George Will to Speak at JCCC April 23
Johnson County Community College |
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| George F. Will |
Will, originally scheduled for Dec. 11, 2007, had to cancel due to inclement weather. Tickets issued for Dec. 11 are valid for admission on April 23. Tickets are still available for $50 or $65 by calling the Carlsen Center box office, 913-469-4445, or online at www.jccc.edu/CarlsenCenter.
Will’s newspaper column has been syndicated by The Washington Post since 1974. Today it appears twice weekly in just under 500 newspapers. He also pens a biweekly column for Newsweek and serves as a political commentator on ABC television’s This Week on Sunday mornings. Altogether, seven collections of Will’s Newsweek and Washington Post columns have been published. He also has published three books on political theory.
Will’s appearance is also timely with the beginning of baseball season. In 1990, he published Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball, which topped The New York Times bestseller list for two months. In 1998, Scribner published Bunts: Curt Flood, Camden Yards, Pete Rose and Other Reflections on Baseball, a best-selling collection of new and previously published writings by Will on baseball.
The Cohen Community Series is the result of a $1.3 million gift from Jon Stewart, college alumnus, trustee and president of Metcalf Bank. Stewart designated the gift to initiate the speaker series in honor of the late Barton P. Cohen, president of Metcalf Bancshares, vice chairman and general counsel of Metcalf Bank and an attorney with Blackwell Sanders Peper Martin LLP.
Proceeds from the series will support scholarships, programming and training at JCCC.
Stewart said he made the gift for three reasons. “First, I wanted to honor my friend and a very strong supporter of the community, Bart Cohen. Second, I wanted to raise funds for scholarships and programs at the college. And third, I wanted to bring regional and national recognition to JCCC.
Cohen was a strong supporter of JCCC. He and his wife, Mary Davidson Cohen, served on the Foundation’s board of directors, and a gallery in the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art has been named for them. Cohen helped form the Johnson County Mental Health Association and Johnson County Human Relations Council. He was first on the Fellows list of the Johnson County Bar Foundation, helped establish the University of Missouri Law Foundation, and has been a member of the Kansas Bar Association since 1955.
Cohen served two terms on the Prairie Village City Council and one term as president of the Overland Park Chamber of Commerce. He served either as a member or board member of the Johnson County Heritage Trust Grant Review Board, State Historical Society, Bleeding Kansas Historical Site Committee and Wyandotte County Historical Society and Museum.
