Colorado Mountain College, Alpine Campus

Steamboat Springs, Colorado

Thursday & Friday, June 22 & 23

chau•tau•qua n : a traveling circuit of lectures, plays, and musical programs begun in 1874 at Lake Chautauqua, New York.

On June 22 and 23, Colorado Mountain College will host its second annual Chautauqua featuring Colorado writer and storyteller John Stansfield and Colorado author Linda Hogan. Music and refreshments will be a part of the event. All shows are FREE. Music starts at 5:00 under the tent on the CMC soccer field. Chautauqua speakers/performers will begin at 6:00.

•On Thursday, June 22, John Stansfield will portray Enos Mills, the “father of Rocky Mountain National Park. Mills arrived in Colorado from Kansas in 1884 at the age of 14 and formed a strong attachment to Colorado’s wildlife, mountains and wilderness. Inspired by John Muir, Mills became a naturalist, writer, speaker and conservationist. Over the last few decades, John Stansfield has studied Mills and followed his tracks in the West. Stansfield has been a storyteller since 1970 and has told stories to more than one million listeners throughout the country. Stansfield also teaches storytelling at the University of Colorado--Colorado Springs and is the founder of the Rocky Mountain Storytelling Festival. The Wilderness Society presented him an Environmental Heroes Award in 2004 for his ongoing work to protect Colorado's wild places.

•On Friday, June 23, award winning poet, essayist and novelist Linda Hogan will be speaking and giving a reading. Hogan is one of the most influential writers in contemporary American Indian literature. Her books of poetry and essays include: Calling Myself Home (1978), Daughters, I Love You (1981), Eclipse (1983), Seeing Through the Sun (1985), That Horse (1985), Savings (1988), Book of Medicines (1993), and Dwellings (1995). Her first novel, Mean Spirit (1990), was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. Her two latest offerings are The Woman Who Watches Over the World (2001) and Sightings: The Gray Whales' Mysterious Journey (2002). Hogan, a descendent of the Chickasaw nation, has a Masters degree in English and Creative Writing, was a professor at the University of Colorado, and has been the recipient of a Guggenheim grant, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Oklahoma Book Award for fiction, the Lannan Award for poetry and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas.

Prior to the above offerings, The Yampa Valley Boys will be performing on Thursday, June 22 at 5:00 with their acoustic cowboy campfire music. Trevor G. Potter will be performing Friday, June 23 at 5:00 playing acoustic American roots music.

For more information about Alpine Chautauqua, please call Colorado Mountain College, Alpine Campus in Steamboat Springs, at 870-4444.