The 10th Annual Festival of Southern Cultures will be held from Sept. 30-Oct 4, here at the university. The theme for this year's festival is “Voices of the South.” The festival is sponsored by the university's Honor's Programs and other campus organizations.

Psychology professor and Honor's Programs director, Dr. William Zachry, said the week's main activities will express the differences in Southern voices.

The festival will include literature, history, photography, theatre, music, film, food and authors reading aloud. Most of the events during the festival are free of charge.

All events during the festival are open to the public.

“Sometimes it helps to hear and see different voices to understand where it is you come from,” said Zachry.

Monday, Sept. 30, starting at 8 a.m.,the festival will begin. The first event is with the WriteSouth Online Bulletin Board.

Students are encouraged to post their comments on Southern voices on the Web bulletin board or log on to read others' thoughts on the theme.

The keynote speaker for the event will be Charles Reagan Wilson, director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture and professor of history at the University of Mississippi. “Creativity and Southern Culture: Tradition, Innovation, and Diversity in the South,” will be his topic. The event will take place at 7:30 p.m., Monday, Sept. 30 in the Boling University Center's Watkins Auditorium.

Another event is the photography exhibit on “African-American Gardens and Yards in the Rural South.”

“The event will take place in the new museum area of the library. There will be 32 color photos to look at. I encourage students to come out to see this exhibit,” said Zachry.

Other festival events includes ReadSouth, which features student writers reading their works aloud during a live broadcast on radio station WUTM, 90.3 FM. The reading will include fiction and nonfiction works.

The department of music will be having an hour event that will present food and gospel music. Rev. Alvin Summers, of Oak Grove Baptist Church in Martin, and the choir will present gospel music of the African-American Church. To reserve your lunch ticket call the Honors Center at (731) 587-7436 by Monday, Sept. 30.

“The lunch has been said to put you in the mind of Mama's cooking at home,” said Zachry.

“We hope people find at least two of the events to their likings and we hope they come out to the festival,” said Zachry.