Hank Fincken. |
The College-Community Arts Council will open its 2003-2004 Season at 8:00 p.m. Saturday, October 4, with “Not Johnny If You Please” featuring Hank Fincken. The performance will take place in the auditorium of Wright State University-Lake Campus. Tickets will be on sale at the door: Adults, $10.00; Students, $5.00. Lake Campus students with University I.D. will be admitted free.
Hank Fincken has performed as Johnny Appleseed over one thousand times throughout the Midwest and South America. His performance has the endorsement of the Johnny Appleseed Foundation based at Urbana University and the Indiana Historical Society.
Mr. Fincken will also be visiting area schools from September 29- October 10 as part of the Arts Council's Annual School Residency. His performances in Auglaize County Schools are underwritten by a generous grant from The United Way of Auglaize County.
Fincken earned a B.A. in Sociology from the University of California at Davis and an M.A. in English Literature form Indiana University. He has published twenty five short stories and articles and has been awarded the title “Master Artist” by the Indian Arts Commission.
Ohio has as much claim to Johnny Appleseed as any state in the Union. He arrived shortly after the start of the nineteenth century and called Ohio home even after he had moved most of his work to Indiana. Without a doubt, his most fruitful years were planting seeds and selling apples throughout the Ohio frontier. Stories of his life here have been passed down for generations. These family stories provide clues for what the man must have been like, but few can be documented and many are contradictory. Some are based on historical fact, and others are based on wishful thinking.
The earliest reliable sighting of John Chapman at work is documented in the memoirs of Judge Lansing Wetmore in western Pennsylvania in 1797. Supposedly, he was a Swedenborgian, a group which believed that the physical and spiritual worlds blend into one another. This is perhaps why many stories associated with Johnny Appleseed feature him as a minister who sold apple seedlings to support his missionary work.
We do know that he was born on September 26, 1774, in Leominster, Massachusetts. Letters, deeds, and court documents proved that he worked throughout Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana. Perhaps the most heavily documented event in Chapman’s life was his hurried ride from Mansfield to Mount Vernon during the War of 1812 to warn the settlers in the area about menacing Indians in the neighborhood. The first mention of him as “John Appleseed” is in a letter dating from 1822, though in southeastern Ohio he was first called “Appleseed John.”
Come join us on Saturday, October 4, at the Lake Campus for an evening of education and fun. For more information, contact Mary Molitierno, College-Community Arts Council Publicity Director, at 419-586-0318.
