Lockwood to kick off SAGE series

“Louisiana and Beyond” is the theme for this season’s McNeese SAGE Series, and coordinator May Gray said participants can expect a few surprises in the normally Louisiana-focused program.

“One couple, who are not from here but have been regulars to the program and are retired McNeese people, said, ‘Oh, we want to hear about things other than Louisiana.’ Then I talked to some other people in the group and they said, ‘No, that’s why we come. We want to learn more about Louisiana,” Gray said with a laugh. “I’m trying to satisfy everybody.”

The six-program series, hosted by the university’s Leisure Learning program, will kick off at 3 p.m. Jan. 30 with a lecture by nature and wildlife photographer C.C. Lockwood.

This is the second time Lockwood — who will showcase photography from his book “The Yucatán Peninsula” — has been featured in the SAGE series.

The Historic New Orleans Collection is also making a return trip with a lecture by Jessica Dorman on the museum’s exhibit “Furnishing Louisiana: Creole and Acadian Furniture, 1735-1835.”

Dorman will speak at 3 p.m. Feb. 13 about what the museum boasts as the “era before mass production and ease of transport began to homogenize furniture design across America.”

Gray said she’s particularly excited about the series’ third lecture — “Jim Garrison’s Bourbon Street Brawl: The Making of a First Amendment Milestone” by James A. Savage.

“Before President Kennedy was assassinated, there was this huge district attorney in New Orleans named Jim Garrison; he must have been six-six,” Gray said. “He was really fi ghting crime and stirring up things. After Kennedy was assassinated, he said that Clay Shaw — who was a very prominent New Orleans businessman — was somehow tied to the assassination and he assassinated Clay Shaw’s character.”

Savage will speak at 3 p.m. March 6.

McNeese’s own Amber Hale will speak at 3 p.m. March 13 about her ocean exploration adventures aboard the Nautilus.

Gray said Hale’s trip last summer involved mapping the ocean floor and that the assistant professor will speak on the importance of science and exploring.

Participants will also hear from Katherine Jeffrey at 3 p.m. March 27 on her book “Two Civil Wars: The Curious Shared Journal of a Baton Rouge Schoolgirl and a Union Sailor on the USS Essex.”

“The schoolgirl, I think she was 14 kept a typical kind of diary, almost like a journal, and I think she had drawings in this book,” Gray said. “Then somehow that journal ended up in the hands of a Union sailor.”

Gray said Jeffrey spent time researching both the girl and the soldier and her book looks at the Civil War from two different sides.

Gray said McNeese history professor Janet Allured will close the series 3 p.m. April 10 with “On Their Own: Three Remarkable Louisiana Women Who Made a Difference.”

“I asked her to speak about three women she featured in her ‘Louisiana Women’ volumes one and two,” Gray said. “She’s going to talk about Baroness Pontalba and that is a fascinating story; it’s an unbelievable story,” Gray said. “And also Dorothy Dicks who was like the Ann Landers of her day and Janet Mary Riley who was instrumental in getting the ‘head and master’ provision overturned in Louisiana’s legal code.”

Gray said the cost to attend the six-part series if $59 if you sign up before Jan. 30. The cost increases to $65 on Jan. 31.

In addition to the lectures, participants can sign up for the Cypress Island Adventure trip around Lake Martin planned for April 11. The trip includes a visit to the Cypress Island conservancy and then lunch in Breaux Bridge at Cafe Des Amis. The cost for the trip is $99.

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For more information, call Gray at 475-5130.