The History of Green Literary Event will be held at the Dahl Art Center on Sunday, January 17, from 2:00 to 4:00 pm with Gerard Baker, Superintendent of Mt. Rushmore Memorial, as featured speaker. Six area authors will sell and autograph their books and visit with members of the audience.
The event is jointly sponsored by the Dahl Art Center, Friends of the Rapid City Parks, and Democracy in Action. The general public is invited. There is no admission fee. Authors are available for book signings beginning with an opening reception at 2:00 pm.
At 2:30 in the Cyclorama Room, Supt. Baker speaks about Theodore Roosevelt, our environmental president. Baker will discuss how Roosevelt’s wilderness passion led him to establish five national parks including Crater Lake, Wind Cave and Mesa Verde.
Roosevelt’s 1906 Antiquities Act enabled the 26th president and his successors to save landmarks, structures and objects of historic or scientific interest monuments like the Badlands and Devil’s Tower as national sites. The legislation was the original authority for about a quarter of the 378 areas composing the national park system.
“Like all politics, the environmental movement is local. The work of writers connects us to the land in a time when many of us are disconnected from nature. They get us back in touch with what matters, and inspire us to appreciate and cherish it,” says one of the event’s organizers, Suzanne Martley, President of Friends of Rapid City Parks.
Six Western South Dakota writers will make short comments at 3:00 pm.
•Francie Davis, Kadoka area horse breaker, deputy sheriff’s wife and editor of Pasque Petals magazine, the official publication of the South Dakota State Poetry Society.
•Karen Hall, author and Rapid City environmental engineer.
• Linda Hasselstrom, poet, essayist, environmental writer and mentor of writers through Windbreak House, Hermosa.
•Dick Kettelwell, creator of South Dakota Wildlife Impressions and other photographic visions of the Great Plains.
•Bruce Roseland; Seneca, SD rancher and award-winning poet including 2006 National Cowboy Museum Wrangler Award.
•Dan O’Brien, falconer, wild life biologist, buffalo rancher and author of Buffalo for the Broken Heart: Restoring Life to a Black Hills Ranch,” chosen 2009 One Book South Dakota.
The six writers share a passion for environmental conservation. Hasselstrom writes in Land Circle: “To find ourselves in the land, we don’t need to buy a farm . . . We are all creatures born to soil and wilderness…Night or day, walk out into the grass or woods alone, sit down, and listen. Dig in the earth; plant something. Walk and watch any living thing except another human.”
This is the second of a three-event series inspired by 46 pieces by 32 artists selected for an exhibit based on the word “green,” showing in the Ruth Brennan Gallery until Feb. 3.
Democracy in Action and Friends of Rapid City Parks are co-sponsoring the series as a way to encourage more citizens to join the conversation about creating a sustainable Rapid City. The final event in the series, “Our Green Future,” at the Dahl on March 20 will feature Rapid City’s Green Task Force Panel.
For more information about Green series, contact The Dahl at (605) 394-4101.