November 26, 2002 News Releases
Released 11/22/02 & 11/25/02
UTAH
STATE UNIVERSITY ARCHAEOLOGY FIELD SCHOOL UNEARTHS FARMING/LIVING
PATTERNS
LOGAN — Moving people to the production, not moving production
to the people, appears to be the model for ancient farming practices
in southern Utah, and undergraduate students at Utah State University
have completed field work that supports that claim.
“More than 10 weeks of excavation in 2001 and 2002 at
three prehistoric Anasazi sites east of Kanab have revealed
a variety of remains illustrating different aspects of the ancient
farming culture that held sway in Utah from A.D. 500 to A.D.
1300,” said Steven Simms, anthropology professor at Utah
State University and head of Utah State’s archaeology
field school. “The Anasazi in the area, who worked below
the Vermillion Cliffs east of Kanab, are an example of farmers
who have not simply settled down. They move in stops and starts.
They have a number of homes and associated farm plots scattered
around the landscape.”
The concept is not new. It was offered several years ago by
archaeologist Doug McFadden, who works for the federal Bureau
of Land Management. Simms believes that work by the students
in the field and the ensuing followup in the lab will confirm
the practice.
“The Anasazi people of this area, a stretch of terrain
from Kanab east almost to Lake Powell, had a basic ecological
relationship very different from other Anasazi and from us,”
Simms said. “They had to move people across the landscape
to the production, and they had to do it frequently because
plots of farmable land were small and rainfall was very uneven
across this space. This is very different from our relationship
with the environment because we move the production to the people.”
Simms and multiple groups of Utah State students have completed
summer digs on state school lands for the past two summers.
The program is part of the curriculum in the department of Sociology,
Social Work and Anthropology at Utah State. The excavation and
a related reconnaissance of more than 2,000 acres are being
done under contract with the Utah School and Institutional Trust
Lands Administration. The Utah State group found the most exciting,
well- preserved and graphic remains at the “Vermillion
Vista” site, Simms said. The site includes 25-meter-long
walls, five sunken and slab-lined corn bins and paved fire hearths.
While impressive in the collective, it was really a modular
kind of housing — only a single corn bin and its associated
pole-, adobe- and log-covered structure were used at one time.”
The site, after a brief abandonment of perhaps one to five years,
was used again by the same people or their descendants, adding
another module. The new units were built on the same axis as
the previous — the old were often kept largely intact
or simply allowed to become buried in the deserts sands.
“Perhaps a little like keeping grandpa’s room just
as it was when he was alive,” Simms said.
Program officials believe the Vermillion Vista site holds great
educational potential for Utah. It has already provided the
important, hands-on training for Utah State students, but the
site can also be preserved as an outdoor museum for future generations.
“Sites like Vermillion Vista offer a tangible way to touch
and feel some of the more abstract concepts that archaeology
can teach, like the different relationship between the land
held by ancient and modern people,” Simms said. “We
often marvel at prehistoric cultures, either for their fortitude
and tenacity, or their ability to do things under what seem
like ‘primitive’ conditions. But these perspectives
are really more about us than about the ancient ones. They do
not really tell us about them, or what the ancients have to
teach us. In many ways they faced the same problems we face:
finding enough water for the farms, ensuring that production
remains high enough that the bad times can be weathered, managing
the differences between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have
nots’ and so on.”
These factors are ecological issues, and exposing school children
even to simple ecological relationships, such as the premise
of moving people to the production versus moving the production
to the people, can open a world of learning about nature, Simms
concluded.
For information on the archeology field school or the anthropology
program at Utah State, contact Simms at (435) 797-1277.
November 25, 2002
Contact: Steve Simms (435) 797-1277
Writer: Patrick Williams (435) 797-1354
“MOCKINGBIRD”
AFTER TURKEY?
LOGAN — After a short recess for the Thanksgiving holiday,
Utah State Theatre’s production of “To Kill A Mockingbird,”
which completed its first collection of performances on Nov.
23, continues the holiday run Dec. 4-7.
Maycomb, Alabama, comes to life on the Morgan Theatre stage
in the Chase Fine Arts Center on the Utah State University campus.
Evening performances continue with a 7 p.m. curtain, and Saturday,
Dec. 7, brings both an evening and matinee production (2 p.m.
curtain). Ticket prices range from $6-$9 with educational group
discounts available. Call (435) 797-0305 for ticket information.
For group rates information, call (435) 797-1500.
What better way to preserve the holiday season than with a staged
literary classic reminding us about the power of compassion,
tolerance and humanity, production director Colin Johnson said.
Follow “Scout” as she discovers hard facts, real
life and her father’s mission for justice, fairness and
integrity.
November 25, 2002
Contact: Jeremy Gordon (435) 797-1500
UTAH STATE NEWS RELEASES FOR 11-22-02
UTAH STATE
BLUE LIGHT HONORS OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENTS
LOGAN — To demonstrate pride in the many accomplishments
of Utah State University faculty, staff and students, the Aggie
Blue Pride Light will be turned on Monday, November 25. Every
four months the university designates a Blue Pride Light Night
to recognize individuals for their outstanding achievements.
Honorees are mechanical and aerospace engineering senior Ionio
Andrus, Utah State Student Alumni Association Associate Director
Patty Halaufia, graphic design professors Alan Hashimoto and
Robert Winward and Edith Bowen School teacher Kurt Johnson.
Andrus, a mechanical and aerospace engineering senior, was chosen
as the only American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’
undergraduate representative at the International Astronautics
Federation Congress held in Texas this past October.
Halaufia was named the “Outstanding Advisor” at
the national Association of Student Advancement Programs Conference
in Missouri last August for her work with the Utah State Student
Alumni Association.
Under the direction Hashimoto and Winward, the graphic design
program at Utah State has excelled. Hashimoto and Winward continually
push their students to new limits. In fact, three of their students,
Brian Halley, Nathan Philpot and David Wadley, were recently
chosen as three of 30 students in the nation to have their graphic
design posters shown at the annual ACM SIGGRAPH exhibition,
SPACE 2002.
Johnson was named the Nestle “Very Best Teacher”
in the nation this past October.
The Aggie Blue Pride Light sitting atop Old Main lights the
Cache Valley night sky as a symbol of Aggie tradition, heritage
and pride. The outstanding professors, staff and students are
a part of this heritage and contribute to the high quality of
Utah State.
November 22, 2002
Contact: John DeVilbiss (435) 797-1358
Writer: Maren Cartwright (435) 797-1355
HOW CLEAN
IS YOUR DRINKING WATER? Utah State University Scientist is Finding
Out
LOGAN — This month a Utah County city sued an industry
for polluting its municipal water supply. The ooze is now leaching
toward the two remaining wells that serve the city. When it
reaches them — if it reaches them — residents will
be without drinking water.
The problem is, the city of Mapleton needs scientific tools
to determine how much contamination is acceptable and how safe
their water supply is.
And they’re not alone.
In the save-the-earth fervor of the 1970s, the U.S. Congress
amended the Clean Water Act, which required the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) to work with states to restore and protect
the quality of the nation’s waters. Twenty-five years
later, states and regulatory agencies are still trying to figure
out exactly what “clean water” means.
They’re getting help in their quest from Chuck Hawkins,
a biologist with Utah State University’s College of Natural
Resources. Hawkins is trying to establish quantitative methods
to measure whether a river, lake or watershed is healthy.
“We determine what biological organisms would occur in
the absence of human disturbance, to establish a baseline reference
for comparison purposes,” said Hawkins. “In other
words, a healthy ecosystem must be defined before one can determine
what an unhealthy ecosystem looks like. We need to determine
what lakes and rivers looked like historically, before people
came on the scene.”
“Ideally, the reference sites we look at would be pristine,”
he said. “Unfortunately, there are no pristine sites left.
Anywhere. So we’ll have to settle for ‘pretty good.’”
“Pretty good” is what several field crews have been
looking for, exploring 13 Western states for more than five
years. They’ve sampled over 1,100 streams and rivers so
far, funded by four grants from the EPA and two from the Forest
Service.
That’s good news for Western cities and states, which
are required by law to meet federal water standards. It’s
good news for biological systems — home to fish, amphibians
and insects. And it’s good news for anyone who drinks
water in states ranging from Washington to North Dakota to New
Mexico, including Utah.
“Hawkins is developing tools sophisticated enough to measure
incredibly complex systems in the real world, while simultaneously
generating data that water managers, politicians and the public
can easily understand and put to use,” said Chris Luecke,
head of the new Aquatic, Watershed, and Earth Resources Department.
“The tools have to be somewhat intuitive so the interpretation
and application don’t get buried in complex statistics,”
said Hawkins.
“The big challenge is to figure out ways to use the information
we collect from reference sites to predict what conditions should
exist in potentially polluted streams and rivers. Because the
biological systems of rivers and lakes are complex, we can’t
easily predict what a healthy stream should look like at a specific
location. We therefore have to develop statistical models that
make specific predictions based on conditions that exist at
particular locations.”
“If a local river was severely polluted, we could walk
along its banks and see algae blooms and smell odors,”
Hawkins said. “We would know it was sick because we would
mentally compare it to healthy streams in similar locations.
Using data from a large number of reference streams allows us
to quantify the condition of a river relative to that expected
at healthy ones.”
“The limiting factor for municipalities and regulatory
agencies is generally money,” Hawkins said, “and
because there is not enough money to measure everything that
occurs in a stream, we need to determine the measurements that
are most critical.”
“When you go to the doctor, he or she doesn’t measure
everything,” he said. “During a routine physical
examination, you don’t get an EKG or have lots of blood
chemistry tests. It’s too expensive. Instead, the doctor
looks at indicators of health such as your blood pressure, heart
rate and temperature, and compares them to the range of normal
variation in humans to determine whether there is evidence that
you might be sick.
“We’re trying to identify the most useful indicators
of ecosystem health.”
Invertebrates — the insects, crustaceans, mollusks and
worms that live in aquatic systems, are often good indicators,
he said. “They contain a lot of ecological information,
in that some species are sensitive to certain pollutants and
some to other pollutants. These species only occur in clean
water. Others are insensitive and tend to be the dominant species
in highly polluted water. Because invertebrates are easy to
sample, we can collect a lot of information quickly and cheaply."
“We can collect 100,000 bugs from the Logan River in an
hour,” Hawkins said. “Most states are now using
invertebrate samples to determine the health of rivers and lakes.”
One of the challenges Hawkins faces is the variability of Western
ecosystems. Pointing to the bumps and ridges that form that
backbone of Western mountain ranges on a U.S. map, he said,
“I work in the wrinkled area. Eastern scientists have
more homogenous systems. If you start walking east from Logan,
through the Bear River wetlands and then on up to the mountain
streams, you’ll see a great deal of variety.
“We deal with the variety by classifying reference sites
into different types of streams, from which we can then extrapolate
expectations about other sites.”
In classifying those sites, Hawkins is developing benchmarks
that will serve as tools to indicate healthy or unhealthy systems
and ultimately, protect biological systems and watersheds throughout
the West.
“Several Western states are now using or evaluating Hawkins’
techniques for implementing aspects of the Clean Water Act,”
said Luecke. To facilitate progress across the West, Hawkins
is hoping to see more collaboration between state and federal
agencies, less duplication of effort and the development of
more efficient tools for measuring and protecting water.
“If we have biologically healthy streams, we are protecting
water quality for human consumption,” Hawkins said. “Invertebrates
that live in rivers are like the canaries in coal mines —
they are indicators of potential problems. If the right ones
occur in our rivers and lakes, the water is probably safe to
drink and use for other human needs.”
The work Hawkins has conducted in the West is also moving east.
Hawkins is currently involved in a unique collaboration with
scientists from Proctor & Gamble and the Dutch equivalent
of our EPA to determine if the methods he is working on can
be combined with classic measures of toxicity to provide industry
and states more robust assessments of the biological health
of aquatic ecosystems. Initial results of that work will be
reported at this week’s meeting of the Society for Environmental
Toxicology and Chemistry, which is being held in Salt Lake City.
November 22, 2002
Writer: Nadene Steinhoff, 435-797-1429, nadene.steinhoff@usu.edu
Contact: Chuck Hawkins, 435-797-2280, Hawkins@cc.usu.edu
UTAH STATE’S
YOUTH CONSERVATORY PRESENTS ANNUAL HOLIDAY CONCERT
LOGAN — Utah State University’s Youth Conservatory
(YC) invites residents of Cache Valley and beyond to attend
its annual holiday concert. Young pianists from the YC perform
Tuesday, Dec. 3, at 7 p.m. in Logan’s historical Tabernacle.
The concert is free and no tickets are required.
More than 60 outstanding piano students from the Youth Conservatory
audition to play in the concert each year and approximately
one third are selected to perform. The hour-long program includes
favorite holiday tunes arranged for piano solos and duets in
a variety of styles. From jazzy renditions of “Jolly Old
Saint Nicholas” to boogie-woogie arrangements of “Rudolph
the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” the young pianists will swing.
The varied program also includes timeless beauties that include
“Still, Still, Still” and “O, Holy Night.”
Concert organizers say the majority of the program is Christmas-themed,
but the masterworks of Liszt, Beethoven and Chopin have been
performed in previous years. A variety of classic works may
be heard this year as well.
For more information on the Youth Conservatory holiday concert
or conservatory programs, contact the Youth Conservatory office
at (435) 797-3018.
November 22, 2002
Contact: Youth Conservatory (435) 797-3018
CAINE CHAMBER
ENSEMBLES PERFORM AT UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY
LOGAN — The Utah State University Trombone Ensemble is
joined by the Caine Brass and Woodwind quintets and the Caine
Percussion Ensemble for a Dec. 2 concert in the Tippetts Exhibition
Hall of the Chase Fine Arts Center. Concert time is 7:30 p.m.
and the event is free to all.
“Top wind and percussion musicians from the Utah State
music department are able to study and perform chamber music
through a generous scholarship grant from the Marie Eccles Caine
Foundation,” said Todd Fallis, organizer of the Caine
concert activities and coach of the Caine Brass Quintet and
Trombone Ensemble.
The Brass Quintet includes two trumpets, french horn, tenor
and bass trombone. It will perform “Die Bankelsangerlieder,”
or “Bench Singer of Song.” Also planned is “A
Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square,” featuring Josh Rasmussen
on trumpet, and “Four Hits for Five,” a medley of
George Gershwin tunes, including “Summertime,” “Fascinating
Rhythm” and “I Got Rhythm.”
Instrumentation for the Caine Woodwind Quintet includes flute,
oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon. The quintet will perform an
arrangement of a Beethoven sextet and “Prelude and Fugue”
by J.S. Bach.
The Caine Brass and Woodwind quintets recently performed in
a double concerto with the Utah State University Symphony Orchestra.
The Utah State Trombone Ensemble includes 17 trombone players
from the music department. It will perform a medley from “My
Fair Lady,” “Recitative and Fugue” by Patrick
McCarty, a jazz piece called “Bonessa Nova” and
“Italian March.”
The Caine Percussion Ensemble, comprised of the top four percussionists
from percussion faculty member Dennis Griffin’s studio,
will perform “Claire de Lune.”
November 22, 2002
Contact: Todd Fallis (435) 797-3005
THE JAZZ
SCENE RETURNS TO UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY
LOGAN — Members of the Utah State University jazz bands
in the Department of Music present their second concert of the
year Wednesday, Dec. 4, in the Kent Concert Hall of the Chase
Fine Arts Center on campus. The concert features the Utah State
Jazz Ensemble and the Utah State Jazz Orchestra, and concert
time is 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $3 at the door and Utah State
students with current ID are admitted free.
“Our first outing was great this year with a large, appreciative
audience,” said Todd Fallis, director of the Jazz Ensemble.
“The resurgence of big band music discovered in the past
decade by our youth has meant a boon to the jazz program and
our audience size in recent concerts.”
Fallis said the second concert of the season will be even better
than the first. His ensemble opens with Count Basie’s
barn burner, “Wind Machine,” followed by the standard,
“Polka Dots and Moonbeams” featuring Aaron Peck
on alto saxophone. Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Wave”
adds a bossa nova flavor to the program and features David Defay
on trumpet. A vocal selection by Brandi Davis, one of the band’s
pianists, features Larry Smith’s arrangement of “This
Can’t Be Love.” Les Hooper’s “Lost in
the Shuffle,” Gordon Goodwin’s “Keep the Change”
and Duke Ellington’s “Don’t Get Around Much
Anymore” round out the set.
Smith, who directs the Jazz Orchestra and heads the jazz program
in the department, takes the stage next. Joe McQueen is the
featured artist in the Jazz Orchestra’s set. Born in Texas
and growing up in the Oklahoma-Texas area of the southwest,
McQueen started playing the saxophone during his high school
years and was soon playing professionally, Smith said.
“A band he was touring with got stranded in Ogden, Utah,
in 1948 when the leader gambled away the band’s payroll,”
Smith said. “Joe stayed in Utah and has been a force in
Utah’s jazz scene ever since, playing jobs and leading
jam sessions across northern Utah and southern Idaho.”
With the orchestra McQueen will play “Lester Leaps In,”
“Tenderly,” “Blue and Sentimental” (a
song Joe’s cousin Herschel Evans featured with Count Basie)
and Lionel Hampton’s classic blues work “Red Top.”
Other selections by the Jazz Orchestra include Stan Kenton’s
version of “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea”
featuring Roger Karren. Vocalist Kate Proudfit Skinner will
sing Hoagy Carmichael’s “Skylark” and drummer
Rachel Thain and clarinetist Dave Omer solo on Gordon Goodwin’s
“Sing Sang Sung.”
November 22, 2002
Contact: Larry Smith (435) 797-3003
Todd Fallis (435) 797-3005
MEET THE FRY STREET
QUARTET
LOGAN — The Fry Street Quartet, Utah State University’s
professional string quartet in residence, plans a “blockbuster”
concert program to introduce the group to Cache Valley.
The quartet joined the faculty in the Department of Music this
fall and will present its first public performance Tuesday,
Dec. 3, at 7:30 p.m. in the Eccles Conference Center Auditorium.
Tickets are available at the door and admission is $3. Utah
State students with a current ID are admitted free.
Hailed in reviews for its “ageless wisdom and youthful
freshness,” the Fry Street Quartet announced its inaugural
Cache Valley performance with enthusiasm and the same youthful
freshness. It’s easy to see why the quartet’s review
continued by saying the quartet has established itself as one
of the most exciting quartets of its generation.
Personnel for the Fry Street Quartet include Jessica Guideri
(first violin), Rebecca McFaul (second violin), Russell Fallstad
(viola) and Anne Francis (cello).
The quartet’s Dec. 3 program is a repeat of a concert
presented three weeks earlier in Chicago in a live performance
broadcast on WFMT radio. It opens with the familiar, builds
with an exciting contemporary work and concludes with a well-known
classic.
Up first is Beethoven’s “String Quartet in A Major,
Op. 18, No. 5.” The work is modeled after Mozart’s
A major quarter (K464). The Beethoven work has a classical elegance
unique among his many quartets, the Fry Street members said.
Next is a work by Ned Rorem, “String Quartet No. 4.”
This work includes 10 short movements, each based on a Picasso
painting. The music paints vivid musical pictures, juxtaposing
singing, tender melodies and angular rhythms and grotesque harmonies,
the quartet said. The piece conjures images of a mythical Minotaur
running through the maze, an acrobat doing tricks on a ball
and a child holding a dove.
In a recent outreach performance, members of the quartet asked
children to draw pictures depicting their reactions and interpretation
of the music. Quartet members Francis and Guideri said the children’s
interpretations were amazingly accurate and perceptive.
Following intermission the quartet concludes with “String
Quartet No. 14 in D minor, D. 810” (“Death and the
Maiden”) by Schubert. This work, a masterpiece of string
quartet literature, is based on a song Schubert had previously
written in which the text depicts a maiden’s fear as Death
personified comes early to take her, promising to be her friend
and to hold her sleeping forever in his arms.
“Young Schubert wrote the piece at age 27, perhaps already
aware that he would not grow to be an old man, as he had contracted
syphilis and would die at age 31, leaving the world to wonder
what he might have done,” program notes conclude.
The Fry Street Quartet’s residency at Utah State continues
a program initiated with the Arcata String Quartet, supported
by the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation. Fry Street continues in
the tradition of education, outreach and public concerts.
“In addition to the excitement of teaching and working
with the students at Utah State, this residency allows us to
continue touring the country offering concerts and recitals,”
violist Fallstad said. “With the support of the music
department and the university, this residency is highly regarded
and we are pleased to be here.”
In addition to the quartet’s recent performance in Chicago,
the group has appeared in Oregon and Montana. Coming up is a
January performance in New York City, where the quartet will
include a movement from “Death and the Maiden”at
Carnegie Hall.
“Our residency allows us to tour and with that support
we can continue to advance our careers,” Anne Francis
said.
All members of the quartet provide private studio study on campus,
in addition to teaching orchestral sectional classes. Fallstad
and Francis also coordinate the chamber music program in the
Department of Music.
All members of the quartet are excited to present the first
Cache Valley concert and hope residents will feel comfortable
not only attending the concert but visiting afterwards. Comments,
questions and introductions are always welcome, the members
said.
“Don’t be afraid to introduce yourself, we love
talking to people,” Rebecca McFaul said, with the others
agreeing. “Please come to the concert, we can’t
wait to perform here in Logan.”
The string quartet residency program is supported by the Marie
Eccles Caine Foundation with additional support from the music
department and the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
at Utah State.
November 22, 2002
Contact: Russell Falstad (435) 797-3092
Writer: Patrick Williams (435) 797-1354
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