Contact: Kenneth Billings
An award-winning Gulfport performing arts program will present "Winnie-the-Pooh" Wednesday [April 8] as part of the 2009 Children's Reading Conference at Mississippi State University.
Keeping with the theme "Bears Love Reading and MSU," the WINGS Performing Arts Program will take pre-school children to the well-known "Hundred-Acre Wood." The performance begins at 8:45 a.m. in the Fowlkes Auditorium of the Colvard Student Union, following a welcome from Rhonda Keenum, wife of university president Mark Keenum.
Following the play, activities move to the lawn of the President's home, weather permitting, for snacks, puppet-making with the WINGS cast and story sharing led by Mrs. Keenum and MSU students.
Based at the Lynn Meadows Discovery Center, WINGS provides instruction, production and related exercises in the performing arts. It gained national recognition in 2007 after receiving the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities' prestigious Coming Up Taller Award. The following year, Gov. Haley Barbour added the Governor's Award for Excellence in Arts Education in Mississippi.
Organized by MSU's department of curriculum, instruction and special education, the WINGS visit is co-sponsored by the Office of the President, MSU Libraries, Richard Holmes Cultural Diversity Center, College of Education, and department of leadership and foundations.
In the event of inclement weather, all post-play activities will take place in union rooms 329-330.
For more information on the conference, contact Nancy Verhoek-Miller at 662-325-7128 or nverhoek-miller@colled.msstate.edu.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.