Zionsville Library Talk January 10

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I will be at the Hussey-Mayfield Memorial Public Library, 250 North Fifth Street in Zionsville, at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, January 10, to talk about my book Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 Indiana Primary.

On April 4, 1968, Kennedy, a U.S. senator from New York, came to Indianapolis as part of his campaign for the Indiana Demcoratic presidential primary. Instead of a standard stump speech, he passed along the tragic news of King's death to a stunned crowd at the Broadway Christian Center at Seventeenth and Broadway streets.

The news of King’s death had sparked outrage and violence across the country. Riots had broken out in more than a hundred cities and approximately 75,000 National Guard and federal troops were called out to maintain some semblance of order. Thanks, in no small part to Kennedy’s calming words, the streets of Indianapolis remained quiet; there were no riots in the Circle City.

For more information on the program, call the library at (317) 873-3149.

Wallace Talk at Lebanon Public Library

At 6:30 p.m. Monday, November 21, I will be at the Lebanon Public Library, 104 East Washington Street, Lebanon, Indiana, to talk about the life and times of Hoosier author and Civil War general Lew Wallace. My talk before the local Civil War Roundtable will concentrate on Wallace's service in the war, including his early successes with the Eleventh Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment, saving the day at the Battle of Fort Donelson, the controversey about his actions at the Battle of Shiloh, and the resurrection of his career thanks to helping save such Union cities as Cincinnati and Washington, D.C. (Battle of Monocacy)

In preparing my talk, I realized that while Wallace is best known today for writing the best-selling novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, his Civil War soldiering does not get the attention it deserves. On January 11, 1910, a large crowd gathered at the National Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol in Washington for the unveiling of a Wallace statue to join the one of Oliver P. Morton representing Indiana. Although Wallace was the first author to be represented with a statue, you will notice that in the photograph he is not in author garb, but wearing his Civil War uniform.

Holiday Author Fair December 3

For the ninth year in a row (a new record, perhaps), I will be participating in the annual Holiday Author Fair from noon to 4 p.m. at the Indiana History Center, 450 West Ohio Street, Indianapolis. (That's me with Philip Gulley at the 2009 Author Fair.)

More than 60 Hoosier authors will be at the Fair selling their wares. Among those in attendance will be filmmaker Angelo Pizzo, Chef Daniel Orr and local media personalities Howard Caldwell, Dick Wolfsie and Lou Harry along with bestselling authors James Alexander Thom and Dark Rain Thom and 2009 Indiana Poet Laureate Norbert Krapf.

There will be speakers throughout the day, holiday music, refreshments, and free gift wrapping. The Author Fair is free with admission to the Indiana Experience. For complimentary admission tickets, please drop me an e-mail at reboomer@yahoo.com.

Author interview

Here's an interview I did a few months back with Smithville Communication's Rob Ramsey to help highlight the 50th anniversary of Gus Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 mission into space. Here is the interview.

Nov. 8 Book Signing

To commemorate the upcoming Veteran's Day holiday, I will be at the UPUI Barnes & Noble Bookstore from 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, November 8, signing copies of my World War II-themed books.

The books that will be available are:

* Fighter Pilot: The World War II Career of Alex Vraciu
* The Soldier's Friend: A Life of Ernie Pyle
* "One Shot": The World War II Photography of John A. Bushemi

Lessons from a Master

When I sit down to write a nonfiction book or article, one of the authors I try to emulate is longtime New Yorker writer John McPhee. The other day I came across an interview McPhee did with the Paris Review in spring 2010. In the interview, McPhee offered details on how he prepares for his well researched books and offered advice any nonfiction writer could use.

Some of the gems that attracted my attention included:

"The thing about writers is that, with very few exceptions, they grow slowly—very slowly."

"At one point I said, Mr. Shawn, you have this whole enterprise going, a magazine is printing this weekend, and you’re the editor of it, and you sit here talking about these commas and semicolons with me—how can you possibly do it? And he said, It takes as long as it takes. A great line, and it’s so true of writing. It takes as long as it takes."

"There are zillions of ideas out there—they stream by like neutrons. What makes somebody pluck forth one thing—a thing you’re going to be spending as much as three years with? If I went down a list of all the pieces I ever had in The New Yorker, upward of ninety percent would relate to things I did when I was a kid."

"Structure is not a template. It’s not a cookie cutter. It’s something that arises organically from the material once you have it."

"With nonfiction, you’ve got your material, and what you’re trying to do is tell it as a story in a way that doesn’t violate fact, but at the same time is structured and presented in a way that makes it interesting to read.

I always say to my classes that it’s analogous to cooking a dinner. You go to the store and you buy a lot of things. You bring them home and you put them on the kitchen counter, and that’s what you’re going to make your dinner out of. If you’ve got a red pepper over here—it’s not a tomato. You’ve got to deal with what you’ve got. You don’t have an ideal collection of material every time out."

"You write a lead. You sit down and think, Where do I want this piece to begin? What makes sense? It can’t be meretricious. It’s got to deliver on what you promise. It should shine like a flashlight down through the piece."

"You look for good juxtapositions. If you’ve got good juxtapositions, you don’t have to worry about what I regard as idiotic things, like a composed transition. If your structure really makes sense, you can make some jumps and your reader is going to go right with you. You don’t need to build all these bridges and ropes between the two parts."

"Stories are always really, really hard. I think it’s totally rational for a writer, no matter how much experience he has, to go right down in confidence to almost zero when you sit down to start something. Why not? Your last piece is never going to write your next one for you."

"All these labels—I’ve been called an agricultural writer, an outdoor writer, an environmental writer, a sportswriter, a science writer. And so you just grin. I’m a writer who writes about real people in real places. End of story."

Indy Author Fair October 29

I will be joining a number of other Hoosier authors selling and signing copies of my books at the Indy Author Fair from noon to 1 p.m. on Saturday, October 29, at the Central Library, 40 East Saint Clair Street, Indianapolis. The fair is part of the annual Eugene & Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award, a program of The Indianapolis Public Library Foundation, The Indianapolis Public Library, and The Writers’ Center of Indiana.

In addition to the Author Fair, various workshops on writing will be presented at the Central Library from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Among the subjects to be explored are self publishing your book, how to write mysteries, publishing poetry, publishing romance fiction, and freelance writing. A complete schedue for the day can be found here.

Back in Business

After finally finishing the final draft of my biography of the late Indiana congressman and environmentalist Jim Jontz, I am back to report on events of note regarding my other publications. I will be in Franklin, Indiana, at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, October 19, at the Johnson County Public Library, 401 State Street, for an Indiana Humanities-sponsored "Novel Conversations" program on World War II fighter pilot Alex Vraciu (seen here shaking hands with Admiral Marc Mitscher.

My book Fighter Pilot: The World War II Career of Alex Vraciu, copies of which will be available for sale at the talk, examines how Vraciu, possessed with keen eyesight, quick reflexes, excellent shooting instincts, and a knack for finding his opponent's weak spot, became skilled in the deadly game of destroying the enemy in the skies over the Pacific Ocean. For a period of four months in 1944, Vraciu stood as the leading ace in the U.S. Navy. He shot down nineteen enemy airplanes in the air, destroyed an additional twenty-one on the ground, and sank a large Japanese merchant ship with a well-placed bomb hit.

To register for the free program, call (317) 738-2833.

Celebrating Gus

Had a great time Thursday evening in Mitchell, Indiana, where I spoke as part of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Gus Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 mission on July 21, 1961.

I talked about Gus and the Apollo 1 tragedy before a large and appreciative audience in the Gus Grissom Auditorium at Mitchell High School. Probably the biggest response I got during my talk came early on when I explained why I decided to write about Gus's life--as a way to rescue his reputation from the blackening it received thanks in some ways to Tom Wolfe's book The Right Stuff, and especially from director Philip Kaufman's 1983 movie of the same name. It was also good to see Gus's brother, Lowell Grissom, whom I previously met at the rededication of the Grissom Memorial at Spring Mill State Park Also at the talk were a group of engineers from McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, the company that built both the Mercury and Gemini spacecraft.

The Mitchell community should be proud of the way it honored one of its famous native sons. Thanks to the Mitchell Community Public Library for inviting me to be a part of the celebration.

Robert Caro Talk at Biography Conference

In May I attended the second annual Compleat Biographer Conference. Noted writer and biographer Robert Caro was honored for his work at the conference and gave a luncheon talk that inspired many in the audience. Here is that talk:

A Sense of Place from Biographers International Org on Vimeo.

Liberty Bell 7 50th Anniversary Celebration

On July 21, 1961, Hoosier astronaut Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom became the second American and the third human to rocket into space as a Redstone rocket blasted his Liberty Bell 7 spacecraft into a suborbital flight lasting approximately fifteen minutes.

Grissom's home county of Lawrence will be honoring its favorite son by commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Liberty Bell 7 mission with special events from July 21 to 23 at venues located at Spring Mill State Park and the neighboring cities of Mitchell (where Gus was born and raised) and Bedford.

As Gus's biographer (Gus Grissom: The Lost Astronaut), I will be doing a program on his the ill-fated Apollo 1 mission that took his life along with fellow astronauts Ed White and Roger Chaffee in a fire on January 27, 1967. My talk begins at 6 p.m. in the Grissom Auditorium at Mitchell High School, 1000 Bishop Boulevard, Mitchell. Following my talk will be a presentation of the Discovery Channel documentary on the search and recovery of the Liberty Bell 7 spacecraft. Afterwards, Kurt Newport, the man who led the search for the capsule and documented the recovery on film, will speak and answer questions from the audience.

Other programs during the next few days include a Friday luncheon with two other Lawrence County astronauts, Charlie Walker and Ken Bowersox; a Saturday open house at the Grissom boyhood home in Mitchell; a grand parade through the streets of Mitchell; and a Saturday evening reception at the Grissom Memorial at Spring Mill State Park.

This Writing Life

Just returned from a trip to Washington, D.C., where I participated in the second annual Compleat Biographer Conference sponsored by the Biographers International Organization. I was lucky enough to be invited to sit on a panel discussing "Writing Biography Pieces for Magazines and Online."

It was somewhat overwhelming to sit in the ballroom at the National Press Club alongside a couple of hundred other people who had written or were interested in writing biography. During lunch alone I sat at a table with a woman writing a biography of the physicist who helped leak the secret of the atomic bomb to the Russians (Klaus Fuchs), the head of the manuscripts department at the Library of Congress, and the editor of Consumer Reports (Greg Daugherty, who was alson on the panel discussion with me and Wil Haygood of the Washington Post. Impressive company indeed.

Newton Minow, John Bartlow Martin, and the "Vast Wasteland" Speech

Newton Minow, recently appointed as the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission by President John F. Kennedy, spoke before a convention of the National Association of Broadcasters on May 9, 1961. What he said stunned his audience.

During his talk, Minow said: "When television is good, nothing--not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers--nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there for a day without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland."

The "vast wasteland" phrase, using imagery inspired by T. S. Eliot’s 1922 poem “The Waste Land,” has also been commemorated in numerous newspaper and magazine articles, editorials, cartoons, books, and documentaries. Minow himself had to endure being lampooned by Hollywood producer Sherwood Schwartz, who named the doomed ship (SS Minnow) from the television series Gilligin’s Island after him. Minow’s daughters have joked to him that on his tombstone will be engraved the words: “On to a Vaster Wasteland.” 

Minow, who has said he expects the phrase will be included in the first sentence of his obituary when he dies, probably could not have realized the lasting effect of his speech, especially considering the reaction he received from one audience member. He recalled that he was talking with LeRoyCollins, NAB president and a former governor of Florida, after finishing his remarks when a member of the audience approached the two men and said to Minow, “I didn’t particularly like your speech.” The man left, only to return a few minutes later to say to Minow, “The more I thought about it, your speech was really awful.” The man retreated, only to return for a final time to comment: “Mr. Minow, that was the worst speech I ever heard in my whole life!” Collins attempted to console Minow, gently putting his arm around the FCC chairman’s shoulder and telling him, “Don’t let him upset you, Newt. That man has no mind of his own. He just repeats everything he hears.

Although the phrase "vast wasteland" has become famous, one person's contributions is not well known. It was the work of one of the main authors of the speech--Hoosier journalist and writer John Bartlow Martin.

In the spring of 1961 Martin, a former Indianapolis Times reporter considered by his peers as "the ablest crime reporter in America, had come to Washington, D.C., to do legwork for a series of articles on television for the Saturday Evening Post. Martin had worked on the presidential campaigns of Adlai Stevenson and Kennedy, and while in Washington he wrote speeches for Robert Kennedy, Bill Blair (the U.S. ambassador to Denmark), and Minow. "Of the three speeches," Martin noted in his autobiography It Seems Like Only Yesterday, "Newt Minow's had the most impact. It was for Newt an important speech, perhaps the most important he would ever make, for he intended to try to reform television and the FCC alone had the power to do it."

According to Minow his friend Martin, who knew just how important the NAB speech would be, volunteered to produce a draft for him. “I wouldn’t have imposed on him,” Minow said years later. Before Minow took over the FCC, Martin recalled, the two men “discussed the office, and I promised to help him with his speeches if I could.” He wrote Minow in March 1961 that he expected to have some ideas to pass along to him in a few weeks and suggested that Minow refrain from leaking any information about what he intended to say to reporters, including Jack Gould, a noted television critic for the New York Times. “I suggest you store everything up until May then drop the bomb,” Martin wrote. Minow responded by thanking Martin for his assistance and said his staff at the FCC had “all become John Bartlow Martin fans, and the great debate here is whether you look like Ernie Pyle or Abraham Lincoln."

To gain perspective about television’s quality, and its effect on American society, Martin decided to spend almost an entire day, twenty hours, watching programs. He woke up at 5:30 a.m. at his Highland Park home, ate a hearty breakfast, tuned his family’s set to Chicago’s WNBQ Channel 5, sat down, and kept his eyes glued to the screen until the NBC affiliate ended its broadcast day at 1:52 a.m. “The channel and the day were chosen at random,” Martin noted. 

After watching Dave Garroway on the Today program, Martin felt besieged by a seemingly endless stream of game shows, programs that had disappeared from the airwaves for a time after the quiz show scandals. By the end of the morning Martin had also witnessed approximately seventy commercials advertising such products as soap, detergents, lipstick, orange juice, salad dressing, baby food, hair cream, hair spray, vitamins, soup, headache remedies, bleach, frozen food, appliances, and patent medicines. “The commercials, loud and frequent and long, seemed stupefying,” he said. 

In the afternoon, after having watched television for nine straight hours, Martin observed that, except for news broadcasts and two brief interviews on the Today program, “nobody on Channel 5 had discussed a single idea.” He persevered, enduring such banal hit programs as Sing Along with Mitch and The Jack Paar Show, as well as the violence of a show called Official Detective, which featured several fistfights, three shootings, four killings, and a suicide. “After Paar,” Martin laconically noted, “it was a pleasure.” 

All in all, he wrote in a draft of the article, what he had seen had been “a vast wasteland of junk.” Obviously, Martin added, no one would normally have watched television as he had done, just as few people would have sat down and in one day read an entire issue, cover to cover, of a magazine such as the Post. “Nonetheless,” he said, “this is what was sent over the airwaves by one television station, owned by a leading network in a big city. The station is licensed by the Government to use the people’s air; this is how it used it that day."

In writing Minow’s speech, Martin said he suggested he say to the NAB: “I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air . . . and keep your eyes glued to the set until the station goes off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland of junk.”

In addition to Martin’s contribution for his NAB speech, Minow also had assistance from Tedson Meyers, an FCC aide; Stanley Frankel, his brother-in-law and a former newspaper reporter and magazine publisher; and others. Of all the drafts he received, however, “the best one by far” came from Martin, said Minow, who noted he was a much better editor than he was a writer. Minow appreciated Martin’s work, writing him on April 17: “I cannot, cannot, cannot thank you enough. I’m deeply moved by your giving me so much of your thought and time, and the country will benefit from it—and so will I!”

Minow’s editing skill came in handy, and ensured him everlasting fame, when he cut two crucial words from one of Martin’s drafts. The original draft, which owed much to Martin’s experiences watching Channel 5, included the following: “I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there . . . and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station goes off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland of junk.” According to Martin, Minow “had the wit” to cut “of junk.” 

Although Martin originated the “vast wasteland” phrase, it took nothing away from Minow, who, as Martin stated, also had the “courage to throw it [the phrase] in the teeth of the broadcasters and thus show the public the need for reform.”

Writing the speech did change the way Martin handled his series for the Post. Although he stuck to his lead on watching television for twenty hours, he had to change the ending of the passage that used "vast wasteland," not as his own summary of what he had seen, but instead writing, "This is what Newton N. Minow, the beleagurered new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has called 'a vast wasteland.'"

Ironically, Minow’s speech, which left many broadcasting executives looking as if they were “refugees from an atomic blast,” reported one magazine, received attention for all the wrong reasons and was “badly misinterpreted,” noted Minow. “Today that speech is remembered for two words—but not the two I intended to be remembered,” Minow later said. “The words we tried to advance were ‘public interest.’ To me, the public interest meant, and still means, that we should constantly ask: What can television do for our country? For the common good? For the American people?” 

Minow said he wanted the broadcasters to know that there was a new team in town who really cared about the public interest, and that if television failed in that area they would find themselves in difficulty with the government. At the same time, he added, the FCC stood ready to back television executives if they decided to tackle controversial issues.

When he returned home after his speech, Minow received two telephone calls. The first came from President Kennedy’s father, Joseph, from whom the FCC chairman expected “sharp criticism.” Instead, the senior Kennedy told Minow that he had just finished talking to the president and had told his son that Minow’s speech “was the best one since his [JFK’s] inaugural address on January 20th. Keep it up; if anyone gives you any trouble, call me!” 

The second call came from Edward R. Murrow, the former newsman and commentator, who had joined the Kennedy administration as director of the U.S. Information Agency. “You gave the same speech I gave two years ago,” Murrow told Minow. “Good for you—you’ll get a lot of heat and criticism, but don’t lose your courage!” Those messages, said Minow, gave him “the backbone” he needed to focus the FCC’s mission on requiring that broadcasters serve the public, as well as their private, interest, and to increase choices for American viewers. 

Vraciu Talk in Highland

Calumet Region readers can learn more about one of their area's heroes at a program on World War II fighter ace Alex Vraciu I'll be giving at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, May 12, at the Highland branch of the Lake County Public Library, 2841 Jewett Avenue, Highland.

My book Fighter Pilot: The World War II Career of Alex Vraciu, copies of which will be available for sale at the talk, examines how Vraciu, possessed with keen eyesight, quick reflexes, excellent shooting instincts, and a knack for finding his opponent's weak spot, became skilled in the deadly game of destroying the enemy in the skies over the Pacific Ocean. For a period of four months in 1944, Vraciu stood as the leading ace in the U.S. Navy. He shot down nineteen enemy airplanes in the air, destroyed an additional twenty-one on the ground, and sank a large Japanese merchant ship with a well-placed bomb hit.

To register for the free program, call (219) 972-7353.

New Review of RFK Book

I am often astonished about how long it takes for a book to be reviewed in academic journals. Case in point: a new review of my book Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 Indiana Primary. Although the book was published in spring 2008 by Indiana University Press, it has just been reviewed in the June 2011 issue of Presidential Studies Quarterly.

The review, by Joseph A. Palermo of California State University, the author of two books on RFK, is an insightful look at my book and one that I am very pleased with. Palermo notes that my "account of the 1968 Indiana primary is a highly readable monograph that contextualizes the campaign quite well," and concludes his review by indicating that the book "is a valuable contribution to RFK scholarship and sheds new light on the inner workings of one of Kennedy's most important political endeavors."

SPJ Journalism Contest Honors

I was lucky enough to win two honors at the 32nd annual Society of Professional Journalists Best in Indiana Journalism Awards that were announced on Friday, April 22, at a gala awards banquet in Indianapolis. The awards, presented by the Indiana chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, honored print and broadcast work from 2010.

I won first place in the personality profile magazine or special interest publication or periodical for my article in the fall 2010 issue of Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History titled "The People's Choice: Indiana Congressman Jim Jontz."

I also received a third place award in the nonficition book category for my IHS Press publciation Fighter Pilot: The World War II Career of Alex Vraciu. Ted Evanoff and Abe Aamidor won first place in the book category for their work At the Crossroads: Middle America and the Battle to Save the Car Industry.

RFK Speech Anniversary

On April 4, 1968, U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy came to Indianapolis as part of his campaign for the Indiana Demcoratic presidential primary. Instead of a standard stump speech, he passed along the tragic news of the death of Martin Luther King Jr. to a stunned crowd at the Broadway Christian Center at Seventeenth and Broadway streets. The forty-third anniversary of that historic speech will be commemorated in a program from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday, April 4, at the Martin Luther King Jr. Park in Indianapolis.

At 7 p.m. I will be attending a special screening of Don Boggs's documentary "A Ripple of Hope" at the IUPUI University Library's Lilly Auditorium. I will be available after the documentary to discuss aspects of the Kennedy campaign in Indiana from my book Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 Indiana Primary.

In addition, you can be part of the crowd there that night by visiting the Indiana Historical Society's exhibition "You Are There 1968: Robert F. Kennedy Speaks," which will be at the IHS through April 14, 2012.

Vraciu Book Honored

My book Fighter Pilot: The World War II Career of Alex Vraciu, published by the Indiana Historical Society Press, has been named as a finalist in the juvenile, nonfiction category of ForeWord Magazine's annual Book of the Year awards.

Winners will be determined by a panel of librarians and booksellers selected from ForeWord Magazine's readership. Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners, as well as Editor’s Choice Prizes for fiction and nonfiction will be announced at a special program at the American Library Association's Annual Conference in New Orleans this June. The winners of the two Editor's Choice Prizes will be awarded $1,500 each and ForeWord’s Independent Publisher of the Year will also be announced. The ceremony is open to all ALA attendees and exhibiting publishers.

ForeWord's Book of the Year Awards program was created to spotlight distinctive books from independent publishers. What sets the awards apart from others is that final selections are made by real judges--working librarians and booksellers--based on their experiences with patrons and customers.

The magazine's awards process brings readers, librarians, and booksellers together to select their top categories as well as choose the winning titles. Their decisions are based on editorial excellence, professional production, originality of the narrative, author credentials relative to the book, and the value the book adds to its genre.

Book Talk in Brookville

I will be at the Brookville Public Library, 919 Main Street, Brookville, Indiana, at 6 p.m. on Friday, March 18, to talk about my book Fighter Pilot: The World War II Career of Alex Vraciu, published by the Indiana Historical Society Press in 2010.

For more information about the program, contact the Brookville Library at (765)647-4031.

All the Way with RFK

I'll be leading a panel discussion discussing the inside story of how and why Robert F. Kennedy decided to enter the 1968 Indiana Democratic presidential primary at 11 a.m. Saturday, February 19, at the Indiana History Center, 450 West Ohio Street, Indianapolis. The session also features those who experienced the RFK campaign in the Hoosier State, including Michael Riley, Louie Mahern, and Abie Robinson.

The program is part of the Indiana Historical Society member preview for the new exhibition "You Are There 1968: Robert F. Kennedy Speaks," which re-creates Kennedy's famous April 4, 1968, speech announcing the death of Martin Luther King Jr. to a stunned campaign rally crown at 17th and Broadway streets in Indianapolis.

From noon to 2 p.m. at the IHS's Baile History Market, I will be signing copies of my book Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 Indiana Primary, published by Indiana University Press in 2008. Donald Boggs of Anderson University will also be on hand to sign copies of the DVD of his award-winning documentary about Kennedy's Indianapolis speech, A Ripple of Hope. The film will be shown in the Basile Theater at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. Boggs will answer questions about his documentary following each screening.