National Activist Jim Hightower to Speak April 4, 5 at Utah State’s Sustainable Landscapes Conference

Utah State University’s Sustainable Landscapes organization presents “An Evening with Jim Hightower: A Discussion about Community” Monday, April 4, at 7 p.m. in the Eccles Conference Center auditorium. The lecture, a fundraiser benefiting the student-led organization, precedes the day-long Sustainable Landscapes Conference on Tuesday, April 5, at which Hightower is the keynote speaker. Both events are open to the public.

 

Described as a “modern-day Johnny Appleseed,” Hightower is author of the New York Times best-seller Thieves in High Places: They’ve Stolen Our Country and It’s Time to Take it Back. Twice elected Texas Agriculture Commissioner, Hightower has spent the last three decades spreading a message of progressive populism on behalf of America’s consumers and working families, according to his Web site.

 

Tickets for “An Evening with Jim Hightower” are $10 in advance or $15 at the door. Tickets for students with current ID are $5. Tickets are available at the Taggart Student Center Customer Service Center, room 212, on campus, the Smith Spectrum Ticket Office and Fuhriman’s Framing and Fine Arts, 75 S. Main, Logan.

 

Utah State’s College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences sponsors the evening lecture.

 

“Landscape Cycles: Connecting People to Place Through Agriculture” is the theme of the group’s April 5 conference, which features lectures by nationally renowned speakers in addition to Hightower, along with workshops and discussions led by local experts.

 

Conference tickets are $40 per person and include access to all conference sessions, a conference guide and continental breakfast. Cost for students with current ID is $10. A complete conference schedule and registration forms are available on-line at www.sustainablelandscapes.org or by calling 435-797-0500.

 

The annual conference, now in its sixth year, seeks to provide a forum for discussion of sustainable issues, especially those particular to the Intermountain West.

 

“This year’s gathering explores the connection between food and human life cycles to better understand how people are connected to the places in which they live,” said Lori Porreca, conference co-chair.

 

Hightower will open the conference, also held in the Eccles Conference Center, with his keynote address, “Beyond the Kitchen Table: Connecting Local to Global.”

 

Other featured speakers include Kami Pothukuchi, a geographer and urban planner from Wayne State University; ecologist Laura Jackson of the University of Northern Iowa; and Bob Budd, director of land management for the Nature Conservancy of Wyoming.

 

Local experts will offer workshops on such topics as permaculture, citizen empowerment, farmland preservation and revitalization of local food systems.

 

Parking for both the lecture and the conference is available in the university parking terrace at 850 E. 700 North. The Eccles Conference Center is a short walk from the parking terrace and the Veterinary Science building bus stop on 700 North on Logan Transit District Route 4.

 

Conference sponsors include Utah State’s colleges of HASS, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Business, and the Office of the President; Utah State University Extension, USU Ecology Center, Utah State’s departments of Environment and Society, Plants, Soils, & Biometeorology and Sociology, Social Work & Anthropology; the Utah Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects and Sustainable Agriculture and Research Education, a USDA competitive grants program. Additional support is provided by Utah State’s Student Organization for Society and Natural Resources.