Blazer Soccer Gets First Loss

The University of Mobile (#25) beat Belhaven College (#6) yesterday in soccer. The Mobile Rams and Belhaven Blazers have been longtime rivals. Rams head coach Pete Fuller led Belhaven to its NAIA National Championship in 1992. After a term at Houghton College he took the helm at Mobile in 1995 and led the Rams to a 2002 NAIA National Championship.

Mobile improves to 7-4-2 while Belhaven gets its first loss with a record of 13-1-1.

Belhaven Soccer #13

The Belhaven College men's soccer team (10-0-1) is ranked #13 in the country by the NAIA Coaches Poll. Belhaven College President Dr. Roger Parrot notes there are three remaining games this year in the Belhaven Bowl.

Sat. Oct. 11 Reinhardt College Belhaven Bowl 4:00 PM
Wed., Oct. 15 Ouachita Baptist Belhaven Bowl 3:00 PM
Fri., Oct. 17 Lee University Belhaven Bowl 3:00 PM

Belhaven Blazer Men's Soccer

Pelican Road

Howard Bahr, a Belhaven College professor, is getting good notes on his latest book Pelican Road:

“…re-creates this seminal moment in American history with prose that is vivid, unflinching, and often incantatory…Howard Bahr’s accomplishment is magnificent.”
—Washington Post Book World

“…a mature work of fiction by a gifted writer — affectingly eloquent and fearless of complexity and ambiguity…Bahr is a writer with a fluent lyric facility, subtly ensuring that the brutality of his narrative events never becomes numbing…a beautifully wrought novel that deserves a wide audience.”
—Los Angeles Times

“[Bahr] is a true poet of weather, of night and of time…Not since James Agee has someone made the Southern night so alive, so intimate, so orchestral…Along with the sweeping, cinematic story of rebellion, loyalty, revenge, and reawakened romance, Bahr’s evocation of place and time is the most enduring achievement of the novel.”
—New York Times

“Bahr masterfully portrays ordinary men [whose] belief in courage, honor, pride, and comrades sustains them but leaves them empty but for their terrible memories and grief…beautifully written…”
—Booklist

You can buy it at Amazon for $16.50.

Hamilton Portrait

Sherry Lucas writes a column about a piece of art with a Belhaven connection in today's Clarion Ledger.

In the corridor of The Mississippi Story at the Mississippi Museum of Art, an 1884 portrait of James Stewart Hamilton Jr. has joined other works from the museum's permanent collection that evoke the state's people, history, land and life.

It's a five-foot portrait of a boy, intriguing as much for its period dress - a velvet smock with a lace collar, snug leather boots and riding crop - as for its details. An intent gaze counters rosy cheeks and a curling forelock.

The painting is attributed to James Thomas Poindexter (1832-1891), an itinerant painter who had a studio in Evansville, one in Kentucky and possibly one in Grenada for a while. He'd also apparently spent some time in New Orleans.

The boy is standing on what was then the family property. The family home, built by the boy's father, Col. James S. Hamilton, was named Belhaven in honor of his ancestral home in Scotland.

It's where Belhaven College sits today.

The Belhaven Lake in the background no longer exists. It was drained and filled in. And the mountain range behind the lake? That's a piece of artistic license.

What's not fabricated is that outfit. The museum has the actual smock and riding crop from the portrait, from the family, Piersol says. They've yet to figure out how to display those.

The rest of the story for young Hamilton is a sad one. He died at age 21 in a tragic train accident.

Just a couple of notes on it, though. Belhaven College today is not on the Hamilton property on Boyd Street. It moved from that land after the second Belhaven College fire in 1910, and the school reopened on its current property on Peachtree Street. Also, there is still a lake on the property at Belhaven College although it is much smaller (some of it has been drained) and I have no idea if it is the same water from the picture.

Fortification Street and the Battle of Jackson

Dr. Roger Parrott at Belhaven College blogs about the neighborhood's work on Fortification Street, and how that thoroughfare got its name during the Battle of Jackson: Belhaven Neighborhood, Fortification Street, and the Civil War in our Front Yard

Blogs @ Belhaven College

Belhaven College is launching a number of blogs by students and faculty and staff. The two primary ones up and running are "The President’s Reflections: 'Worldview Matters'" by Belhaven College President Roger Parrott, and a general news blog on Belhaven College "Belhaven News and Information." Check out more at blogs.belhaven.edu.

Barbershop Singing

The 59th Festival of Harmony barbershop singing event will be Saturday at 7pm at the Belhaven College Center for the Performing Arts on Riverside Drive. Tickets: $10 students, $20 adults. For more details: 601) 825-7301.

Fountains, Water Bills, & Lakes

Belhaven College dedicates its new Entergy Pavilion and fountain today.

The City of Jackson warns Belhaven water bills will include and extra $20 charge this cycle.

The Northside Sun writes, "THE LEFLEUR LAKES flood control and economic development plan was first introduced in 1996. With it, came the promise of nearly ending flooding in downtown Jackson while offering the capital city a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to cash in on the Pearl River. Twelve years and $2.8 million later, the river looks exactly the same. The LeFleur Lakes plan has been shelved and Jackson is no safer than it was before the Easter Flood of 1979." (Read the Full Story)

Entergy Pavilion

On Friday, April 4, Belhaven College will unveil its new Entergy Pavilion on campus. The ceremony will feature a performance by the Belhaven Dance Department, a solo by well known Mezzo-Soprano, Lester Senter Wilson, and comments from Belhaven College President Dr. Roger Parrott and Entergy Mississippi CEO, Carolyn Shanks. The Entergy Pavilion will provide outdoor performance space for theatre, dance, and music. When not in use, the pavilion's fountain’s dancing waters will be synchronized to music.

Chandelier

Interesting story in today's Clarion Ledger about this artistic chandelier created for the arts building at Belhaven College.

Food and Art

ChowHound.com has some positive posts about Basil's of Belhaven.

Roy Adkins posts about the Mississippi Improv Alliance's recent event at Belhaven College’s dance studio.

College: Music & Baseball

The Belhaven Music Department presents An Evening of Diamonds III, the third concert in its Mrs. J.R. Preston Sr. Memorial Chamber Music Series, 7:30 p.m. tonight at the Belhaven College Center for the Arts. The Belhaven Piano Trio and The Sachs Piano Duo will perform. Musicians include Belhaven faculty members: Song Xie, violin; Carolyn Sachs, piano; Stephen Sachs, Belhaven music chair. Mississippi Symphony Orchestra principal cellist Bennett Randman also is featured. Tickets, $10, are available through the Belhaven music department. Doors open at 7; a reception follows the performance. (Read the Full Story Here)

Congrats Coach Denson - The Belhaven College Baseball Team (5-5, 2-4) defeated the Crichton College Comets on Tuesday afternoon (Feb. 12) by a score of 9-1. The win gives Hill Denson his 700th career collegiate victory. Denson is in his 8th season with the Blazers where he has amassed 232 victories. His first 473 victories came at the University of Southern Mississippi, where he coached for 14 years. (Read the Full Story Here)

Sudan

The Clarion Ledger ran a story Sunday about James Mabuoch, one of the "lost boys of Sudan," who attends Belhaven College.

The Angelic Band from Blazer Land

Today's Clarion Ledger has a story about the new Belhaven College marching band:

When the Belhaven Blazers return to the gridiron in the fall, the 10-year-old team will share the field with the college's first marching band. Band director Paxton Girtmon wants "The Angelic Band from Blazer Land" from the private Presbyterian college to have about 70 members during its inaugural year. In addition to new students, the marching band will include members of the school's symphonic and jazz bands, two groups already assembled, practicing and ready to generate music in the fall while walking in step with fellow musicians.

The football hysteria that ignites most college campuses is new to 1,800-student Belhaven. The football team came on board shortly after Roger Parrott became president of the college. Founded as a women's college in 1883, the school also lacked a fight song until last fall when Girtmon penned Go Belhaven Blazers before the football team ran onto the field last fall.

Girtmon's band won't have full uniforms until after a fundraising campaign slated to begin after the first marching band season. It's a new beginning for Girtmon, who was an associate director of Jackson State University's internationally known Sonic Boom of the South for three years. (Read the full story here)

Talk DANCE

JFP has this profile of Belhaven College professor Stephen Wynne and his new project for Jackson's dance and arts community: Talk DANCE.

Belhaven Prof Earns Humanities Teacher Award for 2007

The Northeast Ledger reports, Louis Campbell, "professor of theater and founding chair of the theater department at Belhaven College, recently received the Humanities Teacher Award for 2007. The Mississippi Humanities Council gives it to one humanities faculty member at each institution of higher education in the state...Campbell, 66, grew up in Colorado and attended Westminster College in Salt Lake City, where he met Laura, his wife of 43 years. He earned a master's degree at Brigham Young University, received a doctorate in theater from the University of Minnesota, then started a theater program at a Catholic school in La Crosse, Wis. He conceived and directed the first International Festival of Mime and Pantomime in 1974 in La Crosse. Later, he worked with Ohio State's theater program and consulted for 20 years in the United States and abroad before Belhaven asked him to start its program...His own books include Mime in Our Time, Biomechanics for the Actor and Mime in the Twentieth Century. He continues to be a consultant for theaters in the U.S. and abroad, having helped with more than 100 facilities. He's working with Jackson Academy and the Ruth B. Eckerd Hall in Clearwater, Fla. He and his wife co-founded The Joshua Squad, a missions-based physical theater performance team involving students in service and ministry through the arts. He also founded the Enclave of the Arts, an international performing arts networking organization." (Read the Full Story Here)

Belhaven College Singing Christmas Tree

Belhaven College will host the 75th Siniging Christmas Tree in the Belhaven Bowl this Friday and Saturday nights begining at 7:30pm. The annual event, started in 1933, is considered to be the world's oldest outdoor singing Christmas tree tradition. Read more about it this profile from Saturday's Clarion Ledger: Branching out: Singing Christmas Tree gets singers out of comfort zone.

'Tutus and Turning Wheels' puts a new spin on dance

From the Clarion Ledger:

The jaunty sound of Dueling Banjos twang through the rehearsal studio at Belhaven as two men square off in classic high-noon style.

Big and tough Tom Burnley of Madison and the smaller, lightning quick Benji Tompkins of Winter Park, Colo., dance with the wiliness of winking cowpokes. Burnley's crutches come in handy, not only bracing his imposing frame to full advantage, but also as a percussion instrument and a prop for Tompkin's agile antics.

Dance? Crutches? Wait till they get on wheels, Burnley in a wheelchair and Tompkins on a rolling desk one.

That's the idea that Tunes, Tutus and Turning Wheels, a Saturday dance event at Belhaven College Center for the Arts, takes for a spin onstage.

The program combining dancers and dancers with disabilities is a collaboration of the USA International Ballet Competition, VSA arts of Mississippi, Methodist Rehabilitation Center, Mississippi Paralysis Association, Collage arts organization and Belhaven College. (Full Story Here)

Blazer Baseball Coach - Hall of Fame

Belhaven College's baseball coach, Hill Denson, will be inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame.

Belhaven to hold arts and music festival

Clarion Ledger: "Jackson’s historic Belhaven neighborhood will host an arts and music street festival this weekend. Bright Lights, Belhaven Nights begins at 6 p.m. Saturday and stretches along Carlisle Street from New Stage Theatre to McDade's Grocery parking lot. The festival will feature various musicians, artists, craftsmen, vendors and children’s attractions. Admission to the festival is $3 for those 13 and older; $1 for ages 12 and under."