Meet the new Director of the Delta Center, Dr. Rolando Herts. We are excited to have Dr.Herts with us, and we look forward to great collaborations with all of you. Come see us and meet Dr. Herts!!!
Meet our new director!
Herts to lead Delta Center
Dr. Rolando Herts will begin his duties as the new director of the Delta Center for Culture and Learning on August 18.
After a national search, Delta State University’s Delta Center for Culture and Learning has found a replacement for retiring director Dr. Luther Brown.
Dr. Rolando Herts, who conducted his dissertation research at Rutgers University in New Jersey, will follow Brown, who served at Delta State for 14 years. Herts will begin his duties August 18.
“It is a tremendous honor to be selected by Delta State University and community leaders from throughout the Mississippi Delta region to direct the Delta Center for Culture and Learning,” said Herts. “The Mississippi Delta is where I began my teaching career, and it’s also where I spent formative years of my youth witnessing how education, community prosperity and pride of place are intertwined.”
Herts’s research has focused on roles of universities with tourism planning and development as an emergent form of community engagement and place making.
Originally from Little Rock and Eudora, Ark., Herts has years of experience working in the Delta region. After completing undergraduate and graduate programs at Morehouse College and the University of Chicago, he returned to the area to teach second grade in Indianola with Teach For America.
Soon after, he assumed directorship of TRIO Student Support Services at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.
“For over two decades, I have been a student, administrator and faculty member in geographically diverse university settings in both urban and rural communities, including Atlanta, Chicago, Newark and the Mississippi Delta region,” said Herts.
The Delta Center also serves as the management entity for the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area, an area acknowledged by Congress in March 2009.
“During a conversation with Dr. Brown, I learned about the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area,” said Herts. “I have been following its development ever since and have met with several other stakeholders about the MDNHA over the years — including Kappi Allen, Webster Franklin, Frank Howell, Ann Shackelford and Shirley Waring.”
Recognizing that the Delta is a unique landscape with a distinct culture that is unusually rich in heritage stories, efforts began in 2003 to organize partners to promote National Heritage Area designation.
Delta State Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dr. Charles McAdams, said he’s thrilled to have Herts as the new DCCL leader.
“I am very excited to have Dr. Rolando Herts join us as the director of the Delta Center for Culture and Learning,” said McAdams. “Dr. Herts has an impressive academic record, significant experience in university/community partnerships and a love of the Delta.
“His dissertation work explored the relationship between public universities and local tourism planning and development. These are the exact issues we are working on now at Delta State, Cleveland and Bolivar County.”
The search committee, comprised of representatives from Delta State and the MDNHA board, believe Herts has the enthusiasm, personality and vision to build on the success of the Delta Center.
Learn more about the center’s rich history at http://www.blueshighway.org. Visithttp://www.msdeltaheritage.com to read about the MDNHA.
Delta Center director receives service award
L to R: Heather Miller and Lee Aylward of the Delta Center, Dr. Henry Outlaw, formerly of the Delta Center, and Dr. Charles McAdams, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Delta State
The Mississippi Heritage Trust recently awarded Dr. Luther Brown, Director of the Delta State Delta Center for Culture and Learning and the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area the “Heritage Award for Distinguished Service.”
“I’m deeply honored to receive this award in recognition of the establishment of the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area. Many people and numerous entities have worked hard to make this Heritage Area possible, and some have worked for over a decade to see this happen,” said Brown.
This recognition is in honor of all of these individuals and groups who have partnered to promote the Delta’s heritage, and I thank them for their continued enthusiasm and hard work.”
The Delta Center is the manager of the Heritage Area. The award was presented in Tupelo during the Mississippi Heritage Trust’s annual meeting. Dr. Brown could not attend in person, so Lee Aylward of the Delta Center accepted the award on his behalf.
“It is very fitting that Dr. Brown has been recognized by the Mississippi Heritage Trust at its bi-annual meeting with an award for Distinguished Service. From its inception fourteen years ago, the Delta Center through his leadership has introduced hundreds in this country and abroad to the importance of the Mississippi Delta to our country and to the rest of the world, and it is through his efforts that the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area is being established,” said Aylward.
His work will remain as a standard for others to continue this important work.”
The King of the Blues & Dr. Brown
From the National Trust Blog, a picture of Dr. Brown and B.B. King!!
Summer workshops spark Ruleville leader
The Delta Center for Culture and Learning at Delta State is once again offering its summer program “The Most Southern Place on Earth: Music, History and Culture of the Mississippi Delta.”
The program is part of the annual Landmarks in American History and Culture series that is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Pending funding from the NEH, the center is hoping to offer the program again in 2015.
This highly competitive workshop draws participants from all 50 states. Diana Brown, a special education teacher at Ruleville Middle School, recently reflected on her participation in 2012.
“One learning experience which I am really grateful for having the opportunity to participate in was ‘The Most Southern Place on Earth,’ under the direction of Dr. Luther Brown and Lee Alyward,” said Diana. “The opportunity changed my life in more ways than one. I am from the Delta, but the experience was far beyond what I ever imagined.
“The institute gave me an overload of rich knowledge about the Delta I had no idea even existed. It not only gave me a dream, but provided knowledge on how to make these dreams become a reality.”
Dr. Brown has fond memories of Diana as a workshop participant.
“She was a wonderfully engaged scholar throughout the entire week, and surprised everyone the last day by bringing in delicious home made sweet potato pies for everyone to enjoy,” said Brown. “She really welcomed everyone to the Delta.”
Diana has always loved learning but had to put her career on hold early in life when she started her family. Today she has two grown daughters and five grandchildren. She credits Delta State with helping her succeed.
“I returned to Delta State University in 2002, and in 2005 received my bachelor’s in child development,” said Diana. “I returned to Delta State in 2005, and in 2007 received my master’s in special education. I returned to Delta State again in 2009, and in 2012 received my specialists in educational leadership.
“I guess you are wondering why Delta State University, and the answer is because it’s a small university with a big heart. You are not just a number — the staff and personnel at Delta State genuinely care about the whole person.”
Her workshop experience in 2012 stimulated her interest in subsequent seminar opportunities. In 2013 she had the opportunity to participate in a learning experience in Lawrence, Kans. working on the pilot program for the alternate assessment for special needs children.
“I love to learn and I am going to learn until I am not in existence,” added Diana. “This year I applied for another teacher institute which is titled ‘The Rochester Reform Trial’ located in Rochester, New York.”
The workshop, from July 20-26, will examine the reform as expressed in landmarks such as Broad Street Aqueduct, Ernie Canal, Mount Hope Cemetery and several other landmarks.
Another participant from the same workshop that started Diana on her path, Markette Pierce, lives in Rochester and is organizing their summer experience together. She wrote about Diana on Facebook.
“She aced it as a local participant. She’s my role model as I prep for this workshop,” said Pierce. “I’m already thinking, where can I take her to get a taste of Rochester’s music and foodie culture? The closest thing we’ve got to Po’ Monkey’s is Lux Bar, which is certainly a juke joint in the ‘wicked, disorderly, unsavory’ etymological sense — though more filled with tatted up hipsters than sharecroppers.”
Brown continues her passion for learning as she becomes an ambassador for the Mississippi Delta.
For more information on The Most Southern Place workshop, contact the Delta Center For Culture and Learning at 662-846-4311.
Reading program presented with history and culture
Dr. Henry Outlaw presenting at the Como library.
Former Chair of the Department of Biological and Physical Sciences Dr. Henry Outlaw recently presented a lecture on the murder of Emmett Till as part of the Como Reads program at the Emily J. Pointer Public Library in Como, Miss. Outlaw has also been involved with the Delta Center for Culture and Learning.
The book selection for the discussion was Glory Be by Cleveland native Augusta Scattergood. The main theme of the book is “civil rights in smalltown Mississippi, circa 1964.” Emmett Till’s murder in Sunflower County in late August of 1955 is often described as one of the events that stimulated the modern Civil Rights Movement.
For more information on the reading program or the Delta Center, please call 662-846-4311.
Delta Center for Culture and Learning presents at Winterville Mounds
Dr. Luther Brown, Director of the Delta Center for Culture and Learning, gives a presentation at Winterville Mounds.
Dr. Luther Brown, Director of the Delta Center for Culture and Learning, recently gave a presentation at Winterville Mounds as part of their monthly seminar series. Dr. Brown described the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area, which promises to better promote and protect the Delta’s heritage. National Heritage Areas are links between geographic regions and the National Park Service. They strive to inform residents about their own cultural heritage and increase the number of people who visit the region to learn about its heritage. For more information about the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area, contact the Delta Center at 662-846-4311.
Luther Brown
Delta Center for Culture and Learning, and
The Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area
Box 3152 Delta State University
Cleveland, MS 38733
662-846-4312
www.deltacenterforcultureandlearning.com
www.blueshighway.org
www.msdeltaheritage.com
www.birthplaceoftheblues.org
www.facebook.com/MDNHA
Delta Center for Culture and Learning Participates in NEH Workshop
Photo: Bill Abel
The Delta Center for Culture and Learning at Delta State recently hosted a workshop called “The Most Southern Place on Earth: Music, History and Culture of the Mississippi Delta” workshop. The workshop is held twice a year by the Center, with major funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) program known as Landmarks in American History and Culture. Each workshop admits forty teachers from anywhere in the U.S. The session lasts for six days, and examines the Delta’s heritage in the Blues, religion, Civil Rights, foodways, and other important manners.
Tim Shaw, a top-notch instrument maker and elementary art teacher, was able to reunite with bluesman Bill Abel while attending.
Shaw first met Abel when they did a workshop together last summer. Shaw had been making cigar box guitars for a year when he learned of Abel’s cigar box show at the Mary C. O’Keefe Cultural Center in Ocean Springs. Shaw’s wife got her husband and his friends permission to be in Abel’s show through the cultural center.
“I spent two days with him down there at the cultural center. We immediately hit it off,” Shaw said. “I called my wife after the first day and I said, ‘I have met my Jesus.’”
The two have been in touch since, but Shaw’s being at Abel’s performance during the NEH workshop was a complete surprise.
“I didn’t tell him I was coming,” Shaw said. “Yesterday when he was unloading his stuff I came here early to help, and I said, ‘Remember me?’ And he just couldn’t believe I was here.”
Photo: Tim Shaw
After Abel’s show on Wednesday night, Shaw demonstrated his skills on Abel’s cigar box guitar. Shaw said that while he has always been interested in music, he only became a musician in his early 30’s.
“I worked with two guys who were surprised that I didn’t play anything because I knew so much about music,” Shaw said. “They set out on a mission to teach me to play. One of them played the drums, the other one played guitar. They decided they were going to teach me the bass so we could have a band.”
From playing instruments, Shaw became interested in making them. During his quest to make a solid-body electric guitar, he encountered a news clip about a man who made cigar box guitars on the coast. Shaw visited the artist’s gallery in Bay St. Louis with some friends the following Sunday and ended up buying one of the artist’s cigar box guitars.
“I took it home and took it apart and looked at it and thought, ‘Huh, this is interesting. I think I can do this,’” Shaw said. “And so my endeavor to make solid body electric guitars took a left turn to cigar box guitars.”
Shaw, whose projects are usually commissioned, says that the six-day workshop has left him inspired.
“I’m really excited about this workshop. I’ve already designed three new guitars,” Shaw said. “I can’t wait to go home and make them. They’re going to be blues themed.”
For more information, contact the Delta Center at 662-846-4311 or Luther Brown at lbrown@deltastate.edu
Delta Center Recruits Delta State University Supporter
Photo: Restaurateur Willie Bates and the Delta Center’s Lee Aylward and Luther Brown in front of the Four Way Grill, 998 Mississippi Blvd, Memphis, TN 38126. Photo by Rachel Anderson.
The Delta Center for Culture and Learning recently ended a week-long workshop with a trip to Memphis. The 40 scholars who participated in the “The Most Southern Place on Earth: Music, History and Culture of the Mississippi Delta” workshop visited the Cotton Museum, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, and the National Civil Rights Museum before watching the famous ducks walk in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel. Lunch was provided by the Four Way Grill, a favorite soul food haunt of Martin Luther King, boxing promoter Don King, B. B. King, Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, and Little Milton Campbell, all of whom have their pictures hanging in the restaurant.
Founded in 1946, the Four Way is now operated by Willie Bates, a native of Shaw, Mississippi, who moved to Memphis as a boy. Bates said he was proud to receive a Delta State University pennant and would display it alongside his photos of famous patrons.
Delta Center for Culture and Learning Host Louisiana Tour Group
Photo: Luther Brown leads the Louisiana tour group.
The Delta State University Delta Center for Culture and Learning recently introduced 55 people from West Baton Rouge, La., to the cultural heritage of the Mississippi Delta. The Senior Spirit Tour Group travels somewhere in the United States twice a year, and this year their first visit was to the Mississippi Delta. They stopped in Port Gibson, Vicksburg, Cleveland, and Indianola.
Tour participant Larry Durban wrote to the Delta Center, "As a former Chamber director, I commend you, your staff and your organization on promoting your treasures and encourage you to continue to tell the story of your community and the State of Mississippi. You own a very important part of our country’s history and it’s cultural heritage."
For more information on the Delta Center for Culture and Learning, please call 662-846-4312.
