Dan Kemmis to speak Oct. 3 at UI

[Kenton Bird <kbird@uidaho.edu>]

Visionaries:
Many of you remember fomer Missoula Mayor Dan Kemmis, who was the
keynote speaker at the Community Retreat in June of 1998.  He will be at
the University of Idaho on Wednesday (Oct. 3) talking about his proposal
to transform the way natural resources in the West are managed.

 A free lecture by Kemmis will begin at 7:30 p.m. at the courtoom of the
University of Idaho College of Law, Sixth and Rayburn in Moscow.  His
topic is “A New Vision for Governing the West,” the subtitle of his
latest book, This Sovereign Land, published earlier this year by Island
Press.  (Seating is limited, so I encourage you to arrive early.)

 In the preface to that book, Kemmis writes: “I am convinced the West is
now ready to be in charge of the West, and that this can happen only
through a gradual, thoughtfully conceived, and carefully executed
transfer of responsibility for most of the public lands in the West.”
His evening presentation is part of a UI class, “The New Wild West:
People and the Environment.”

 Kemmis is regarded as one of the West’s leading contemporary thinkers
and writers on such topics as community, regionalism and politics.  He
was speaker of the Montana House of Representatives and Mayor of
Missoula.  Since 1996, he has been director of the Center for the Rocky
Mountain West at the University of Montana.

 He is the author of two previous books, Community and the Politics of
Place (1990), The Good City and the Good Life (1995).   Recognized by
the Utne Reader as one of 100 visionaries in 1995, Kemmis is on the
boards of the Charles F. Kettering Foundation and the Brookings
Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy.

He will sign copies of all three of his books at a reception sponsored
by
Bookpeople of Moscow, 521 S. Main, from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday.