The Center for the Southwest, in the University of New Mexico history department, announces the 2014 Richard W. Etulain Lecture in Regional History. This year, the event features a conversation with former U.S. Presidential candidate Senator Fred Harris, former Oklahoma state senator Rodger Randle, and New Mexico Mercury editor and founder V.B. Price on the "History, Democracy, and the Media in the Southwest," on Thursday, Nov. 20, at 5:30 p.m., in Lobo A and B of the UNM Student Union Building. This event is free and open to the public. A reception follows the lecture.
 
Oklahoma native Fred Harris is a former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate. He received his LL.B. degree from the University of Oklahoma Law School in 1954. He was elected to U.S. Congress in 1964, after serving in the Oklahoma state legislature. During his senatorial years, Harris sat on numerous committees focusing on Indian health, African American and minority rights and environmental and rural development committees. Harris served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee between 1969 and 1970. He ran for U.S. President in 1972 and again in 1976, on a platform of New Populism. After his last presidential bid, Harris retired from elective politics and taught political science courses at UNM.
 
Tulsa, Okla. native Rodger Randle is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma. He holds a Ph.D. in law from the University of Tulsa. Randle began his career in public service with the Peace Corps in Brazil in the mid 1960s. In 1970, at the age of 27, he was elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives. He was elected to the Oklahoma Senate in 1972, and was then reelected in 1976, 1980 and 1984.
 
Randle was twice elected President Pro Tempore of the State Senate. In 1988, he became mayor of the City of Tulsa. He was reelected in 1990 by the largest margin in Tulsa’s history, becoming Tulsa's first mayor under the new Mayor-City Council form of government. In 1992 he accepted an appointment as president of the University Center at Tulsa, which later became Rogers University. In 1998 accepted a position as professor in the Graduate College of the University of Oklahoma. He is currently director of the Center for Studies in Democracy and Culture at the University of Oklahoma.
 
V.B. Price, is a poet, human rights and environmental columnist, editor, journalist, architectural critic and teacher. He is co-founder of the online publication New Mexico Mercury. A faculty member at the University of New Mexico Honors College, he teaches seminars on Greek and Roman literature in translation, urban issues, the U.S. Constitution and world poetry. He is the former series editor of the Mary Burritt Christensen Poetry Series at the University of New Mexico Press. He is also an adjunct associate professor at the UNM School of Architecture and Planning. Price was a columnist for the now-defunct Albuquerque Tribune. He has written a weekly column for various publications since 1971.
 
Price's poetry and prose have appeared in more than 80 national and international periodicals since 1962, including The Southwest Review, The Calcutta Review, South Dakota Review, Manhattan Review, The New York Quarterly, New Mexico Quarterly, Uzzano and Occident.
 
His poems have been published in New Mexico Poetry Renaissance 1994, Red Crane Books; and Saludos! Poems of New Mexico, 1995, Pennywhistle Press. He has served as architecture editor of Artspace magazine of Albuquerque and Los Angeles, is the former editor of New Mexico Magazine, was city editor of The New Mexico Independent, and the founding editor of the late Century Magazine.
 
The Richard W. Etulain Lecture was conceived by Calvin P. Horn and David Holtby to honor the professional accomplishments of UNM History Professor Richard W. Etulain. The endowed lecture series is presented by UNM faculty members whose scholarship contributes to the regional history of the Southwest. The series is funded by the C. Ruth and Calvin P. Horn Endowment.
 
For more information on the 2014 Richard W. Etulain Lecture, or other events sponsored by the Center for the Southwest, call (505) 277-4344, or email: cntrsw@unm.edu.