MacMurray Speakers Series looks at the '60s

Panel will share memories, observations about turbulent decade.

For the first event this fall of “Jacksonville Speaks,” MacMurray College’s 2011-12 Speaker Series, area residents will look back at the 1960s.

The event will be 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 8 at the Thoresen Recital Hall in the Putnam/Springer Center, at the corner of East State and Clay streets on the MacMurray College campus. The event is free and open to the public.

A local panel comprised of people who were involved in many of the important issues of the day will recount their memories of that decade and give observations on the widespread changes during the time. The panel members are:

• John Bailey, MacMurray College vice president of academic and student affairs; Central Illinois resident and 1969 student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
• Laurie Beavers, family nurse practitioner in local rural health clinic; nursing student and activist against the Vietnam war, 1964-70.
• J. David Bone, Morgan County Circuit Court presiding judge, retired; Marine infantry lieutenant 1964-68, served in Vietnam, 1966.
• Kathy Burkholder, retired English professor; worked for IBM at the Pentagon, and in 1968 and 1969 worked as a civilian contractor at the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam headquarters in Saigon.
• Guy Crumley, MacMurray College associate professor of education and director of the elementary education program; MacMurray student 1966-1969.
• Emma Williams, president, Jacksonville branch of the NAACP; Jacksonville resident and state worker in the 1960s.
• Kelly Lankford (moderator) MacMurray College associate professor of history.