Texoma Connect

Austin College ‘Roo Boo Comes Early

The 17th annual ’Roo Boo at Austin College, hosted by the local chapter of Alpha Phi Omega national service fraternity, will be held Wednesday, October 26, from 6 to 8 p.m. in Sid Richardson Center of the Robert T. Mason Athletic-Recreation Complex, off Brockett Street and just east of the football stadium.

Children aged 12 and younger are invited to wear their costumes and enjoy this free event. Parental supervision is required. Austin College Police will be on patrol during the event.

The event is a safe alternative to traditional trick-or-treating and will offer a bounce house, animal balloons, and various games, booths, and prizes offered by campus organizations. Plenty of free candy is available for participants. Austin College student volunteers, representing more than 55 student organizations, will be dressed in costume for the Halloween celebration.

Alpha Phi Omega is all about service, said Sarah Haque, a sophomore from Plano, Texas, and coordinator of this year’s event. “This event allows us to reach many people in the community.”

In 2015, more than 1,300 people attended the event, which was served by more than 250 campus volunteers.

Local businesses are asked to make donations of gift certificates for the Austin College event by contacting Alpha Phi Omega event coordinator Sarah Haque at shaque15@austincollege.edu or call the Office of Public Affairs at 903.813.2891.

Austin College, a private national liberal arts college located north of Dallas in Sherman, Texas, has earned a reputation for excellence in academic preparation, international study, pre-professional foundations, leadership development, committed faculty, and hands-on, adventurous learning opportunities. One of 40 schools profiled in Loren Pope’s influential book Colleges That Change Lives, Austin College boasts a welcoming community that embraces diversity and individuality, with more than 36 percent of students representing ethnic minorities. A residential student body of 1,250 students and a faculty of more than 100 allow a 12:1 student-faculty ratio and personalized attention. The College is related by covenant to the Presbyterian Church (USA) and cultivates an inclusive atmosphere that supports students’ faith journeys regardless of religious tradition. Founded in 1849, the College is the oldest institution of higher education in Texas operating under original name and charter.

Austin College history professor Hunt Tooley has published his first adventure-mystery novel, Anima and the Goat. Setting the story in London in the 1880s, Tooley draws from his expertise on European history to tell the tale of Charlotte Drummond.

The fictional Charlotte is a journalist with rare independence for a woman of that time. “She is certainly a composite in some sense,” Tooley said, “I think the closest model is indeed a historical person, the great Emily Hobhouse, an English journalist and commentator whose courage and determination exposed the brutal British imperial policies in the Boer War.”

In the novel, Charlotte’s young cousin Amanda is kidnapped in India. She mobilizes a colorful team to travel the world and rescue the girl, but mysterious forces confront the team on its epic mission to the remote mountains of the Hindu Kush. And, in Charlotte’s nightmares hover violence and a loathsome man in a cave.

Tooley published Anime and the Goat via indie publication, which is self-publication through B&N, Amazon, and Smashwords. As the author of three non-fiction books, he has already worked through university presses and concluded that indie publishing afforded several advantages for his fiction. “The indie book world offers a lot of positives,” he said. “I will never see the book on the shelf in an airport snack shop, but on the other hand, since I released the book in June, I have a quite a few readers and some good reviews.”

Tooley is working on a sequel to Anime and the Goat titled The Cloud Man. He has written and edited many books and articles in the field of modern history, and he has lectured widely in North America and Europe. The second edition of his book on World War I appeared in January 2016 as The Great War: Western Front and Home Front. He is a blogger, especially on historical and political topics, and his blog on the Paris Peace Conference (http://parispeace1919.blogspot.com/) is a resource for students of history in many countries.

Tooley has been a member of the Austin College faculty since 1991.

Austin College, a private national liberal arts college located north of Dallas in Sherman, Texas, has earned a reputation for excellence in academic preparation, international study, pre-professional foundations, leadership development, committed faculty, and hands-on, adventurous learning opportunities. One of 40 schools profiled in Loren Pope’s influential book Colleges That Change Lives, Austin College boasts a welcoming community that embraces diversity and individuality, with more than 40 percent of students representing ethnic minorities. A residential student body of approximately 1,275 students and a faculty of more than 100 allow a 13:1 student-faculty ratio and personalized attention. The College is related by covenant to the Presbyterian Church (USA) and cultivates an inclusive atmosphere that supports students’ faith journeys regardless of religious tradition. Founded in 1849, the College is the oldest institution of higher education in Texas operating under original name and charter.

Source:  Austin College Media Release | October 2016

Members of the local community are invited to see the wonders of the night sky, weather permitting, at an Austin College Observatory Star Party on Wednesday, October 12. The public is invited to observe stars through Adams Observatory and other telescopes on the roof of the College’s IDEA Center. Visitors may come and go from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. The event is free but, due to space limitations, advance registration is requested at www.austincollege.edu/adams-observatory. Should weather conditions require cancellation, that news will be posted on the Austin College website after 3 p.m. on the day of the event.

The IDEA Center is located at 1108 E. Richards Street, and parking is available. Visitors should meet in the IDEA Center’s first-floor Page Atrium, just inside the building’s main entrance, to begin their star tour. The largest research telescope in North Texas will open the night sky to viewers. Austin College students also will set up small telescopes to allow visitors to explore craters on the Moon, distant star clusters, and the beautiful Orion Nebula.

Dr. David Baker, chair of the Austin College Physics Department and director of Adams Observatory, will coordinate the event. “When someone looks through the telescope and sees some of these objects in space, there’s a real sense of amazement,” said Dr. Baker. “This is a unique opportunity to look through a telescope of this size and see things in outer space one wouldn’t normally be able to see.”

Austin College, a private national liberal arts college located north of Dallas in Sherman, Texas, has earned a reputation for excellence in academic preparation, international study, pre-professional foundations, leadership development, committed faculty, and hands-on, adventurous learning opportunities. One of 40 schools profiled in Loren Pope’s influential book Colleges That Change Lives, Austin College boasts a welcoming community that embraces diversity and individuality, with more than 40 percent of students representing ethnic minorities. A residential student body of approximately 1,275 students and a faculty of more than 100 allow a 13:1 student-faculty ratio and personalized attention. The College is related by covenant to the Presbyterian Church (USA) and cultivates an inclusive atmosphere that supports students’ faith journeys regardless of religious tradition. Founded in 1849, the College is the oldest institution of higher education in Texas operating under original name and charter.