News release Public Information Office  SLU 10880   Hammond, LA 70402   phone: 985-549-2341   fax: 985-549-2061 publicinfo@selu.edu Spring 2004 news releases Public Information home News archive Contact: Christina Chapple Date: 2/26/04   ANDERSON-SNYDER LECTURE FEATURES SOUTHERN WRITERS AUTHORITY PEGGY PRENSHAW       HAMMOND -- Peggy Prenshaw, an authority on Southern writers, will present Southeastern Louisiana University’s third annual Anderson-Snyder Lecture March 10 at the university’s Student Union Theatre.       The lecture, sponsored by Southeastern’s chapter of the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, is scheduled for 2 p.m. The lecture is open to the public as well as Southeastern faculty, staff and students. It will be followed by a reception in Clark Hall Gallery hosted by Southeastern President Randy Moffett, a member of Phi Kappa Phi.       Prenshaw, who holds the coveted Eudora Welty Chair in Literature at Millsaps College in Jackson, Miss., will speak on“Story-telling Southerners: Lies, Lives and the Art of Writing.”        A past president of the Society for the Study of Southern Literature, Prenshaw received the organization’s Phoenix Award for “distinguished achievement in Eudora Welty scholarship.” She has written and edited books on Welty and Elizabeth Spencer, as well as on Southern cultural history. Prior to her appointment at Millsaps, she was on the English faculties of the University of Southern Mississippi and Louisiana State University.       The Anderson-Snyder lecture series was inaugurated in 2001 by Hammond natives Perry A. Snyder, executive director of the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, and his brother, Marshall M. Snyder, now an attorney in Nashville, Tenn. Both are graduates of Southeastern and were initiated into Phi Kappa Phi at the university.       The series honors the Snyders' maternal grandparents, Smylie S. and Lucille G. Anderson, and their parents, Harry and Dorothy Jane Snyder. Smylie Anderson, a 1906 graduate of the Tulane University School of Medicine, was among the civic leaders in the 1920s who helped convince the Louisiana legislature of the need for a college in Hammond.  His wife Lucille and son-in-law, Harry Snyder, were both educators along with the Anderson's three daughters, who also studied at Southeastern. Harry Snyder was captain of the 1941 Lions football team.         The lecture series also recognizes the role that Southeastern's Phi Kappa Phi chapter has played as the university's standard bearer for honor and excellence, said chapter president Barbara Allen, dean of the College of Basic Studies. Phi Kappa Phi, the nation's oldest, largest, and most selective all-discipline honor society, approved a chapter for Southeastern in 1956 during the presidency of Luther Dyson. Others instrumental in securing the chapter were Southeastern administrators and faculty members L.E.Chandler, J.B. Wooley, Roy Hyde, Martina Buck, Sidney Romero, E.E. Puls and Jack Knight.        For additional information, contact Allen at 985-549-3755 or ballen@selu.edu.