Professor Gulley’s chapbook is published through Bottlecap Editions. It is called Picking Fights in Book Club (and Other Ways to Assert Yourself). Here is a link to the publication page: https://bottlecap.press/products/fights.
Professor Gulley also published creative nonfiction titled “Naivete Is No Excuse” in The Writer’s Study Anthology Volume One.
Professor Gulley also gave a reading through the AWP conference called “The Writers Place Presents A Writer Six Pack.”
Megan Doyle and Ted Rollins will be giving a presentation titled “Faculty Self-Care: What We Can Do to Thrive, Not Just Survive” at the KCPDC Enhancing Teaching & Learning Conference on March 2.
Ted also received an award https://www.nisod.org/excellence-awards/current-recipients/ related to work with JCCC’s Center for Teaching and Learning.
Gretchen Thum, Associate Professor and Chair, Journalism and Media Communications, attended the Kansas City area’s premier public relations conference on Feb. 22 at the KU Edwards Campus. Six JCCC Journalism students were awarded scholarships to attend the conference with her. The event was a tremendous educational experience for the students, as well as a venue where local PR professionals could connect with JCCC public relations students.
Dr. Marianne Kunkel has had a paper and a pedagogy poster accepted for the 2024 Children’s Literature Association Conference. Both paper and poster will focus on her three-collaboration with JCCC professor Lani Witters in which their zoology and children’s literature students create and illustrate animal-themed picture books.
Dr. Marianne Kunkel’s poem “Apostate Abecedarian” was accepted for publication in The Threepenny Review.
Small will be lecturing about the life and service of Wally Buford, a Kansas City Kansas native who, along with his fellow pilot, James McGovern, were the first Americans to die in combat in Vietnam on May 6, 1954. Buford and McGovern were flying for the Central Intelligence Agency’s Civil Air Transport, attempting to support the French forces who were close to losing control over Vietnam during the First Indochina War (Vietnam being a colony of France).
CAM Buford Press Release
COMBAT AIR MUSEUM TO HONOR KANSAS CITY VIETNAM VETERAN
The Combat Air Museum in Topeka, Kansas, will honor the life of Kansan Wally Buford, killed in Vietnam 70 years ago, with a presentation and unveiling of a display at the Museum on Monday, February 12 at 12:10 p.m.
Copilot Wally Buford and his pilot, James McGovern, were flying for the Central Intelligence Agency’s Civil Air Transport, dropping supplies to French forces attempting to maintain control over their colony, Vietnam, during the First Indochina War. On May 6, 1954, McGovern and Buford were in a flight of six aircraft intending to resupply the surrounded and desperate French Army in the famous battle at Dien Bien Phu, North Vietnam. Two Viet Minh cannon shells struck their C-119’s left engine and horizontal stabilizer, leaving the aircraft extremely difficult to fly. McGovern and Buford were able to fly the stricken aircraft away from the fight, but lost control at low altitude and died in the crash, the first Americans to die in combat in Vietnam. The French forces surrendered to the communist Viet Minh forces the very next day after the fatal flight. Their surrender brought an end to the French colonial rule in Indochina.
Buford graduated from Wyandotte High School in 1943 and attended Kansas City Kansas Junior College. He joined the U.S. Army, became a bomber pilot and flew missions over Europe during World War II. After the war, he attended the University of Kansas and joined the Air Force Reserve unit at Olathe Naval Air Station but was recalled to combat flying during the Korean War where he was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross for his bravery flying combat missions against the North Korean forces.
The presentation will be held in conjunction with the bimonthly Combat Air Museum brown bag luncheon; visitors are asked to bring their own lunch, which will begin at 11:30 a.m. Museum Chairman Gene Howerter will offer some opening comments at noon before introducing Mr. Small. Admission to the Combat Air Museum will be free on the day of the presentation.
The Combat Air Museum is located on Topeka Regional Airport at 7016 SE Forbes Avenue, Topeka, Kansas. For more information, contact museum director Kevin Drewelow at 785.862.3303 or at director@combatairmuseum.com
Learn more about the Combat Air Museum at www.combatairmuseum.org
[1] I was told to make my biography sound a little more interesting than English professor—apparently, that wasn’t quite “interesting” enough.
