By SARAH SMAGUR
The Mason-Scharfenstein museum was filled with the sounds of laughter, deep thought and spoken word during the Humanities Welcome Back Party and Poetry Salon held on Sept. 10.
“The idea of the event was to welcome students back and maintain enthusiasm for the humanities,” said Assistant Professor of English Timothy O’Keefe, one of the event organizers.
“We wanted to preview for more readings throughout the semester.”
Senior English major Robby Bailey read an original short story entitled “For Now.”
His piece draws inspiration from a question he says he has played with for years.
“Am I going to be stuck running in place while the things that I want to do seems to be running out of my reach?” said Bailey.
The evening kicked off with catered pizza from the Copper Pot, complete with homemade cookies, drinks and goodie bags for attendees.
Meghan Meeks, an English alumna, was asked to come back for the event and read an original work as well.
She read her creative non-fiction short story “Thorns & Legacies,” inspired by her large, Southern family.
“It was part of a class assignment for Dr. Hodgens class,” says Meeks. “We had to write about our families.”
“I have a huge portion of my family which lives in Kentucky, so that is where the inspiration for this piece comes from,” Meeks said.
English professors Heidi Staples, Lisa Hodgens and O’Keefe, as well as senior mass communications major Hillary Kelley, also read from their works of original poetry.
Holley Barry, a freshman accounting major, says she attended the event because she had to for PC 101.
“I would definitely come again if they had another one,” Barry said.
The humanities department plans to hold more readings throughout the year and encourages all students to attend.
“One of the lessons humanities has taught me is that everything is connected to everything else – sometimes in large and obvious ways and sometimes more complicated – and getting from point A to point B can lead me down all kinds of paths that I might never have thought before,” says Bailey. “It’s something that I get excited to explore everyday.”