The Selley Foundation has donated $35,000 and Capital One Bank, $25,000. LEH President and Executive Director Michael Sartisky said these contributions come at a key time. "First, I laud both Capital One Bank and the Selley Foundation for their leadership and vision," he said. "The LEH will use these two gifts to help match two major challenge grants that the LEH has received from the Kresge Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

"The clock is running on the Kresge and NEH challenge grants but the deadline is much nearer for the Kresge grant," said Sartisky. "We have until April 1, 2008, to complete the fundraising for the Kresge Challenge. When the Capital One and Selley Foundation gifts are figured into the equation, we still must raise about $100,000 by the deadline. I want all potential donors to understand the leverage factor and that they are getting more 'bang for their buck' by making a capital campaign contribution now."

The campaign for the Louisiana Humanities Education Center is to help create a state-of-the-art auditorium that comfortably seats 120 along with 4 seminar and breakout rooms with the latest Internet and audio-visual technological capabilities.

This national expansion is made possible through a $275,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, which also supported earlier grants for implementation in Louisiana and initial national expansion.

In New Jersey, the state library will direct the partnership with the public libraries. In Florida and Michigan, the Florida Humanities Council and the Michigan Humanities Council, will direct the partnership with public libraries. The Pioneer Public Library System in Oklahoma will direct the project with their branch libraries, and in New York, the Queens Borough Public Library will direct the partnership with their branch libraries.

The selected states will receive grant funding and support materials to present the PRIME TIME series at four sites, and selected library systems will receive support to present PRIME TIME at three branch locations. Each series will meet once a week for six weeks at participating libraries. Through a discussion leader and a storyteller, children ages six to ten years and their parents or guardians will hear classic children's stories; watch reading aloud demonstrations; discuss humanities themes in each book and learn about library resources and services. At each site, bilingual programs will be offered to serve Spanish-speaking children and their families. Younger siblings, ages three to five years, will participate in separate pre-reading activities.

Based on illustrated children's books, PRIME TIME is designed to help low-income, low-literate families, including English language learners, bond around the act of reading and talking about books. It models and encourages family reading and discussion of humanities topics, and aids parents and children in selecting books and becoming active public library users. PRIME TIME received the 2003 Advancement of Literacy award from the Public Library Association, a division of the American Library Association, and in 2000 the "Coming Up Taller" award from the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.

PRIME TIME, based on a successful series of the same name created by the LEH in 1991 at the East Baton Rouge Parish Library, has spread nationwide with funding from NEH. Over 24,000 individuals have participated in more than 750 PRIME TIME programs in 36 states and the Virgin Islands.

For more information about PRIME TIME, please visit www.leh.org or contact Faye Flanagan at 504-620-2485.

Click here to view RELIC Library Reading Program Schedule, Winter/Spring 2008.

Poet Laureate Bourque's published work includes "The Blue Boat," which was the inaugural issue of special editions of the Center for Louisiana Studies; "Burnt Water Suite" (1999); "Where Land Meets Sky," a volume issued by the University Art Museum, highlighting Bourque's poetry from "Plainsongs" along with Elemore Morgan Jr.'s paintings and drawings; "The Doors Between Us," which was the inaugural edition of the "Louisiana Literature's" chapbook series; and "Plainsongs" (1994), published by Cross-Cultural Communications Press, Merrick, New York, and now in its second printing. Bourque has served as president of the National Association for Humanities Education and on the Louisiana State Taskforce for Literature and Literacy.

Under state law, LEH is charged with overseeing the poet laureate nomination process that is chaired by LEH President Dr. Michael Sartisky. It selects a nominations committee consisting of two published poets from Louisiana, two professors of literature from a Louisiana college or university, two representatives from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, and a representative from Louisiana State University Press. Nominees must be either born or domiciled in Louisiana at the time of nomination.

The LEH will provide up to four $2,500 grants in 2008 and four in 2009 to non-profit organizations such as libraries, adult literacy groups, groups interested in language studies or bilingualism in Louisiana that wish to host Bourque for poetry readings, discussion or presentations. This spring, the LEH will present Dr. Bourque with a special award for his contributions to Louisiana and American literature. In January, he will do a reading of his work at the LEH's Humanities Center in New Orleans. Dates and times to be announced.

For more information about grants to sponsor Dr. Bourque presentations, go to the LEH website at www.leh.org or contact Director of Grants Dr. Gary Talarchek at 504-620-2627 or talarchek@leh.org.

• An interview of non-fiction writer Michael Lewis, a son of New Orleans who has taken on Wall Street, professional sports and the presidential electoral process in his acclaimed books;
• A chronicle of the Great Flood of 1932 that inundated Monroe and Northeast Louisiana when the Ouachita River overflowed its banks;
• A critical analysis of New Orleans' economic woes and societal structure by conservative commentator Benjamin C. Toledano;
• An overview of landscape paintings from the exhibit "Louisiana: Where Land Meets Water," at the New Orleans Museum of Art, in collaboration with The Historic New Orleans Collection;
• A history of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, the controversial shipping channel that many blame for much of the destruction from Hurricane Katrina's tidal surge;
• The connections between New Orleans' cuisine and the Caribbean; the lives of jazz legends Johnny and Warren "Baby" Dodds; and the architecture of Plaquemines Parish round out other offerings in an issue of the magazine that offers something for everyone.

Four times over the next year they will be able to paddle the bayou, walk the French Quarter, and explore the Cane River. They will learn Louisiana's history from Hot Sauce to Hot Jazz and travel our towns from Abbeville to Zwolle. And finally, they will enjoy the work of our finest writers, photo-essayists, and artists all bringing forth the magic that comes from Louisiana's people and places, history and culture.

With nearly 6,000 pages of Louisiana history, literature and art now in print, Louisiana Cultural Vistas is an encyclopedia or Smithsonian magazine of Louisiana culture that reaches 50,000 people a year, including students through schools and public libraries in every parish of the state. Winner of 75 awards from the New Orleans Press Club, Louisiana Cultural Vistas has won the New Orleans Press Club's "Best Publication" six of the last ten years including 2006. In 2006, the magazine received 10 awards, including the following first-place awards for photography, design, editorial writing and best publication.

With this special offer, your first gift subscription is the regular price of $16, after that they are only $12 each-a full 25% discount! To purchase your gift subscriptions online, please click on www.leh.org for the order form or call Barbara Lopez at (504) 523-4352.

Past recipients include books such as Philip Gould's Louisiana's Capitol, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall's Africans in Colonial Louisiana, Elizabeth Mullener's Eyewitness: Tales of New Orleanians in World War II, and Jay Edwards's Plantations by the River.

For additional information about these and other grants, click here, or contact John Kemp at the LEH, 504-620-2481 or at kemp@leh.org.