Mary Lyon's Birthday Is Here; Commemoration to Continue

Mary Lyon's 200th birthday will be marked this week with campus fanfare, but the milestone will continue to be celebrated for months to come on campus and in surrounding communities. Ongoing and upcoming Mary Lyon- related events include the following:

The town of Buckland, Lyon's birthplace, will celebrate with a birthday party from 6 to 8 pm on February 28 at the Shelburne Falls branch of the Greenfield Savings Bank. Festivities will feature a cake large enough to hold 200 candles.
The Mary Lyon Web site is online, and will be viewed on February 28 by schoolchildren in Buckland. It is permanently accessible to Web users all over the world at this URL: www.mtholyoke.edu/marylyon.
The postmaster of Shelburne Falls, Eric Doty, is preparing framed, archival- quality presentation pieces displaying the five U.S. postage stamps bearing images of Mount Holyoke people: Mary Lyon, Virginia Apgar, Lucy Stone, Frances Perkins, and Emily Dickinson. A summary of each woman's claim to fame accompanies her stamp. One will be presented to the College archives.
At 3 pm on March 2, the MHC Glee Club will sing at the First Congregational Church in Buckland.
The Mary Lyon Lecture Series continues with a March 27 talk by American Civil Liberties Union president Nadine Strossen.
On April 10-13, audiences can enjoy a campus presentation of Devotees in the Garden of Love, a play written and directed by acclaimed playwright Suzan-Lori Parks '85, winner of the Mary Lyon Award.
Tentative plans are being made for a Mary Lyon road race in April, with a course stretching the twenty-two miles from her hometown of Buckland, MA, to campus.
A one-woman dramatic pre- sentation on Mary Lyon's life will be performed at reunion by actress Kate Carney.
The U.S. Postal Service will offer special cancellation of first-class mail on September 20 at the "Mary Lyon Church" in Buckland. A rubber stamp bearing the image of a quill pen, a book on a desk, and the words "Mary Lyon 200th Anniversary" will be used to cancel mail. The stamp was designed by a fifth-grader at Buckland-Shelburne Regional School.