Marshall Men’s basketball began practice this week for the 2013-2014 season.

After finishing last season with a 13-19 record, there were not many positives to look forward to this season for Marshall Basketball. But the Herd is a team of newcomers mixed with just a few returnees. Counting graduations and departures Marshall only returns six players from last season and mixes them with nine newcomers. Marshall Head Coach Tom Herrion said he likes the mix of guys he has.

“I know how far we have to go, we’ve got a lot of areas that we have to become really good at and that’s going to happen over time, but I can assure you the one thing I’m confident about as I sit here is the fabric of our group. They’ve really displayed great attitude, pride and willingness,” Herrion said.

One thing that will help the Herd with its inexperience is a new NCAA rule that allows teams to start practice earlier. Marshall officially began practice last Friday, almost two weeks earlier than past seasons. The new NCAA legislation permits 30 days of practice in a 42-day period before the first game. The Herd’s first game is November 8^th against South Carolina State.

“With this new start date it’s been good for me as a coach because it’s really forces you have to a little bit better management of your practice situations. With the move up of the time you get 30 practices in roughly a 42-day window and I think it’s good because we’re really not going to go no more than three days at a time, at least for the first three or four weeks without a day off,” Herrion said.

It’s not just starting practice earlier that has the Herd encouraged though, a late summer trip to Canada to play in NCAA exempted games against Canadian Schools has given the Herd needed experience in game situations. Herrion said these added experiences and a line-up of guys with more versatility will allow them do some different things offensively and defensively.

“I think what you’ll see most is our level of extended aggressiveness, we’ve been more of a team that’s played you purely in the half-court defensively. I think you’ll see both in makes and misses defensively our ball pressure point of pick-up will be much higher,” Herrion said.

What that all means is guys like freshman point guard Kareem Canty will be applying full-court pressure to the man with the basketball. Canty sat out last year when he didn’t qualify academically. Canty said he’s looking forward to an aggressive playing style.

“We get to run and jump, we get to run and go, if we can get a stop easy, we can get easy dunks and layups, easy baskets will help us offensively,” Canty said.

Senior forward Elijah Pittman is the leading returning scorer for the Herd at 16 points a game. He echoed coach Herrion’s sentiment, saying versatility will be the key for the Herd.

“There is going to be certain games where we need four guards on the floor, there’s going to be certain games where we need three bigs on the floor and some people are going to have to play positions there not use to, but there is a lot of people on this team that can do that,” Pittman said.

Pittman said with schools like perennial Conference USA power Memphis leaving the conference, it’s time for the Herd to step up.

“When someone leaves the kings chair or the throne they have to pass it down to somebody and I feel like we need to be the team that they pass it down too, we need to be that big time school,” Pittman said.

Pittman and the Herd tip off exhibition play October 28^th at home against Concord at 7 p.m.

Civil Rights Activist visits Marshall as part of Constitution Week

Civil Rights Activist Joan C. Browning visited Marshall this week as part of constitution week. The Freedom Rider told her story on the 50th anniversary…

Civil Rights Activist Joan C. Browning visited Marshall this week as part of constitution week. The Freedom Rider told her story on the 50th anniversary of the rides.

Joan C. Browning was a Freedom Rider. The Riders were a group of men and women who boarded buses and trains headed for the Deep South in 1961 to test the 1960 Supreme Court ruling outlawing segregation in interstate public facilities. What makes Browning’s perspective different though is that she’s Caucasian.

“I just felt lucky to see what was going to happen and to be able to choose a role for me in it and to be able to be in a group with people that I knew would support me. I felt very lucky, I really felt like I was in the right place doing the right thing and whatever happened then or later, for one time in my life I did the right thing,” Browning said.

Browning was at Marshall University this week as part of Constitution Week. While on campus she spoke to classes about what her experiences were like.

“I was one of the few white people that was involved in the black freedom struggle in the south in the early 1960’s and the sit-in movement and I was a Freedom Rider and picketed and things of that nature. I’m sort of that oddity that you don’t expect when you read about the civil rights movement,” Browning said.

And she gave two lectures, one on civic responsibility and the other on the relationship between the constitution and civil rights.

Browning joined the Freedom Riders after attending an all-black Methodist Church in Milledgeville, Georgia. As a result of her church attendance, she was thrown out of Georgia State College for Women. In June of 1961, she moved to Atlanta where she discovered the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee that would later organize the Freedom Rides. Browning says it excites her when she sees young people following standing up for things they believe in.

“When the occupy movement first started I was very excited, I thought it was possibly the beginning of a mass resurgence of young people and empower people to take to the streets literally. I’m at the point now where I can’t march very long, but I can be in the back cheering people on and doing whatever I can to encourage it and that’s one reason I talk to young people is to try to encourage them,” Browning said.

Browning volunteered with SNCC on projects in Georgia and Alabama, worked in human relations and anti-poverty programs throughout the sixties and was an organizer of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives.

In the end, Browning said she still speaks to classes and groups because she wants people to know no matter their situation they still have power.

“I want them to know that young people have power, poor people have power, old people have power, and you know the great panthers came out of the model of the freedom rides. I want people to feel like this is your world and you have a chance and a right to make it the way you want it to and find other people and don’t give up, don’t give in,” Browning said.

Browning now lives in Greenbrier County and has a degree from West Virginia State University.

Former W.Va. reporter sparks national interest in 'The Butler'

In most cases, a novel or biography inspires a film. But for journalist and author Wil Haygood, the sequence has been dramatically different. A November 7^th, 2008 article by Haygood in The Washington Post inspired the Lee Daniels film The Butler and then Haygood went back to write the book, The Butler: A Witness to History.

Growing up in Columbus, Ohio and graduating from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, Haygood took his first job in journalism as a copy editor at The Charleston Gazette. It was while here in West Virginia where Haygood began focusing on arts and human interest stories. Eventually, he went on to jobs in larger markets like Pittsburgh and Boston before winding up in the nation’s capitol at The Washington Post.

While on the presidential campaign trail in 2008 following then-U.S. Senator Barack Obama, Haygood turned his attention to other timely and culturally relevant topics.

“I wanted to find somebody—an African American—who had worked in the White House during the era of segregation because I thought that story, juxtaposed against the story of the first African-American president in the country, would be a pretty powerful story,” he said.

So Haygood launched a nation-wide search to find a subject that could illuminate the historical gravity of what he saw as Obama’s impending victory.

“I was essentially looking for a ghost, because I didn’t have a name. Eventually somebody in Florida mentioned the name of Eugene Allen and told me he lived in the Washington D.C.-Maryland region and I tracked him down,” said Haygood.

Unraveling the story of the now famous butler took a special level of care Haygood had rarely—if ever—experienced before.

“My grandparents raised me, so I lived in their house as a kid and knew the value of being patient. Mr. and Mrs. Allen were elderly people by the time I reached them, so I kind of had a sense that it might not be the best thing to sit down and try to grab information from them,” said Haygood.

“They wanted to watch a couple of TV shows—game shows—before we actually got the interviews underway. There were several hours before he took me down in the basement and showed me this room with all sorts of memorabilia.”

By the end of the day that his original article was published—a mere three days after Obama’s win—calls began to pour in from Hollywood executives. Haygood said it was partly a matter of timing mixed with a cultural and historical juxtaposition too important to ignore.

“Here was a character that had seen vivid American history up close. He lived at the most powerful address in the country, yet in the ‘50s and early ‘60s he could go to his native Virginia and have to use a segregated bathroom,” he said.

“So, the twin engines of those two narratives—Obama winning and Mr. Allen’s life story—I think proved to be a real magnet for Hollywood interest.”

Haygood was enlisted as a researcher and associate producer for Lee Daniels’ film The Butler. He said the experience of working with Oscar winners like Forrest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey and Robin Williams was difficult to believe.

“I don’t think anyone can ever say that they dreamed of being on a movie set with six Oscar winners making a movie based on a story that they wrote. It’s just too unreal to think that. There’s some mornings that I still have to pinch myself,” explained Haygood.

As production on the film began, Haygood decided to put together a full-length written treatment of Eugene Allen’s incredible story. Haygood’s book, The Butler: A Witness to History, was released in June and Lee Daniels’ film adaptation of the story was released in August.

Through it all, Haygood said he cherishes the opportunity to meet and tell the story of the White House butler who endured eight presidencies and witnessed the moments that shaped our nation and culture.

“It was a pretty astonishing find to come across a man that nobody knew about who had almost had this Forrest Gump-like life. He was there during all of these epical moments of White House history for 34 years. It was just a special, special story to do,” he said.

Haygood has also written award-winning biographies on the enigmatic New York congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and famed member of The Rat Pack Sammy Davis, Jr. His latest book, Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson, is currently in the developmental stages for a film.

West Virginia 150: Commemorating Statehood

June 20, 2013 · West Virginia is the only state in the Union that was created as a direct result of the Civil War. When war broke out in 1861 and Virginia seceded from the Union, some living in that state’s western regions saw it as an opportunity to break away and create a new state.

West Virginia 150: Commemorating Statehood is a one hour documentary on the sesquicentennial of West Virginia’s birthday that explores the state’s rich cultural diversity and how the state’s history and other characteristics shaped today’s West Virginians. It also tried to answer the question “what does it mean to be a West Virginian?”

We explore how West Virginia’s mountainous terrain, the isolation found in many parts of the state, and the fact that outsiders have traditionally owned and managed the natural resources have impacted the people who live here.

Many early settlers were of German, Irish and Scots-Irish descent, but throughout its 150 year history the state has been home to notable African American’s. European recruitment by the coal and chemical companies brought workers from faraway places Italy, Poland and Spain. Many communities were historically home to Jewish and Lebanese Americans.

The presence of all these ethnic groups no doubt shaped the personality, attitudes and traditions of modern-day West Virginians.

Photos: Mountain Stage Celebrates 30 years at Americana Conference

West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Mountain Stage celebrated 30 years of live performance radio at the Americana Music Association’s Conference in Nashville last week. Host Larry Groce and Producer Adam Harris were joined by singer-songwriters Tim O’Brien, Kim Richey and Chip Taylor for a special panel to discuss the show’s history and its impact on American music and culture.

Here are a few images taken during the hour-long panel, which featured discussion and performances:

Video of the Mountain Stage panel at the Americana Conference will be added at a later date.

Theater fans statewide mourn loss of Theatre WV

Some fans of the stage are already feeling the loss of one of the state's largest theaters. With the loss of Theatre West Virginia, state theater buffs…

Some fans of the stage are already feeling the loss of one of the state’s largest theaters.

With the loss of Theatre West Virginia, state theater buffs are already feeling the pain. A former employee says he’s going to miss what it brought to Southern West Virginia.

Jim Stacy is a Morgantown lawyer, and Beckley native, who spent several years going to shows at Theatre West Virginia.

He even worked on its house staff for a short time. He says upon hearing the news the program is closing its doors, one emotion immediately came to mind.

“It genuinely made me sad. Living there, being a kid who started loving theater early, that was the first place I saw there. It was a very special place to see theater, because of the setting. That beautiful outdoor backdrop. To see that end, takes a little piece of me away, I think,” he said.

Stacy says it brought a great deal to not only fans of theater, but to all southern West Virginians.

“We have to be able to think about what’s going to be able to boost the culture of a state, of the region, of the nation, it’s the arts that always do that,” said David Beach, an English professor at West Virginia University and a director at M.T. Pockets Theatre in Morgantown. It’s a community theater company.

Theatre West Virginia flourished in the Beckley area for more than 50 years.