Wednesday, February 8
The Life of a Woodruff County Girl - Brown Bag Lunch Lecture
Noon – 1 p.m.
Born on in 1926, Laverne Feaster will discuss her childhood spent on eastern Arkansas’s “Big Dixie” cotton plantation during the Depression. She will also share her experiences of the private schools of the day. Attending private school allowed Feaster to advance beyond the 8th grade education available in the segregated public school system where her mother taught.
Laverne Feaster graduated from Arkadelphia Cotton Plant Presbyterian Academy in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, and received higher education from Swift Presbyterian Junior College in Rogersville, Tennessee, before earning a B.S. degree from Tennessee State University in Nashville, and a M.Ed. degree from the University of Arkansas – Fayetteville. She taught in eastern Arkansas high schools from 1950 to 1963. In 1963, Feaster began her 29-year career with the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service, serving as a District Agent and becoming the first African-American woman in the United States to hold the position of State Leader of 4-H. She was also appointed by Governors Clinton and Tucker to the Commission for Arkansas’s Future, and the Keep Arkansas Beautiful Commission.
Admission is free. Participants are encouraged to bring a sack lunch and beverages are provided at all Brown Bag Lunch Lectures.
