Author urges children to write

TUSCUMBIA -- Second graders at G.W. Trenholm Primary School came away from a session Friday with award-winning antropolgist/author Margaret Searcy, with some new ideas about the art of writing.

Searcy, 80, worked as a cultural anthropologist at the University of Alabama for many years, specializing in Indian studies.

Throughout her career she received several awards, including being named a "Woman of Distinction for Contributions to Southern Culture" and the "United States President's Acknowledgement" for her volunteer work with juveniles in crime prevention and diversion programs.

Searcy encouraged the students to be creative and write about all of their experiences.

Her books on Indian culture are geared toward younger readers and explore Indian myths and folklore.

"Ikwa of the Mound-Builder Indians," her first book, was dramatized on Alabama Public Television in the 1970s.

In stressing to students the importance of writing, she said she wrote the book in 1973 while sick and bedridden. "I rewrote the book 13 times," she said.

She told the students that writing the simple things, day-to-day activities, can lead to a career in writing that "will really take you places."

"My writing career has allowed me opportunities all over the world," Searcy said, listing famous people she has met, including U.S. presidents, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and celebrities.

But it was Searcy's story about a wolf dog that most captured the children's attention Friday.

She shared the story of a young boy who raised a wolf dog and about the strong bond between them.

Searcy said her motivation in speaking to children is to get them excited about reading.

"I stress to children of all ages that anywhere I've traveled, anything I've done or accomplished has been because of my love of reading," she said.

"I loved the story she told about the wolf dog," said student Anna Beth Peters.

"I already like to read, but as she told the story about finding the wolf dog tracks, it was so exciting it made me want to read more about it."

Searcy devotes much of her time to creating reading outreaches whereby she takes books that come to her from all over the country into various places. She has filled such facilities as libraries, jails, rehabilitation centers, nursing homes and rural churches.

Searcy and her husband Joe have established reading outreaches in nine countries.

Lisa Singleton-Rickman can be reached at 740-5735.