KA-CHING! The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation
hit the jackpot this week with a $1 million contribution from the emir of
Qatar, who visited the museum a year ago and enjoyed a dinner hosted by the
foundation. The tab came to nearly $25,000, money well spent, as it turns
out. What was on the menu? Susan
Mogerman, the foundation’s chief
operating officer, can’t recall. “Oh God, it was very lovely
— I remember that,” she says. “It was fish and something
else.” No telling just what Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the
emir, found so captivating about Lincoln and the museum. After all, Qatar,
one of the richest nations on earth, is considerably different from
America. “Appomattox” isn’t in the vocabulary. When the
sheik assumed power in 1995, it was by way of a bloodless coup — he
took over while his father was on a Swiss ski vacation. Father and son
later reconciled.
THE LAST DANCE Acclaimed dancer and social activist Katherine Dunham died Sunday,
May 21, one month shy of her 97th birthday. Funeral services are
tentatively planned for Friday, May 26, in New York City, depending on
whether adopted daughter Marie-Christine
Dunham-Pratt, who lives in Rome, can make it
in time, according to Ray Coleman, a member of the advisory board of the Katherine Dunham
Center for the Arts and Humanities. In March, Illinois Times reported on the effort to relocate Dunham from New
York to her home in East St. Louis, which also houses a Dunham museum.
However, there’s been some debate as to whether Dunham’s
effects should be shipped to New York, the nation’s cultural center,
or remain in East St. Louis — the place Dunham considered home. Says Charlotte Ottley, Dunham’s local executive liaison, “We must
brand East St. Louis as the mecca for the Dunham legacy, and everyone
associated with her must see it as part of their commitment to keep Miss
Dunham’s legacy alive.”
TAKE TWO OLIVERS . . .
Last Friday, Capt. Deon
Oliver, head of the Springfield Salvation Army
Corps, received the call he and wife Michelle
Oliver, also a captain, had been expecting.
“You pretty much know, after the first year, that you might get a
call — it’s just how the Salvation Army works,” Deon
Oliver says of the couple’s reassignment to the Salvation
Army’s Chicago College for Officer Training. The appointment begins
June 28. In January, Springfield aldermen thwarted the
group’s attempt to build a community center and transitional shelter
across the street from Oak Ridge Cemetery on J. David Jones Parkway.
Finding a site, Oliver says, remains the Salvation Army’s No. 1 goal
— so the Army is bringing in a pair of big guns: Majs. Paul and Barbara Logan from
Milwaukee. This, Oliver notes, speaks to the significance of the situation
facing the Army. With their 25 years of service, he says, “the Logans
will bring skills that the Olivers don’t have.”
Despite the battle over the J. David Jones property,
Oliver says that he’ll miss the friendships he’s built, as well
as working out at the YMCA. He also says he has no hard feelings towards
anyone. “The minute I receive a call, my goal is to come in do what
I’ve been asked to do,” Oliver says. “Honestly, I can say
I’ve gone 100 percent and given my all.”
GET INTO THE RACES The current state of Springfield race relations is
the topic at a public forum on Wednesday, May 31. It’s the second in
a series presented by the new Citizens Club; panelists are former
Springfield Mayor Karen Hasara, former Springfield Housing Authority head Willis Logan, University of
Illinois at Springfield emeritus professor Larry
Golden, Springfield Ward 2 Ald. Frank McNeil, and Sangamon
County Board member Doris Turner. The forum begins at 5:15 p.m. in the Dove Conference
Center of the Prairie Heart Institute at St. John’s Hospital, 619 E.
Mason St.
This article appears in May 25-31, 2006.
