The Hobbit: There & Back Again Through Tolkien’s Middle-earth Presentation by Paul Spaeth

The Olean Public Library is proud to present The Hobbit: There & Back Again Through Tolkien’s Middle-earth Presentation by Paul Spaeth on December 12th, 2012 at 7pm.

On December 14th the first of a three part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel The Hobbit will be shown to a nation-wide audience that has been eagerly awaiting its release. When the book was published in 1937 it was the first glimpse people had of a world that would be dramatically broadened out 17 years later with the appearance of the first volume of The Lord of the Rings. But both of these works dealt with only a portion of the Third Age of a fantasy world that in Tolkien’s mind stretched back through thousands of years and involved far greater battles, the sinking of an island continent, and even contained a creation story. This talk will trace the ‘history’ of Middle-earth and of its origins as a past-time for its scholar-author dating to the days when he fought in the trenches of World War I.

Paul Spaeth is the Director of the Library at St. Bonaventure University and has for years taught a course there on Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.

The program is free and open to the public.  Olean Public Library is located at 134 N. 2nd St., Olean, NY 14760.

Young Women in Public Affairs Scholarship

The Zonta Club of Olean, NY is requesting applications for the Young Women in Public Affairs Scholarship.  This is a $1000 scholarship to be awarded by the Olean Zonta Club to a local applicant.  The winning applicant will then be submitted for a chance at an additional $1000 scholarship from the District level.  The District winner is submitted to the International level and can be awarded $4000.

The application and guidelines can be found here .  (Look to the right hand side and click on 2013 application.  It will download as a Word document.)

Applications may be sent electronically to bebbert[at]cutco[dot]com or jdyorke[at]yahoo[dot]com (just replace the [at] and [dot] with the normal symbols) or mailed to Judy Yorke, 414 Laurens St., Olean, NY 14760.

Applications should be submitted by January 15, 2013.  The local winner will be notified at the end of February 2013.

Good luck!