Southeast university homecoming offers a weekend full of events

Southeast Missouri State University will celebrate homecoming this weekend with activities ranging from the annual homecoming parade to a country music concert featuring Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood.

An executive forum will kick off today's homecoming events. Gary Downing, chief executive officer of Lansinoh Laboratories Inc., and Nancy Garvey, vice president and general manager of the Kansas and Missouri regions of Cingular Wireless, will be featured at the forum.

The event is scheduled to start at noon in Dempster Hall's Glenn Auditorium. Rex Rust, co-president of Rust Communications, will moderate the forum.

Midafternoon hunger can be satisfied at Southeast Missourian food columnist and public-radio host Tom Harte's food show and autograph signing at 2 p.m. today at the Southeast public-radio studio of KRCU. Harte, a longtime speech professor at Southeast and now professor emeritus, is the host of "Caffe Concerto" on KRCU.

Southeast's alumni association will honor seven alumni and a faculty member with Merit awards at the Copper Dome dinner tonight at the Show Me Center. The dinner starts at 6:30 p.m.

A readers' theater presentation, "Mr. Twain, Meet Mr. Faulkner," will be presented at 7 p.m. in the University Center Ballroom as part of a three-day conference on the writings of Mark Twain and William Faulkner.

Scripted and directed by Dr. Roseanna Whitlow, instructor of communication studies at Southeast, the dramatic presentation is based on the writings of both Faulkner and Twain.

Saturday's events will kick off with an all-alumni breakfast at 7:30 a.m. in the future Southeast alumni center, formerly the First Baptist Church, at 926 Broadway. Distinguished Service awards will be presented to six Missourians.

The homecoming parade is scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m. at Capaha Park and will make its way east on Broadway. It will feature veterans including former members of the now defunct SEMO Veteran Corps who served during the Vietnam War.

Gen. Seth McKee, a former Southeast student who retired in 1973 as commander in chief of the North American Air Defense Command, will be a the parade dignitary.

This year's homecoming theme for alumni is Connections at Work, reflecting an opportunity for alumni to reconnect with each other through a variety of career-based activities, school officials said.

As in past years, Southeast students have a separate homecoming theme. This year's theme for students is "Let's Get the Show on the Road."

At 11 a.m. Saturday, prior to the homecoming football game, Southeast will hold tailgate parties outside Houck Stadium.

A pep rally will be held at noon on Academic Terraces, featuring the Golden Eagles Marching Band.

The homecoming football game will kick off at 1 p.m. at Houck Stadium as the Southeast Redhawks take on the Eastern Kentucky Colonels.

Alumni who are at least 70 years old are invited to the "Diamond Club" reception at 3 p.m. at Marquette Tower, school officials said.

The night concludes with the "Time Well Wasted" tour country music concert at 8 p.m. at the Show Me Center. It will feature Paisley and Underwood.

Homecoming will conclude Sunday with an alumni bus tour of the city, starting at 10 a.m. at the university alumni center. Stops include the Red House Interpretive Center and the university's under-construction River Campus arts school overlooking the Mississippi River.

Alumni also are welcome at an 11 a.m. church service at the Baptist Student Union.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123