Paul Engle Christmas 2008 Pt 1

The Paul Engle Center for Neighborhood Arts (PEC) opened its doors on Saturday, December 6, 2008 to celebrate the memory of one of Iowa's most accomplished writers and to read from Paul Engle's writings about the holidays, including seasonal poems and memoirs of Christmases he spent growing up in the Wellington Heights Neighborhood of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

In this Pt. 1 of the series special guest Congressman Dave Loebsack, PEC Board President Ron Adkins and PEC Board Member and Rental Coordinator Glady McMellor share duties reading "The Things of Christmas Speak".

"A Paul Engle Christmas" is part of a yearlong series of activities being planned in honor of the 100th anniversary of Engle's birth. His autobiography, "A Lucky American Childhood," is the Linn Area Reads selection for 2008. Born in 1908, Engle had his first real job as a teenager in the neighborhood grocery and pharmacy that now houses the arts center named in his honor. In his memoirs, he described the experience as his "window into the whole area."

After graduating from Coe College in 1931, he went on to a career of unparalleled accomplishment in his field. Engle died March 22, 1991 and was posthumously named Iowa's poet of the 20th century in 1999.

Dedicated in 1997, the Paul Engle Center for Neighborhood Arts serves as a meeting place for residents of the immediate neighborhood and greater community for a variety of arts-related and social functions. For more information about the PEC visit the Wellington Heights Neighborhood website at www.wellingtonheightscria.com/p_engle/pec.html

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