Posted by Jeremy Langley | Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on 13-12-2009
I guess I should try to start blogging more often. With work, graduate school, and life, blogging hasn’t been at the top of my to-do list.
I’ve gotten a “promotion” of sorts since the last time I blogged. I now have two titles at Southern Arkansas University. I’ll keep my title as Assistant to the President for Special Projects, and I’ve taken on the extra title of University Editor. It’s pretty exciting, but it will keep my as busy as I was in college when I worked a full time job while attending a college full time. I guess I like to work myself to death!
Tonight was our First Baptist Church Sanctuary Choir Christmas party. It was amazingly fun. Our hosts, Max and Debbie Story, were very gracious to have us at their new home. I wouldn’t mind having a few of the amenities they have in my house some day! We’ll keep things in perspective for now.
Seeing has how it’s midnight, I guess I should wait until later to catch up on blogging any more. The alarm clock will go off early!
What a busy couple of weeks it has been. Fresh off of a very busy Founders’ Day week (a week in which we had the biggest party in Southern Arkansas University’s history), I left for my first CASE District IV conference. In case you don’t know, CASE is the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. Our district IV conference was in Oklahoma City. It was an excellent conference. I learned more than about different aspects of higher education advancement than I knew existed, and I was able to pick up some information that will significantly assist me in my job. I hope some of it helps the university as a whole.
I’m blessed that my job gives me the opportunity to travel. I was able to do some things that I really wanted to do. I went to the Oklahoma City National Memorial, the Myrial Botanical Gardens, rode in a limo to dinner, ate at an array of excellent restaurants, saw good friends that I haven’t seen in a while, and waited in the cold wind for a trolley for almost 30 minutes. The trolley never showed up.
I’ll blog about these events separately. I had an amazing time, but I’m glad to be home. I’m glad to be in Magnolia. We have a lot of events coming up. I’ll keep you posted.
Thanks to help from my good friend @shelleyKeith (that’s Twitter lingo, by the way), every time I post a new blog a new Tweet will automatically be posted on my Twitter account. Notice the new “What I am doing…” spot on the right column. Those are my most recent Tweets.
A big announcement was made in El Dorado yesterday. It was so big that Randy Rainwater himself broadcasted “Drive Time Sports” from Arkansas’s oil capital.
In a nutshell, here’s the scoop: Southern Arkansas University and the University of Arkansas at Monticello have entered into an agreement with the City of El Dorado to play the inaugural “Boomtown Classic” football game in the city’s Memorial Stadium on Saturday, Nov. 7. This is a project that has been in the works for a number of years, but due to circumstances beyond our control, it was put off until now. This is the perfect opportunity for me to plug our Centennial Celebration. UAM is celebrating 100 years in 2009 as well.
I’m excited about this opportunity. While the Mulerider fans in Magnolia might not be thrilled with the decision, it is an excellent opportunity for the University to showcase itself before one of the most important high school student bodies in the state. Of course I’m speaking of those in El Dorado that receive the El Dorado Promise scholarship (note my headline on this post). I think this is a great opportunity for SAU (and UAM) to make a play for those students and that scholarship money. It also gives us a LOT of “free advertising” in one of the regions most populated areas.
It will be interesting to see how it all plays out. The El Dorado A&P Commission has pledged their full support. They are working to secure other entertainment for our students and fans that make the trip to El Dorado for the ballgame.
On an interesting note, the two schools have played in El Dorado before. They were each others’ main rivals beginning in 1914 and usually played on Thanksgiving day in El Dorado. What was the trophy? Here’s a sneak peek at a passage from the soon-to-be-released centennial history of SAU by Dr. James Willis:
Monticello added to the festivities by bringing a white female Angora goat to be awarded to the winning side. Each season for the next seven years this goat—named for the Monticello president, “Frankie Horsfall“, when won by Magnolia and “Charlie Overstreet” by Monticello–became the prize of the Turkey Day game. Knowing that a mule and a goat were featured mascots of the famous Army-Navy football rivalry, the Arkansas Democrat opined that “from the frothing and foaming and sputtering which goes on” the “Mulerider-Boll Weevil game bids to become the Army-Navy battle of Arkansas football.
A big announcement was made in El Dorado yesterday. It was so big that Randy Rainwater himself broadcasted “Drive Time Sports” from Arkansas’s oil capital.
