The Morningside College Choir will complete their 2004 spring tour by presenting a homecoming concert on Sunday, March 14, at 4 p.m. at Eppley Auditorium, 1501 Morningside Avenue.

The public is invited to the free event, which is sponsored by Morningside’s Academic and Cultural Arts Series (ACAS).

The homecoming concert will complete an 11-performance, 10-city tour that will open on Saturday, March 6, at Zion Lutheran Church in Manning, Iowa. The tour will also include performances in Des Moines, Muscatine, and Fort Madison in Iowa; St. Louis, Columbia, Kansas City, and Blue Springs in Missouri, and Papillion, Neb.

The choir is under the direction of Timothy M. Watson, director of choral activities at Morningside College.

Highlights of the program will include “Daemon Irrepit Callidus,” a rhythmically challenging piece written by 20th century composer Gyorgi Orban, “Pamugun,” a piece composed by Francisco Feliciano and written in a Phillipino dialect, and Paul Basler’s “Gloria,” featuring a tenor solo by Joel Kraushaar, a junior from Muscatine, Iowa.

In addition to the performance by the Morningside choir, the concert program will also feature a performance by The Eclectix, a vocal jazz ensemble comprised of Morningside students, who perform a mix of jazz, show, and pop tunes with rhythm section and a cappella. One of the selections on The Eclectix’s program is Duke Ellington’s “Come Sunday,” which will feature an alto solo by Emily Faber, a junior from Le Mars, Iowa.

Watson also conducts the Morningside College Jazz Choir and the Singing Men of Morningside. He holds a bachelor’s degree in music education from Luther College, Decorah, Iowa; and a master’s degree in vocal performance from the University of South Dakota. Watson, in his first year at Morningside, previously taught for the last 11 years at Le Mars (Iowa) Community High School, where he served as choral director and as the music administrator for the Le Mars Community School District.

The Morningside College Choir has been in existence for over 100 years. Annual tours have taken the choir across the United States and to many of the famed concert halls and cathedrals of Europe. In May of 2000, the choir toured Spain, France, and England, and presented the premiere of the “Requiem” by Eleanor Daley at the Chard Festival in Chard, England. The choir will return to Europe this May with concert appearances throughout Denmark and in Stratford and London, England.

More than 225 students have registered to attend the Talented and Gifted (TAG) Exchange Day, to be held on the Morningside College campus, on Monday, March 8, from 9:15 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. This event is sponsored by Morningside College and the Sioux City Community School District (SCCSD) TAG Department. Students from SCCSD, South Sioux City Community Schools (SSCCS), and River Valley School District in Correctionville will participate in this event.

The coordinators of TAG Exchange Day are Nancy Mounts, director of the Regional Center for Teaching and Learning at Morningside College; Jean Johnson, head TAG teacher of SSCSD, and Mary Doyle and Joan O’Harrow, TAG teachers at West High School in Sioux City.

The day will begin with breakfast and a general session in the Randolph Room of the Olsen Student Center, 3609 Peters Avenue. Joel Weyand, director of admissions at Morningside, will welcome the students.

Throughout the day, students will break into groups for various sessions focusing on math, science, technology, and wellness.

Biology sessions and their presenters will include:

• “Where in the World Are You,” about global positioning, Dr. Jim Stroh, associate professor of biology at Morningside College.
• “We Want to Take Your Blood,” about solving medical mysteries, Mary Smith, program director of the Clinical Laboratory Education Program, Mercy Medical Center in Sioux City.

Criminal science sessions and their presenters will include:

• Sioux City Police Dog Demonstration.
• “Finding the Criminal,” the Sioux City Police Identification Department of Criminal Investigations.
• “Can We Estimate Height If We Know the Length of One Long Bone,” a forensic anatomy exercise, Dr. Mary Leida, dean for advising and biology professor at Morningside.

Mathematics sessions and their presenters will include:

• “Who Will Win in 2004—It Depends on How We Count,” Steve Nimmo, associate dean for academic affairs and professor of mathematical sciences at Morningside.
• “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire,” about the “Rule of 72” that would make everyone a millionaire, Dan Pecaut, president, Pecaut and Company in Sioux City.

Physics sessions and their presenters will include:

• “Soup to Hoops: What Makes Things Roll,” Dr. Gary Turner, assistant professor of mathematical sciences at Morningside.
• “Physics at Work,” Shelly Nash, physics and chemistry teacher at West High School in Sioux City.

Technology sessions and their presenters will include:

• “Graphic Arts,” presented by John Kolbo, instructor of art at Morningside.
• “Savvy Surfing: Finding the Good Stuff on the Web,” James Fisk, reference and instructional librarian at Morningside.
  
  Wellness sessions will include:

• “Building the Food Pyramid Wrap,” Le Ann Johnikan, dietician/nutritionist for patients at St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center in Sioux City.
• “Tae Kwon Do: Personal Protection and Fitness,” Jessica Borg, certified canberra instructor at the Sioux City Tae Kwon Do Academy, ITA.
• “Sports Medicine and Today’s Athlete,” Paul Wilson, athletic trainer at the Center for Neurosciences, Orthopedics and Spine in Dakota Dunes, S.D. (CNOS), and Laura Rowedder, Athletic Trainer Certified (ATC) at CNOS and adjunct instructor at Morningside.

The other sessions and their presenters include:

• Chemistry, “Confessions of a Lab Tech: Amino Acid Analysis,” Melodi Meshek, former lab manager and biochemist at Metabolic Technologies, Inc. (MTI) in Ames, Iowa.
• Psychology, “The Psychology of Advertising,” Dr. William Deeds, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the college at Morningside.

Morningside College and the SCCSD TAG Department will also sponsor a summer camp, open to all gifted students in grades 5-8. This year’s camp has been expanded from three to five days and will be held June 7-11.

A 5-day rocketry class will also be offered this year for gifted high school students who have completed eighth grade or higher. Students at this camp will have the opportunity to receive college credit from Morningside.

For more information on TAG Exchange Day or the camps for gifted students, contact Nancy Mounts at 712-274-5139, or mounts@morningside.edu.

World-class pianist Andrew Russo will adjudicate and be featured in a recital at the 13th annual Amadeus Keyboard Festival and Competition to be held Saturday, Feb. 28, in Eppley Auditorium, 3625 Garretson Avenue.

The festival recital, which will also feature the competition winners, is sponsored by Morningside’s Academic and Cultural Arts Series (ACAS). The recital will be held at 7:30 p.m.

Advance ticket prices are $12 for adults and $8 for students and can be reserved by calling the Morningside music department at 712-274-5210. Tickets will also be available at the door on the night of the recital for the prices of $16 for adults and $12 for students.

Russo, who was also the guest artist at last year’s festival, is an American pianist who resides in Paris, France. He is a graduate of The Julliard School. Last year Russo performed the world premier and recorded a new piano concerto inspired by the Wright Brothers Centennial and commissioned for him by the Dayton Philharmonic from the American composer Michael Schelle.

The festival will provide area piano students with opportunities to compete for cash awards or to perform in non-competitive auditions.

The competition portion of the festival is open to piano students in grades 9 through 12. Cash prizes of $300 for first place, $150 for second, and $50 for third will be awarded.

The non-competitive auditions are open to piano students of all ages and are designed to motivate students in a nurturing manner. Auditions will be scheduled throughout the day and last approximately 10 minutes each. Mary Beth Schaffer,
a member of the piano faculty at the St. Paul Conservatory of Music, will provide participants with constructive written and verbal comments. Schaffer has also served on the faculties at Grinnell College, the University of Iowa, the University of St. Thomas Conservatory of Music, Northwestern College, Pikes Peak Community College, and the Rocky Ridge Music Center.

Private lessons with Dr. James March, professor of music at Morningside and the festival’s director, and Dr. Kathryn March, an adjunct member of the music faculty at Morningside, are available for high school students. The lesson times are limited and will be scheduled in the order applications are received.

A $1,000 Kline Piano Merit Scholarship for piano study at Morningside College will be awarded at the discretion of the festival director. High school seniors who are interested in attending Morningside will have the opportunity to audition for Celebration of Excellence scholarships.

For additional information, contact Dr. James March at 712-274-5215.

Yumiko Guelcher, a student at Morningside College, will discuss her recent visit to the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and address the issue of nuclear weapons on Monday, March 1, at 7 p.m. in the UPS Auditorium of the Lincoln Center, 3627 Peters Avenue.

The public is invited to the free event, which is sponsored by Morningside’s Academic and Cultural Arts Series (ACAS).

During the presentation, “Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” Guelcher will share photographs from her summer 2003 visit to the two cities, which were destroyed by atomic bombs during World War II. During her visit she attended the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony held each year in remembrance of the day the bomb was dropped on the city.

Guelcher’s presentation will focus on the damage to human bodies caused by the atomic bombs when they were dropped in 1945 and the present-day aftereffects suffered by the survivors and their children. She will also discuss some of the effects caused by postwar nuclear testing conducted by the United States.

“The use of nuclear weapons is one of the most inhumane and cruel acts that humans can commit against other humans,” Guelcher said. “In Japan, the people don’t say ‘Remember Hiroshima, or Remember Nagasaki.’ Instead, they say ‘No more Hiroshima. No more Nagasaki. Peace in the world.’”

Guelcher was one of two recipients presented with a People of Color Scholarship awarded by the Iowa Council of Teacher of English and Language Arts (ICTELA) at the 2003 ICTELA Annual Conference held in Des Moines. She was nominated for the scholarship by the faculty of Morningside’s English Department.

The ICTELA awards the scholarships to help build a teaching force that is culturally sensitive and reflects the racial characteristics of students. The scholarships are presented to individuals who have demonstrated a strong interest in the teaching of English and language arts at any level from early childhood through adult education.

Dr. Maksym Vakulenko, a visiting Fulbright Scholar from the Ukraine, will lecture about life in the Eastern-European nation on Friday, Feb. 27, at 10 a.m. in the U.P.S. Auditorium of the Lincoln Center, 3627 Peters Avenue.

The public is invited to the free event, which is sponsored by Morningside’s Academic and Cultural Arts Series (ACAS).

Vakulenko’s lecture will focus on life in the Ukraine since the end of the Cold War.
Vakulenko is a visiting Fulbright Scholar in the department of linguistics at the University of Texas at Arlington. He has been a research scientist at the Institute for Theoretical Physics of the National Academy of Sciences, Kiev, Ukraine, since 1992.

His resume lists over 30 conference presentations and abstracts. He can speak seven languages, including Ukrainian, Russian, English, Greek, French, Spanish, and Italian.

Vakulenko is secretary of the Transliteration Commission and head of the coordination council of the Inculcation of the State Language of Ukrajina. He is a member of the press-centre of the Higher School Academy of Sciences, the National Council on Geographical Names of Ukrajina, and the Ukrainian Physical Society.

The Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES) has helped administer the Fulbright Scholar Program since it was founded in 1947. CIES annually recruits and sends nearly 800 U.S. faculty and professionals to 140 countries on its traditional program and brings 800 foreign faculty and professionals to the U.S.