Beacon Salon Speaker Series
by Beacon College
The Beacon Salon Speaker Series at Beacon College in Leesburg, Florida is the school’s flagship community education outreach program. The Speaker Series brings in speakers, educators, authors, and entertainers from Florida and around the country to educate, edify, and entertain by exploring Florida history, waxing poetic, delving into popular culture, and clenching the political third rail. It borrows its name and channels its ethos from the Parisian salons of the Enlightenment. Its goal is to uplift the community, spark engagement, and sow seeds of conversation.
Episodes
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Beacon Salon Speaker Series, S5, E5 | Gilbert King | “Bedeviling Confluence: Injustice and Willis McCall through the Prism of ‘Devil in the Grove’ and ‘Beneath a Ruthless Sun.’”
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Gilbert King examines injustice, racial bigotry, and corrupting power through the lens of two monstrous cases in Lake County in the late 1940s and 1950s connected only by a central figure, infamous Lake County Sheriff Willis V. McCall, in his presentation “Bedeviling...
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Beacon Salon Speaker Series, S5, E4 | "Protecting the Home Front: Women in Civil Defense in the 1950s" | Dr. Michael Scheibach
“Protecting the Home Front: Women in Civil Defense During the 1950s” From senior roles in the federal government to positions at the state level, to local volunteers, Michael Scheibach chronicles how women of all ages and backgrounds played an essential role in civil defense during the 1950s and...
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Beacon Salon Speaker Series, S5, E3 | "The Case for Community Storytelling" | Dr. Caren Neile
Dr. Caren Neile mines her book, “Only in Florida: Why the Manatee Crossed the Road,” a compilation of stories collected throughout Florida with the goal of connecting neighbors to neighbors and to the areas in which they live, to deliver a performance/lecture that includes readings and retellings...
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Beacon Salon Speaker Series, S5, E2 | "The South Never Plays Itself (in Hollywood)" | Ben Beard
Ben Beard explores the history of the Deep South on screen, beginning with silent cinema and ending in the streaming era, from President Wilson to President Trump, from musical to comedy to horror to crime to melodrama. His idiosyncratic presentation — part cultural history, part film criticism,...
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Beacon Salon Speaker Series, S5, E1 | "Escaping Your Filter Bubble: Lessons from a Hollow-Earth Cult" | Lyn Millner
How do intelligent people come to believe odd things? How do they maintain beliefs when facts show they aren’t true? Taking a lesson from history, Lyn Millner will tell the story of the Koreshans, a group of utopians who believed that Earth is hollow and we live inside. Their story is from a time...
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Beacon Salon Speaker Series, S4, E3 | “Dirty Work: The Untold Story of My Secret Mission to Steal Back TWA Flight 847 from Hezbollah" | Brad Kuhn
Dirty Work tells the story of pilot Richard Vaux whose employer, Trans World Airlines wants him and a crew to sneak into Beirut, Lebanon, at the height of a civil war, to reclaim an airplane hijacked by Palestinian terrorists. About Brad Kuhn Brad Kuhn is the author of 10 books including four of...
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Beacon Salon Speaker Series, S4, E2 | "Recollections of an Editorial Cartoonist" | Glenn "Marty" Stein
“Recollections of an Editorial Cartoonist” This talk examines what goes into editorial cartooning and the challenges by reviewing Stein’s published work. About Glenn “Marty” Stein Glenn “Marty” Stein served as an editorial cartoonist/ illustrator at the Orlando Business Journal, The Apopka Chief,...
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Beacon Salon Speaker Series, S4, E1 | “The Negro Baseball Leagues: An American Legacy”| Byron Motley
In celebrating the centennial of the Negro Baseball Leagues, this talk is based on Byron Motley's father’s co-authored memoir, “Ruling Over Monarchs, Giants & Stars: True Tales of Breaking Barriers, Umpiring Baseball Legends, and Wild Adventures in the Negro Leagues.”
About this show
The Beacon Salon Speaker Series at Beacon College in Leesburg, Florida is the school’s flagship community education outreach program. The Speaker Series brings in speakers, educators, authors, and entertainers from Florida and around the country to educate, edify, and entertain by exploring Florida history, waxing poetic, delving into popular culture, and clenching the political third rail. It borrows its name and channels its ethos from the Parisian salons of the Enlightenment. Its goal is to uplift the community, spark engagement, and sow seeds of conversation.
Hosted by
Beacon College