Stanford Report, May 5, 2004

READERS ALREADY KNOW THAT THERESA JOHNSTON, a former News Service staff writer and a regular contributor to Stanford magazine and Stanford Report, has a way with words. Now it turns out that her son, 14-year-old ERIC JOHNSTON, an eighth-grader at Terman Middle School, does too. On April 24, Eric and classmate THOMAS BAO won the National "School Scrabble" Championship in Boston by outplaying 105 other teams and winning a $5,000 prize. Although Eric learned to play the word game years ago from his mother ("I used to give him two extra tiles," Johnston recalls), he got serious after completing a school assignment that required students to think of something they'd like to be good at and to figure out ways to accomplish that goal. After interviewing a director of a local Scrabble club, who supplied playing tips and a list of books on the topic, Eric started memorizing word lists and started a Scrabble Club at school, Johnston said. (The studying paid off: The obscure word "ratteen," which refers to a kind of woolen cloth, boosted the team's score during the final championship game by 80 points.) The unknown Terman Middle School team's win was an upset in the School Scrabble world; the national organization oversees a program of more than a million students playing in 20,000 schools and libraries. "To say we were a dark horse is kind of an understatement," said Johnston. Eric played his first actual tournament last October, she said. "He won $25 and was really happy about it."

ESTELLE FREEDMAN, PROFESSOR OF history, co-founder of the Program in Feminist Studies and a member of the San Francisco Folk Music Club, weaved her professional and personal interests together last Thursday in the workshop "Folk Songs of Women's History" at the Women's Community Center. "My father bought me a used guitar at the age of 13 -- and I was totally enamored with Joan Baez," said Freedman, who played as she led a group of female (and one male) students in songs by and about women, beginning with songs from 18th-century England. Included in her repertoire were lullabies ("The primal women's work song"); the first known industrial protest song, which was sung by female mill workers in the 1840s; and "The Housewife's Lament," which used humor to fight the toil and disappointment faced by a Midwestern farm wife after the Civil War. Freedman, who has presented the workshop annually for a decade, plans to focus on 20th-century women's songs next year, she said.

THIS WEEKEND BRINGS THE ANNUAL Mothers' Day Triple Crown to campus: First, on May 7-9, the 34th annual SPRING FAIRE will feature more than 100 artisans who will sell their work at Tresidder Union and White Plaza (the festival funds the Bridge Peer Counseling Center). Also May 7-9 is the STANFORD POWWOW, the largest student-run powwow in the country, which begins Friday evening in the Arboretum. And on May 8, the annual INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL, a program of music, dance, crafts and cultural displays from around the globe, will begin at noon at Bechtel International Center. More information about the free events is available online at http://events.stanford.edu.

Write to Barbara Palmer at barbara.palmer@stanford.edu or mail code 2245 or call her at 724--6184.

Barbara Palmer