Everything Nac

The Stephen F. Austin State University Student Government Association and Hunger Jacks, along with the Office of Academic Affairs, hosted a grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday for the new Food for Thought campus food pantry, located in the Baker Pattillo Student Center on SFA’s campus. The pantry will serve as a resource to help alleviate food insecurity among SFA student on campus. Pictured (from left) are Marquice Hobbs, SFA student body president; Roger Van Horn, Nacogdoches mayor; Dr. Miranda Terry, assistant professor of health science at SFA; Dr. Steve Westbrook, vice president for university affairs at SFA; Brittany Hearnsberger, SFA student; John Anderson, Aramark district manager; Dr. Adam Peck, dean of student affairs at SFA; and James Burns, SFA student.

Stephen F. Austin State University’s SFA Gardens will host the monthly Theresa and Les Reeves Lecture Series at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 12, in the Ina Brundrett Conservation Education Building at the Pineywoods Native Plant Center, 2900 Raguet St. in Nacogdoches.

SFA Gardens horticulturists Dave Creech, Dawn Stover and Greg Grant will present “A Plant Preview of the Upcoming Garden Gala Plant Sale.” Their combined program will present information, as well as provide images of the new, popular and more unusual plants available at the upcoming sale.

The Garden Gala Day Spring Plant Sale and Earth Day Celebration will be from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, April 11, at the SFA Pineywoods Native Plant Center. The sale will feature a wide variety of hard-to-find, “Texas tough” plants, including Texas natives, heirlooms, perennials and much more. Most of the plants included in this year’s sale are produced by the SFA Gardens staff members and volunteers.

The Theresa and Les Reeves Lecture Series is held the second Thursday of each month at SFA’s Pineywoods Native Plant Center. A rare plant raffle will be held after the program. The lecture is free and open to the public, but donations to the Theresa and Les Reeves lecture series fund are always appreciated.

This popular event benefits the SFA Mast Arboretum, Pineywoods Native Plant Center, Ruby M. Mize Azalea Garden, Gayla Mize Garden and educational programs hosted at the gardens.

Parking is available at the nearby Raguet Elementary School, 2428 Raguet St., with continual shuttle service to the Ina Brundrett Conservation Education Building.

For more information, call (936) 468-1832 or email sfagardens@sfasu.edu.

The Choral Union and Women’s Choir at Stephen F. Austin State University will present a concert in remembrance of the Holocaust victims of World War II when the ensembles perform at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 12, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.

The program, “Reflections from the Camps,” will also feature Dr. Evgeni Raychev, cello; Shirley Watterston, piano; Sherri Fleshner, viola; and SFA vocal area faculty, narrators and soloists.

“This concert will be a true team effort,” said Dr. Tod Fish, director of the Choral Union and Women’s Choir. “The entire vocal area is involved in some capacity. Our graduate students, Marissa Maddoux (Burleson) and Andrew Trites (Olathe, Kan.), who have worked tirelessly, will have the opportunity to conduct on this concert.”

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet troops on Jan. 27, 1945.

“We are hoping this concert will bring us toward viewing those who suffered and died during the Holocaust as not only historical statistics, but as human beings,” Fish said.

The Women’s Choir will perform “Reflections from Yad Vashem” by Daniel J. Hall, who describes his work as a “musical and poetical response to the poignant and lingering impressions evoked by the Yad Vashem Children’s Memorial.” Fleshner will be the viola soloist for the piece.

The Choral Union and Women’s Chorus will combine to perform Donald McCullough’s “Holocaust Cantata: Songs from the Camps.”

“This is a moving work based on texts and melodies composed by prisoners at the concentration camps in Buchenwald, Auschwitz and Majdanek, to name a few,” Fish said. “The work contains no plot, but rather represents a different person and camp in each reading and musical setting.” The SFA voice faculty will serve as narrators and soloists for this work while Raychev will accompany the choir on the cello.

The men of the Choral Union will perform Douglas Helvering’s arrangement of Louis Lewandowski’s setting of “Enosh,” which is a setting of Psalm 103: 15-17.

Tickets for the concert, which is a presentation of the SFA College of Fine Arts and School of Music, are $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and $3 for students and youth. For tickets or more information, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or visit www.finearts.sfasu.edu.