CYBA Ready for Festival

- by Jon Devin, Thursday, August 23rd, 2007

When Lyn Patrick Myers wants to throw a party, she really throws a party. The new executive director for the Cooper-Young Business Association (CYBA), now holding the reigns of her first Cooper-Young Festival, can’t wait to share her native roots with all of Memphis.

“I’ve always been a Midtowner,” says Myers, a professional event planner with 30 years of experience. “That was part of the appeal of taking on the Festival.”

The Festival of course is the highly-anticipated Cooper-Young Festival, which draws tens of thousands of Midsoutherners to Midtown Memphis every September. Activities include live music from local bands, fair foods and cold beer, and hundreds of booths lining Cooper Street and Young Avenue in which artisans from around the country sell hand-made art and gifts.

This year marks the 20th anniversary for the Festival, scheduled for Saturday, September 15, all day. Admission is free.

For Myers, the Festival is “a celebration of the end of summer” and of the unique culture of an historic Midtown neighborhood in which she has something of a legacy. She and her parents were born in Midtown, and although Myers left Memphis for several years, she decidedly returned after an earthquake destroyed her last home in Los Angeles.

She recalls fondly that her grandfather and his uncles owned a sundry store right at the intersection of Cooper and Young - just feet from her new office - in the early 1900s. Now living with her husband, Bob Myers of Graham’s Lighting, in the vicinity of Walnut Grove and Highland, she is very proud to live in what she calls “the last house in Midtown” - or east Midtown, anyway.

Myers accepted the job as CYBA’s director at the end of March, 2007 giving her a somewhat late start and a mere six months to prepare for what is arguably Memphis’ largest street festival. Last year, between 65,000 and 75,000 people attended.

When asked if she felt daunted at the prospect of a small city showing up for her event, she responds simply and with a quiet smile, “No, not really.”

Referring to the orange, four-inch thick binder on her desk, which she calls her Bible, she says “everything just seemed to fall in place.”

In a small miracle of good marketing and timing, sponsors for the event were signed and accounted for by the first of July. This year they include previous sponsors like Cadence Bank, D. Canale, The Commercial Appeal, Kendall Haney Realtors, Entercomm Radio Group, Clear Channel Telecommunications, the Memphis Grizzlies, the Memphis Music Commission, Road Show Mini-Coopers, Sam’s Town Hotel and Gambling Hall, and one first-time sponsor, TCB.

Myers explains that since the Festival is very well established and known to be a hit with the public, it is a pretty easy sell for advertisers. She’s especially glad to see last year’s new addition, the Road Show Mini Coopers, returning after making a splash last year.

Myers also credits her incredible “staff” of CYBA volunteers, some of whom have been offering their support for several years, with making the set-up go smoothly. Two of those volunteers, Chuck Parr and Lizi Beard, saw to it that all 340 artists’ booths sold out during the month of June. Myers developed a special hotline for potential vendors, which helped speed up the process.

The booths will house a mix of local and regional artists whose wares include pottery, iron work, garden novelties, jewelry, photography, paintings, and other forms of art. Since mass-produced items are not allowed for sale in the Festival, purchasers are guaranteed to find unique gifts, which cannot be found elsewhere.

“I really enjoy the artisans here more than anything else,” Myers says. “There are some incredibly talented people here - their work falls into the energy of having fun.”

Also adding to that energy is the live music of a number of local musicians and groups. Cameron Mann of Young Avenue Sound once again slated the lineup of music, which includes this year’s headliner, Lucero.

Lucero, originally a Memphis garage-rock band, now tours the country in the wake of at least two released albums titled Nobody’s Darlings and Rebels, Rogues & Sworn Brothers. Their songs have been described as influenced by Bruce Springsteen and traditional Southern Rock.

Last year’s Festival attendees may notice a difference in the staging of the music this year though. The 2006 Festival featured a fourth stage at Cooper and York, near the famous Cooper-Young Trestle Art Installation. While most seemed to enjoy the addition, the nearly 10 blocks walking distance from York Avenue to Young Avenue proved to be too much of a hike in high heat for many others. The decision was made shortly after last year’s festival to discontinue the fourth stage thereafter.

Still, partygoers of all ages will be able to enjoy the massive block party atmosphere they are used to. Myers explained that the Festival is marketed for everyone regardless of age or where you live. She noted that families with children tend to come earlier in the day, while “the young crowd” - adults in their 20s, 30s and 40s - begin showing up in the afternoon. Some guests travel from such points east as Lakeland, Collierville, and Olive Branch for the event as well.

“I don’t know anybody who doesn’t enjoy coming here,” Myers says .

Perhaps most importantly, funds raised by the Festival will support the CYBA, which promotes the collection of independent stores and restaurants in the Cooper-Young neighborhood. CYBA provides office space for the Memphis Police Department’s Midtown Co-Act Unit at the intersection of Cooper and Young. Additionally, the CYBA has been instrumental in driving community initiatives involving zoning, environmental issues, and a community response to MATA’s proposed light rail line.

Freakishly high temperatures in August have Myers hoping for a reprieve, but she’s excited about her first Festival.

“I feel like I’m about to give birth,” she laughs. She hopes everyone will join her for the occasion.

You can learn more about the Cooper-Young Festival at www.cooperyoungfestival.com.

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Laying the Foundation for Lifelong Learning

- by Jon Devin, Friday, August 3rd, 2007

If you can read this article, then chances are that your parents read to you as a child, says Wilson McCloy of Memphis Literacy Council’s (MLC) Family Literacy Program. McCloy wants Memphis parents to understand that early childhood learning is essential to success in school, and that it all begins at home.

“All (parents) really need is to read regularly to their kids four to six times a week,” he continues. “That’s what I consider a whopping success.”

It sounds like a no-brainer, but McCloy has found that many Memphis parents, especially in the lowest income brackets, are surprised to learn that it is important to read to babies, toddlers, and preschool-age children.

“This is new information for them-it’s a big revelation,” he says.

Studies by the American Library Association link parents reading with their children to higher test scores during the elementary school years, when the fundamentals of reading and writing are first taught. Also, children whose parents read to them are more likely to graduate from high school and college.

In his role as program manager of the Family Literacy Program, McCloy takes that message to the people who need to hear it most. This six year-old program partners with agencies like Title I public schools, Head Start centers, private and church daycare centers, and other programs which provide services for children up to age 10. Even sites where the majority of clients speak Spanish are included. McCloy visits each site three times a year to train the parents of those children on creating successful young learners at home.

The training is crucial, he explains, because other area literacy resources often overlook it. Dolly Parton’s statewide Imagination Library for instance, works to bring free books to young children, but does not spend time teaching parents how to use them.

McCloy collaborates with the Imagination Library, Mid-South Reads, and other organizations to make sure that all those free books do more than collect dust. He teaches research-based methodology to parents in intimate groups of 10 to 20.

One of the first concepts that he emphasizes to parents is that the architecture of a child’s brain is developed from repeated skills. Free literacy kits, provided by McCloy during training workshops, offer items like books, magnetic letters, construction paper and markers that can be made into literacy games. Games encourage children to explore letters and words on a daily basis.

But what happens when the parents cannot read very well themselves?

McCloy says this is a fairly common hurdle for low-income families, but it can be overcome. In his training, he teaches the Dialogic Reading Method, part of the Every Child Ready to Read curriculum, developed also by the American Library Association.

Dialogic reading involves parents opening a book and asking lots of questions. If the words are too difficult to read, parents can point at pictures and ask the child to interpret them. Parents can also ask children to make sentences using the more familiar words from the story. Activities as simple as these, when repeated often through the week, have been proven to increase learning behaviors and childhood reading skills, McCloy says.

Another skill parents learn in training is familiarity with the 6 pre-reading skills, which include print awareness - helping a child understand the existence and purpose of printed letters - and phonological awareness - how children first begin recognizing and interpreting sounds.

“If parents are not told how important this is, they’re likely to just turn on the TV and let it go at that,” says McCloy.

McCloy says he’s always been passionate about books, reading, and learning. He joined MLC when returning home to Memphis after attending a university in Montana. He has one daughter of his own, in whom he hopes to instill his love of lifelong learning. He is also a volunteer for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Memphis.

“I love books,” he says. “I know the power of reading, and I know it has the power to change lives. It increases the quality of lives.”

What’s more, he gets to see lives changing every time a parent has his or her first moment of feeling real empowerment. Parents leave training knowing what they need to do so that someday their children will be able to read articles like this one without any concern that it might be too difficult.

For more information about the Family Literacy program please visit www.memphisliteracycouncil.org.

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