Barbara Patton: Special fundraiser around the corner

Barbara Patton
Columnist
Published: August 6, 2008

Just around the corner lies a special fundraiser! Special because it benefits the renovation and transformation of the Miriam S. Brown School into a Community Cultural and Small Conference Center.
Special because it brings together a host of community arts organizations as sponsors: the Arts Association of East Alabama, the Auburn Chamber Music Society, Auburn University Community Orchestra, the Caroline Draughon Center for the Arts and Humanities, Envision Opelika Foundation, the Jule Collins Museum of Fine Arts, and special because the featured guest for the evening will be the well-known syndicated columnist and author Rheta Grimsley Johnson.

You know her. You read her every week in the Opelika-Auburn News. She is a 1977 graduate of Auburn University, winner of the 1974-1975 National Pacemaker Award, while on the Plainsman staff, with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for seven years and other regional newspapers prior to that.

Johnson has garnered numerous awards the National Headliner Award for commentary in 1985, the Scripps Howard’s Ernie Pyle Memorial Award for outstanding human interest reporting in 1984 and was designated the Scripps Howard Writer of the Year from 1983-1985.

In 1996, when she delivered the Neil and Henrietta Davis Distinguished Lecture, Dr. Dale Harrison, AU faculty member and immediate-past chair of the Department of Communication and Journalism said, “(her) insightful columns have warmed hearts and households across the country by raising up the ideals we all hold dear and telling timeless stories with an engaging and irresistible voice that is uniquely her own.”

She has authored several books, including “America’s Faces,” “Good Grief,” the authorized biography of Charles Schulz, and the one featured at this fund-raiser.

This “Book and Buffet” event has two editions. If you purchase the first edition, you will be entitled to a lecture by the famed Johnson, “The South Did This To Me;” a copy of the author’s new book, “Poor Man’s Provence,” from NewSouth Books; a book signing; and a buffet of Southern specialties.

The second edition includes all of the above without the lecture.

Why two editions?

Space is limited to only 150 for the lecture and the sponsors wanted more people to be able to meet the author and have the book signed by her. Plus this is a fundraiser and more people equals more funds.

Each edition is priced differently. First editions are, of course, always more expensive.

Johnson credits her love for Cajun country, particularly Henderson, Louisiana, as the inspiration for her new book, saying “I’m uneasy about pretending to understand a culture that is not my own. I’ll qualify it by saying that I’m not an authority… This is just a love story, my love affair with this place, a work-a-day town where they still make their living in the swamp.”

Other special things about this event: catered by the trio of Ursula Higgins, Martha Hicks, and Billy Lee; the place, the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art; the time, First Edition 6:30, Second Edition 7:00; and the date, Aug. 28. Contact: AAEA at 749-8105.

Barbara Patton is executive director of Envision Opelika and writes a column for the Opelika-Auburn News.