NEWS

Louisiana Tech’s English honor society, the Rho Gamma chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, was one of only three chapters out of 700 in the country to receive an Outstanding Chapter Award at the International Convention, held in Minneapolis, Minn.

In addition to a plaque, the chapter received a cash award of $350 and an additional $250 in travel assistance to the conference.

This year five members of Rho Gamma, two graduate students and three seniors, attended the Sigma Tau Delta convention in Minneapolis, our largest contingency to date,” said Dorothy Robbins, faculty adviser to the chapter. “From presenting scholarly papers and creative works to hosting workshops and introducing a keynote speaker, Louisiana Tech students were an active presence at the convention. At the honors banquet, April Honaker received an award for her collection of poetry, ‘Reflections of a Louisiana Native.’ Our students truly are accomplished.”

Honaker, a recent English master’s graduate, presented her critical essay, “The Underlying Misogyny of Elizabethan Courtly Poets: A Reading of Sidney’s ‘Astrophil and Stella'” in a session on early British poetry, and Lauren Coleman, an English graduate student, presented Trouble in Paradise: Postlapsarian Sexuality and Ominous Myth in Milton’s Paradise Lost” in a session on Donne, Herbert and Milton.

A.J. King, a senior English major, chaired a session on Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” Coleman also chaired a session on creative nonfiction.

In the category of original fiction, John Bourgeois read his short story, “For Whom Does the Bell Toll?” and Sawyer Halbrook chaired two American literature sessions and introduced keynote speaker, Alexandra Fuller, British author of “Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood.”

Written by Judith Roberts