[GPL Newsflash] Three From Osage Street

[Library Director]

Three from Osage Street (poetry and prose sketches about growing up in Girard, KS, in the 1940's and 1950's) by Thomas Lisenbee, Kay Z. Myers, and Bret Waller.

Program presentation during Fall Festival Saturday, October 3rd at 2 pm at the Library. Make plans to attend!

Biographical information on the authors:

Thomas Lisenbee lives with his wife, Sharon Paige, in Brooklyn, NY. Tom graduated from GHS in 1956, from PSU (then KSTC) in 1960, and from Tulsa Universtiy in 1961 with a MA in music. He was the son of Percy and Evelyn Lisenbee, who were both teachers of renown for many years in the Girard School System. Evelyn taught voice and piano privately as well as Speech and Spanish at GHS (and, for many years, also choral music). Percy taught everything else— from Accordion to Zither. If it was a musical instrument, Percy could teach it and teach it well, even though the only instrument he could play was the violin! While Tom attended Tulsa U., he was an instructor in trumpet and also the Principal Trumpeter for the Tulsa Philharmonic. In 1963 he left Tulsa to go play with the Concertgebouworkest in Amsterdam, Holland. From there he went to the Israel Philharmonic, then to Dublin, Ireland. to play with the Radio Telefis Eirean Symphony Orchestra. In 1966, he returned to New York City where he got all the lucky breaks that were needed to establish a free lance career. He retired from the trumpet in November of 2001, not because he tired of playing, but because there was something else he wanted to do more: writing. Both his poetry and fiction regularly appear in literary journals. In 2006, one of his short stories was short-listed for the Raymond Carver Short Story Prize. He has published one chapbook of poetry, Dogwalking and other Poems (Wild Pines Press, 2004) and is a member of the Upper Delaware Writers Collective. While acknowledging that he might not have enough years left to become the writer he would like to be, his parents taught him this: if you want to do something, then just do it.

Kay Z. Myers lives with her husband, John Myers, in Wayne, PA. She graduated from GHS (as Mary Kay Zettl) in 1956 and then from KU in 1961 with a BS in education. Her parents were Karl (Dutch) and Wilma (Billie) Zettl. Her grandparents, Joe and Marie Zettl, founded Zettl’s Bakery, which (during the 1940's and 50's) had shops in Pittsburg and Fort Scott, as well as in Girard. Her father served on the Girard Hospital Board, and her mother helped found the Girard PTA. A perennial student, Kay received her MA in Teaching of English (1982) from Villanova University in Villanova, PA (where her husband taught for years as a Professor of Chemical Engineering). When the youngest of their five children was nearly grown, Kay earned her PhD in Literature from the University of Delaware (1992). Though Kay’s major career was homemaking, she also taught freshmen English classes part-time in the Villanova area: at Harcum Junior College (1981-1985) and at Cabrini College (1983-86). In 1989-91, Kay worked as Public Relations Assistant for a Philadelphia Social Service organization, Episcopal Community Services. Two of her more interesting volunteer experiences were (1) a 100-mile back-packing trip in Philmont, NM, as co-leader of an Explorer Scout crew; and (2) organizing “Art & Religion, The Many Faces of Faith,” a multi-ethnic, interfaith, religious art exhibition of 100 artists sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese of PA. That exhibit ran simultaneously for six weeks in 1997 at the Villanova University Art Gallery and the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies in Philadelphia. Kay has done much more writing than publishing—2 novels, 6 children’s stories, and over 100 unpublished poems—but she did publish previously a book of 52 poems, Philadelphia Marathon (Wyndham Hall Press, 1984)..

Bret Waller lives with his artist wife, Mary Lou Dooley Waller, in Indianapolis, IN. Bret graduated from GHS in 1953, doing the art work for the yearbook that year. He attended KU from 1953 to 55, transferring to the Kansas City Art Institute in the middle of his junior year to finish his undergraduate work there, and returned to KUGirard resident, he was the son of Bret and Juanita Waller, and the grandson of Marion G. Slawson—a Kansas State Representative, president of the Chamber of Commerce, entrepreneur, and inventor with many patents. Bret joined the staff of the University of Kansas Museum of Art (now called the Spencer Museum) in 1964 as Curator, became Director there in 1968, and served in that capacity until 1971. From there he moved on to become director of art museums at the Universities of Michigan and Rochester, NY; head of public education at the Metropolitan Museum; associate director of the J. Paul Getty Museum; and, for eleven years until he retired as Director Emeritus, Director of the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Bret has contributed essays to scholarly journals, professional publications, and numerous exhibition catalogues. Among his publications are catalogue essays in The School for Scandal: Thomas Rowlandson’s London; Artists of La Revue Blanche; Works from the Collection of Herbert and Dorothy Vogel; and articles in scholarly journals on Georges Rouault, Tom Wesselmann, John Steuart Curry and others. He wrote and saw produced a one-act play on the famous legal dispute between James A. McNeill Whistler and John Ruskin. Tongue-in-cheek, he “proudly states, however, that his magnum opus to date is a huge corpus of finely crafted and as yet unpublished administrative memos.

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Posted By Library Director to GPL Newsflash at 9/28/2009 06:10:00 PM