Spirituality and Sustainability to honor Kendalls, Lanham
The Friends of the Center for Spirituality and Sustainability at SIUE will be honoring the late John Kendall and his wife Kay, also deceased, with the Sustainability Leadership Award at their annual awards dinner, March 5th. The Kendalls helped create the Watershed Nature Center in Edwardsville.
“They’ve been doing environmental education for a long time, hosting elementary students at their home that they called ‘toad woods,'” said George Henderson, SIUE emeritus professor of physics and board member of the Friends of the Center for Spirituality and Sustainability. “They saw the opportunity to turn an abandoned sewage lagoon into a nice facility, and it certainly has turned into one.”
The Kendalls were instrumental in the volunteer effort that founded the center in 1991 and resulted in its opening four years later. The Watershed Nature Center is owned by the City of Edwardsville and is managed by the Nature Preserve Foundation, and is supported by a local community of volunteers and sponsors. Within the city of Edwardsville, the nature preserve is part of the Cahokia Creek watershed, and is comprised of over 40 acres of wetlands, praries, and upland and lowland forests.
“They teamed with the Edwardsville School District and the effort is ongoing — that’s what we are honoring them for. It’s sustainable,” said Henderson. “I spoke with John in November and he was excited about receiving this award.”
John Kendall, teaching
John Kendall passed in January at the age of 93. The music professor emeritus is the founder of the internationally known Suzuki String Program at SIUE and one of the earliest proponents of the Suzuki String Teaching Method in the United States.
“Kendall started the first Suzuki teacher training university course in the nation. Students come to the program to get a graduate degree, earning a masters degree in music education or violin performance with an emphasis in Suzuki pedagogy,” said Vera McCoy-Sulentic, director of the Suzuki program at SIUE. “We have a touring group of Suzuki violins, our oldest students age 15, 16 and 17 years old, who tour nationally and will be at the awards ceremony to perform.”
Spiritual Leadership Award
Roy Lanham will be awarded the Spiritual Leadership Award for his work with student service projects in Haiti. Lanham has, for 19 years, lead student service projects involving a variety of interventions including installing clean water systems, reforestation and economic development projects.
“Roy Lanham is the campus Catholic minister at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston,” said Henderson. “He’s a real giver. It’s a nice thing to recognize people for doing good work, and the event is a fundraiser for us as well. The Center is not rich and the building needs repairs and our long-term goal is to establish a capital campaign to form an endowment to take care of the facility in perpetuity. ”
The 8th annual Leadership Awards dinner is March 5, 7-9 p.m. in the LeClaire Room on the N.O. Nelson Campus of Lewis and Clark Community College, 600 Troy Rd., Edwardsville. To make reservations call Juli at (618) 650-3246 or email jjacobso@siue.edu.
Filed Under: Music
