Hypes and Gripes

Bone marrow, (un) pick(ed)up sticks, empowering conference, and more.

• Hypes to Power 96.5’s Dawn McClain, who is actively shopping her bone marrow to potential needy donors. Donating marrow is a painful, involved process—and matching donors are badly needed. Dawn would point out that she’s selling herself; we just say she’s being selfless.

• Gripes to whoever is supposed to be picking up the fallen limbs that have been stacked curbside in Christian County for almost two months. How long until it becomes a real rodent hazard? Yes, we know the endeavor is under way, and we know you’ve had floods and snow and stuff since then, but if piles of cut lumber had been stacked in Springfield neighborhoods for that long in 2007, it would have been bloody riot.

• Hypes to Drury University’s Edward Jones Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (there’s a mouthful!) for its recent Self-employment in the Arts conference, which allowed high school, college and professional writers, actors and musicians to learn from local and national luminaries like Mark Bilyeu, Suzann Ledbetter, Kelly Knauer and Marc Whitmore, among others. Inspiration is never a problem for young creative types, but empowerment is. Hopefully first-hand accounts from local success stories will help provide that.

• Gripes to Springfield Public Schools for not funding those Kickapoo drama students’ trip to the state classical theatre competition. Considering how much dough taxpayers spend propping up jocks and cheerleaders, surely we can afford $3-4K for these kids. Literacy? Memorization? Confident public speaking? Must not be valuable things to learn in Springpatch.