Press Releases
November 21, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Contact:
Alka Joshi
Evergreen Valley College Marketing and Community Relations
650-224-7580 cell
408-270-6413 direct
408-238-3179 fax
Great Scots! The 31st Annual St. Andrew’s Day Celebration at EVC
Thursday, Nov. 29
11:30 am – 1:00 pm
In front of Library Roundabout
What do Robert Lewis Stevenson, Robert Burns, Andrew Carnegie, MacBeth, and numerous signers of the Declaration of Independence have in common? For one, they’re all Scots. For another, they’re going to be honored at the 31st Annual St. Andrew’s Day Celebration at Evergreen Valley College (EVC), along with the thousands of Scots who have made sizeable contributions to the arts, science, commerce and culture of the world.
“With so much culture being celebrated around us, we just couldn’t ignore the Scots,” said a smiling Andrew McFarlin, originator of the celebration in 1974. McFarlin, 81, a retired EVC Engineering faculty member, said the enormous contribution of the Scots is disproportionate to their global population.
With the help of the San Jose Evergreen Community College District and Evergreen Valley College, as well as friends from the Villages like George Graham and Jim Logie, and Supervisor Pete McHugh, McFarlin organizes the annual processional march of bagpipe players and drummers, Highland dancers, the Scottish American Military Color Guard and Scottish singers through campus. This year, an EVC student will read the poems of Robert Burns and there will be demonstration of “folding the great Plaid.” And as he did last year, EVC President David Wain Coon will don a tartan kilt and a Glengarry, like many of his fellow marchers.
Since McFarlin shares his name with the patron Saint of Scotland, he feels a certain amount of proprietary pride. “This is my day!” he laughs. About 200 community members are expected to attend the year’s festivities. Scottish food and merchandise will be available for purchase.
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ABOUT Evergreen Valley College
With student learning as its primary focus, Evergreen Valley College’s mission is to embrace its students, to validate, nurture and celebrate them so that they may succeed in a global, multicultural society. The College, which sits on a picturesque 175-acre site in the eastern foothills of San Jose, provides access to comprehensive and flexible post-secondary education to prepare students of all ages and backgrounds for balanced and productive lives and to improve the workforce and quality of life in our community.