Everything Nac

Kasen McCall, a freshman agribusiness major, will represent Stephen F. Austin State University in the team roping event at the 2019 College National Finals Rodeo June 9 through 15, in Casper, Wyoming.

McCall, a Lufkin native, has been involved in rodeo since the age of 9 and is currently a member of the SFA Rodeo Team. He and his roping partner, Clayton Lowry of Panola College, will compete alongside more than 400 students from across the United States, as well as Canada, Brazil and Australia for individual event championship titles that include cash prizes, scholarships and championship hardware comprising buckles, rings and plaques.

“I am ecstatic for him and extremely happy for our university,” said Rachel Clark, SFA coordinator of student publications and SFA Rodeo Club advisor and team coach. “This is a monumental moment where we’re able to showcase our university on yet another national

stage.”

To qualify for the College National Finals Rodeo, McCall and Lowry competed in 10 rodeos across Texas and Louisiana, earning enough points in the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association’s Southern Region to receive a national bid.

McCall said he and his partner practice as much as they can utilizing arenas owned by family members and friends, as well as the arena located at SFA’s Walter C. Todd Agricultural Research Center.

During the team roping event, a steer is released from a chute into the arena. After the steer reaches a certain point in the arena, the two team members pursue the animal on horseback from their respective chutes. One team member, known as the header, ropes the steer’s horns or neck while turning the animal to the left, enabling the heeler to rope the steer’s back feet.

The ropers’ horses are equally important members of the team, responding to their rider’s cues to tighten the ropes and secure the steer on the ground in the fastest time possible.

“The horses learn you, you learn them, and then you just combine to get the job done,” McCall said.

Although McCall will be performing an arguably difficult undertaking on a national stage against older, more experienced competitors, he keeps a calm demeanor as he considers the task at hand.

“I usually don’t get nervous,” McCall said with a smile. “I’m excited to go.”

Clark said the SFA Rodeo Club was established in the 1960s, and since that time only two other team members have qualified for the College National Finals.

The rodeo finals will be available for streaming on ESPN 3 beginning Wednesday, June 12, while future broadcasts will air on ESPN U.

While the Rodeo Club is open to all students, those who are a part of the SFA Rodeo Team typically have a strong foundation in agriculture and are required to provide their own horses and gear to compete. For more information, contact Clark at clarkr1@sfasu.edu or (936) 468-4703.

Story by Sarah Fuller, outreach coordinator for Stephen F. Austin State University’s Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture. Contact information: (936) 468-1185 or fullersa@sfasu.edu.

The Stephen F. Austin State University School of Art and the Friends of the Visual Arts will present a free, one-night screening of the documentary “Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story” at 7 p.m. Friday, June 7, in The Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House in downtown Nacogdoches.

Directed by Alexandra Dean, “Bombshell” brings to light the story of an unusual and accomplished woman, spurned as too beautiful to be smart, but a role model to this day.

Hedy Lamarr, the glamour icon whose ravishing visage was the inspiration for Snow White and Cat Woman, was a technological trailblazer who perfected a secure radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes during WWII.

In the film, Dean weaves interviews and clips with never-before-heard audio tapes of Lamarr speaking on the record about her incredible life. She speaks of her beginnings as an Austrian Jewish émigré, her scandalous nude scene in the 1933 film “Ecstasy,” her glittering Hollywood life and finally her ground-breaking, but completely uncredited inventions. The film also chronicles her latter years when she became a recluse, impoverished and almost forgotten, according to the Zeitgeist Films website.

Bombshell is a 2017 Zeitgeist Films release in association with Kino Lorber. The film was an audience award winner at the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival, the Adrienne Shelley Excellence in Filmmaking Award winner at the Nantucket Film Festival, an audience award winner in the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, best film at the Scottsdale International Film Festival and winner at the Women Film Critics Circle Awards. The film runs 88 minutes.

This screening is part of the School of Art’s monthly Friday Film Series and is sponsored in part by William Arscott, Nacogdoches Film Festival, Karon Gillespie, Mike Mollot, David Kulhavy, John and Kristen Heath, Galleria Z, Jill Carrington, Jean Stephens, Jim and Mary Neal, Richard Orton and Main Street Nacogdoches.

The Cole Art Center is located at 329 E. Main St. For more information, call (936) 468-1131.

Activities in and around The Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House on June 8 will add to the traditional food, fun and festivities of the annual Texas Blueberry Festival with Stephen F. Austin State University’s art and theatre students showcasing their talents as part of the day’s festivities.

Students from the School of Theatre dressed as popular characters from fairy tales and children’s stories will again greet those attending this year’s downtown event as they promote the upcoming SFA SummerStage Festival.

The School of Theatre’s trademark dragon character, Schlaftnicht, from the children’s show “Trudi and the Minstrel,” performed the summer of 2005, will make his annual Blueberry Festival appearance along with a number of whimsical characters. Children (and adults) will have the opportunity to talk with the students and take photos with the costumed characters, according to Angela Bacarisse, professor of design and arts management at SFA.

Another screening of the popular film “Found Footage: Rediscovering Nacogdoches” will be at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. in the art center. Discovered at Nacogdoches High School in 1967 but forgotten until a few years ago, the film was digitally restored and viewed in 2014 for the first time in 70 years.

There will also be a display of SFA art students’ work.

This year’s SummerStage Festival features the children’s favorite “The Reluctant Dragon,” based on the book by Kenneth Grahame and adapted by Mary Hall Surface, and the musical comedy “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” with music and lyrics by William Finn, book by Rachel Sheinkin, conceived by Rebecca Feldman, with additional material by Jay Reiss and originally directed on Broadway by James Lapine.

Theatre students will offer face painting as a fundraiser for their biennial study abroad trip to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland. For the third time, SFA theatre students will tour a play that will be seen at the largest performing arts festival in the world during a two-week trip to Edinburgh in August. This year, SFA dance students will be among those performing. This year’s play is “Tales of Neverland,” a stage adaptation written by Bacarisse based on the book “Peter Pan,” J.M. Barrie’s most famous work.

The Cole Art Center traditionally serves as an official “oasis” during the festival, according to Lisa Steed, events coordinator for SFA galleries, with tables and chairs set up inside where festival patrons can escape the heat. The art center’s restrooms will also be available to festival-goers.

June 9 is the final day to view the Texas National exhibition and “Image and Text Collaborations: A 20-Year Celebration of SFA Book Arts” currently showing in Cole Art Center.

For performance times and ticketing information for the SummerStage Festival, visit theatre.sfasu.edu or call (936) 468-6407 or (888) 240-ARTS. Performances are in W.M. Turner Auditorium in the Griffith Fine Arts Building on the SFA campus.

Both the Blueberry Festival and the SFA SummerStage Festival are sponsored in part by Tipton Ford Lincoln.

Registration is underway for the annual Summer Art Academy offered by the Stephen F. Austin State University School of Art for the two-week camp that will meet Monday through Friday, June 10 through 21, on the SFA campus.

Students going into kindergarten through sixth grade may enroll in classes that include drawing, painting, sculpture, ceramics and more.

This year’s academy director is Dr. Maggie Leysath, professor of art education at SFA.

Classes will meet from 1 to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday in the Art Building on Wilson Drive. An exhibition of the students’ work will be at 5 p.m. Friday, June 21, in the Art Building. Afterward, the students may take home their work.

The registration fee on or before June 3 is $185 and includes all art supplies, exhibition expenses and daily refreshments. Late registration after June 3 is $200. Registration information is available at http://www.art.sfasu.edu/artacademy or in person at the School of Art.

For additional information, contact Leysath at (936) 468-4264 or by email at leysathmn@sfasu.edu.