The Skyline Newspaper

Blair Sydney, Rebecca Benson, and Amber Bowman with Lady Liberty. Photo by Sara Schultz

Christmas Theatre Productions

Two Christmas productions, "The Ballad of King Windowglass," and "Christmas:1933," will be presented Friday-Sunday, Dec. 7-9, by the Sul Ross State University Theatre Department.

Performances will begin at 8:15 p.m., Friday and Saturday, Dec. 7-8, and 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 9, in the Studio Theatre, Francois Fine Arts Building.

Tickets are free to all Sul Ross students, staff and faculty with ID, $6 for adults, and $4.50 for senior citizens.

This year's Christmas Reader's Theatre, directed as a senior project by Sul Ross student Eric Flint, Del Rio, offers seasonal shows for the entire family.

"The Ballad of King Windowglass," a hilarious play by Jack Kurtz, features the Good King Wendleglance, uh, Wearyloose… Windowglass… Wenceslas (that's it!), in his endeavors to present a gift to a poor peasant.

The play tracks his journey as he encounters unanticipated difficulties regarding political correctness.

After a brief intermission, "Christmas: 1933," by Larry L. King, will be presented.

The play is a touching Christmas tale about "the Christmas Daddy got lost in the woods."

For more information on show times and tickets, call (432) 837-8218.

Academics, Debate Kill SR Cynicism

By MaryAshley P. Gredell
Skyline Reporter

Within a week of arriving in Alpine, I was made fully aware that Sul Ross is not known for its academics.

I don't mean that to offend any of us who have spent years or decades here on this mountainside campus. Every friend who has visited fell just as in love with the scenery, the weather, the subdued red-brick architecture that so seamlessly marks Sul Ross as being apart from the rest of the lovely town.

Unfortunately, many residents in said small lovely town made it very clear to me as a first-year Lobo, I was not thought of as a brainiac or the creme-de-la-creme of Texas high schools. It didn't matter my reasons for choosing Sul Ross (because, like many of us, I indeed chose to come here: a first choice), I was informed that it would be easy to graduate if I managed to stick around, I would probably become a heavy drinker, and that if I did happen to be mildly intelligent, I'd find no one to talk to.

Funny thing: those cynical voices were entirely, ironically, uneducated about Sully students, themselves.

For anyone who doubts the educational merits of the people here, I say this: Take another look. Walk into the Communication and Fine Arts building some Tuesday night, and I promise the dialogue you hear will be broad and deep; the upcoming presidential candidates, immigration issues. These are the Sul Ross speech and debate students.

I hadn't debated a day in my life when I came here. At a bigger school with a better-funded and more competitive team, I would not have had a chance to even test out my speaking skills; at Sul Ross, I was welcomed by Dr. Esther Rumsey and the senior members of the team.

At least a dozen road-trips and tournaments later, and I consider myself a fair voice and a decent competitor.
Beyond that, though, I've learned how to think on my feet, and I've also rooted out some individuals here who have impressive experiences and opinions that were very new and fascinating to a big-city girl such as myself.

Traveling all over the country with a group of students from all over the state and Mexico widens your eyes, to say the least, and it is a prideful experience to match wits with schools like UT Austin, Rice, OU, and UC-Berkeley and hold your own from a tiny no-name school in the farthest reaches of Texas. We may be the only academic team on campus, but we travel enough and compete strongly enough to put our school in a good light, just as our outstanding Lobo athletes do with scores that seem to get better every year.

The fact of the matter is, as a reasonably educated person on the brink of graduating with honors, this campus is full of off-the-beaten path intelligence.

That's simply not debatable.

Faculty Profile: Ilda González

By Madeleine Cantu
Skyline Reporter

I have to admit that one of my favorite things about Sul Ross is the professors that work here. When I talk to friends at other universities across the U.S. about their teachers, I rarely find them gushing or bragging about them to me. Yet when given the chance, I do just that.

One of my favorite professors this year is Ilda González, who teaches first and second year Spanish courses. In the classroom, she focuses on speaking Spanish only, and I have never seen her enter the room without a smile or heard her speak in anything but a light, easy-going voice.

González has been teaching at Sul Ross part-time for four years, in classes that were offered at night or in the summer. This fall semester has been her first full-time semester at Sul Ross.

Before her move out here, she taught at Midland College and at high-school level for a combined fifteen years.
She received her bachelor's in Fine Arts here at Sul Ross, and received her master's at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Currently, she is working on her doctorate in linguistics through Florida State University.

"The move here from Midland was so easy," she says about Alpine and Sul Ross. "The area is just wonderful. For a linguist, it's so interesting."

For example, the Southwestern Spanish that people speak along the Texas border is fascinating to Sra. González.

"Southwestern Spanish is to Spanish as the French spoken in Louisiana is to French. It's almost its own dialect.
Alpine is its own Mecca of language. It's in a great position for Spanish in particular.

"One of the things I love best about this university is the way in which it pushes professors to get involved with their students. If students need help, the professor is right there to guide them."

It is this type of mindset that really instills a sense of loyalty in me to Sul Ross. Like any university, you can criticize nearly anything you wish - but when it comes to the majority of my past and present teachers, I can't say I would.

And, no, I'm not just writing this because next week is finals week.

Sra. González isn't the only professor who had me at "hola."

A Night Of Enchantment: Dancing Under Hypnotist Daniel James' Spell

By Robbie McDaniel
Skyline Reporter

Sully Productions hosted Comedy Hypnotist Daniel James of Las Vegas in the University Center last Wednesday evening, Nov. 28. A large crowd of students and community members were on hand to enjoy this entertainment spectacle.

A dozen volunteers took the stage and were put under James' spell for 90 minutes of fun and hilarity. The impromptu entertainers amused the crowd with ballet dancing and a performance as a group of "Chippendale" dancers, and many other shenanigans.

Two volunteers repeatedly took their shirts off and turned them inside out on hearing the words "car keys."
Other volunteer cast members laid across neighbors' laps, insisting that they were seat belts.

All panel members had fun eating invisible ice cream cones of every flavor and owning an invisible exotic bird which perched on their fingertips for a time. One guy kept jumping up and shouting, "Anybody want to pet my monkey?"

If you haven't caught one of the hypnotist acts on campus this semester, be on the lookout for similar opportunities next semester. This is clearly one of the best entertainment opportunities that Sully Productions provides throughout the school year.

Ortega Presents Graduate Art Show Dec 7-13

"don't touch that," an art installation by graduate art student Denise Solaris Ortega, will be on view Dec. 7-13, from 9 a.m.-noon., and 1-5 p.m., in the former Museum of the Big Bend, in Lawrence Hall.

A closing reception will be held Dec. 14, at 6:00 p.m.

Of her show, Ortega writes:

I remember an author once said that he could write about his childhood for the rest of his writing career; that is how substantial that period is in our lives is. Whether this was an actual quote or a thought that came to me inspired by this nameless writer, I am uncertain. Nevertheless, to this day, the phrase holds so much truth to me. I too believe that one could search, document, recapitulate, and research her childhood and still not have enough time to understand the many strange encounters and sensations experienced. All the more fitting, the memory of the sensation brought on by that thought has muted itself and become a quasi-memory, where figment and reality have merged. It could be said that the "truth" is quite simply what we can piece together from sensory clues to the stories of our past.

Childhood is our prime collecting period of these sometimes illusive memories. My installation deals with this idea, taking into account child perception and the restraints found when exploring the adult world. Because the proportions of objects and the magnitude of experiences are so exaggerated when one is small, the scale of the installation is in itself over-sized in some instances and underrated in others.

The work presented is a manifestation of some of these encounters.

It is in the spirit of documentation that I have developed adoration for images in combination with written word.
Among the most inspiring forms of documentation are memoirs. I am drawn to the vulnerability involved in a human being's ability to tell her own story on paper, indiscriminately and with no concern over who the audience may be.

As a visual artist it is difficult to argue the use of text. The phrase "A picture is worth a thousand words" comes to mind; to which I can only add: sometimes there just aren't enough words to truly describe something.

Holiday Concert Dec 6.

Sul Ross State University's Music Department will present a holiday concert Thursday, Dec. 6, 7:30 p.m., in Marshall Auditorium.

There is no admission charge and the public is invited.

Band selections, "A Christmas Party," by Harold L. Walters, and "O' Magnum Mysterium," by Morten Lauridsen, will open the concert. The choir will perform four parts of "Gloria," by Antonio Vivaldi, singing Gloria, Et in terra par, Domini fili unigenite and Quonium tu solus sanctus.

The Sul Ross concert band will play "Ave Maria," by Franz Schubert, featuring mezzo soprano soloist Erin Lippard.

The band and choir will unite in performing Johann Sebastian Bach's "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme," followed by choral numbers "A Christmas Carol," by Charles Ives; "Alleluia, a New Work Is Come," by Robert J. Powell; "Locus iste (motet)," by Anton Bruckner; and "In the Bleak Midwinter," by Donald Callen Freed.

A band selection, "A Christmas Festival," by Leroy Anderson, will conclude the concert.