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Fri, Dec 24, 2004

DEC. 24, 2004 - JAN. 2, 2005

OFFICES REOPEN MONDAY, JAN. 3
Closedown in Effect

UNL is officially closed during the annual holiday shutdown period. Offices will reopen at 8 am Jan. 3. However, many university buildings across campus will have special hours over the holiday break. Your best bet is to call ahead. In the list available at this link, offices are closed unless open hours are specified.

CLOSEDOWN SCHEDULE

REAL NEBRASKA WEB SITE
Voting on Third Round of Real Nebraska Videos Continues

Voting on the third round of the Fall 2004 Real Nebraska video contest continues on the Real Nebraska website. Using the theme "There is No Place Like Nebraska," entries were taken from full time UNL students and/or teams of full time UNL students.

In addition to three monetary prizes, winners of the contest will be screened at a film festival that will take place in March at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center. All entries will be shown and the "Viewer's Choice" winners, as well as the Grand Prize winner, will be announced at this event. The festival will be open to the public and the campus.

REAL NEBRASKA

DEVANEY CENTER
UNL Graduates 1,450 During Winter 2004 Commencement

Ted Kooser

At UNL commencement exercises held on December 18, 1,450 students received their degrees. Ted Kooser, poet laureate of the United States and professor of English in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Arts and Sciences, gave the address and received an honorary doctor of letters degree at the ceremony.

Kooser was named poet laureate (officially the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress) Aug. 12 by James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress, and began his duties on Oct. 7. Previous poets laureate include Robert Frost, Gwendolyn Brooks and Rita Dove.

The author of 10 collections of poetry and prose including "Local Wonders, Seasons in the Bohemian Alps," (2002) published by University of Nebraska Press, Kooser was born in Ames, Iowa, in 1939 and attended public school there before earning his bachelor's degree at Iowa State University (1962). He taught school for one year before moving to Nebraska to pursue graduate school. He received his master's degree at the University of Nebraska in 1968. He has lived all of his life in Nebraska and Iowa and worked for 35 years in the life insurance business, retiring in 1999 as a vice president.

Kooser's most recent work is an upcoming University of Nebraska Press book, "The Poetry Home Repair Manual," due out soon, following "Delights & Shadows" (2004). His other collections of poetry include "Sure Signs" (1980), which received the Society of Midland Authors Prize for the best book of poetry by a Midwestern writer published in that year; "One World at a Time" (1985); "Weather Central" (1994); and "Winter Morning Walks: One Hundred Postcards to Jim Harrison" (2000), winner of the 2001 Nebraska Book Award for Poetry. "Local Wonders" also won the Nebraska Book Award for Nonfiction in 2003. The book was also chosen as the Best Book Written by a Midwestern Writer for 2002 by Friends of American Writers, and it won the Gold Award for Autobiography in ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Awards.

Kooser is also the author, with his longtime friend Jim Harrison, of "Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry" (2003), for which the two poets received the 2003 Award for Poetry from the Society of Midland Authors. Among Kooser's other awards and honors are two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, the Pushcart Prize, the Stanley Kunitz Prize, the James Boatwright Prize and a Merit Award from the Nebraska Arts Council.

FULL TEXT OF 2004 WINTER COMMENCEMENT

KRNU, FRI, DEC. 24, 8:00AM
"Vocal Chords" to Broadcast Annual Seasonal Music Edition

Tune in to General Manager Richard Alloway for his annual three-hour all-seasonal music edition of "Vocal Chords," the weekly a cappella music show on 30.3 KRNU. The show will air from 8-11 a.m., Friday Dec. 24, on 90.3 KRNU. You can tune in or listen online at http://krnu.unl.edu. Best wishes for the holidays to you and yours from the students and staff of 90.3 KRNU.

KRNU | SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM