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Spring Festival of the Arts

Face paintings, art, storytelling, crafts and pictures. These were the activities going on in front of Dunbar Hall on the second day of The Spring Festival of the Arts. Wednesday the 13th was Children’s Day. The Festival on the Green featured booths from various departments around campus. The Art, Theatre, Modern language, Mass communication and English departments participated in the festival. Each booth offered some type of educational yet fun activity for students to participate in.

Area schools such as Alma J. Brown, Ruston Elementary, and Hillcrest Elementary were invited to participate in the festival.

The English department had different people throughout the day to read stories. Some stories read were “The Ginger Bread Man”, “What Kind of Babysitter is This?”, “There’s an Alligator Under My Bed”, and “Special Mother’s Day Poem”.

“I enjoyed reading to the students they responded and participated to the stories” said Linda Logan, secretary of the English department, who was one of the volunteers at the reading booth.

The art classes also had volunteers who interacted with students and did various activities with the children.

“The kids behaved very well, and I got to take up photography, it’s a change from nursing” Joshua Wiltz a sophomore nursing major from Lafayette said.

“I like kids; I work with them in the summer; I’m having fun today taking pictures and painting faces,” said Alvin Collins a senior art major from Ruston. The children got face paintings ranging from a heart to a Carmello Anthony jersey. The Art department also had student volunteers doing the face paintings.

Each student painted their own squares that eventually will make a whole masterpiece to be framed and given to the schools.

“So far the kids have loved it, its been hectic, just the act of painting was what they enjoyed,” said Barbara Bishop, a grad student in alternative certification in art education.

The Theatre department had some of the students from some of their plays dressed up in costumes. The students favorite was the princess.

The Modern Language booth had students creating a Mexican fiesta style art called “Papel Picado” and then the children had the opportunity to decorate bags to put their art in.

The Mass Communication department booth took photos of the classes for keepsakes for the individual schools.

“The painting was wonderful; they liked the storytelling, and they liked learning how to doing the foreign language crafts,” said Sheila Strapp, a 3rd grade teacher at Ruston Elementary.

The festival was supported by a grant from the Louisiana State Arts Council, The Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture Recreation and Tourism, and the Shreveport Regional Arts Council. Other sponsors included were Grambling State University, the City of Grambling, Iberia Bank, and the Coca Cola Bottling Company.