CELEBRATING
50 YEARS!
This fall, Town Hall South will celebrate its 50th anniversary, continuing with its
tradition of providing entertainment and enrichment to audience members.
BY JENNIFER BROZAK
W
hat do Vincent Price, Erma Bombeck, Isaac
Asimov and Lesley Stahl have in common?
They’ve all been part of the Town Hall South
Lecture Series, which brings nationally and
internationally recognized speakers to the South Hills. This fall,
Town Hall South will celebrate its 50th anniversary, continuing
with its tradition of providing entertainment and enrichment to
audience members.
The lecture series was founded in 1969 by Edna Brown and
Ruth Bayley, members of the Westminster Presbyterian Church
in Upper St. Clair, with the encouragement of their pastor, John
Galbreath. As an outreach program, their mission was to fund
local charities while enriching the community and stimulating
intellectual growth throughout the South Hills, according to
Suzanne Palko, chair.
“Town Hall South continues the tradition started by Edna
and Ruth, as it is still an outreach program of Westminster
Presbyterian Church, run by a group of women from the church,
who volunteer their time to put this program together every
year,” says Palko, who is a professor of nursing at California
University of Pennsylvania.
The series’ very first speakers included Price, journalist Sydney
Harris, actress Betty Furness, writer Rod MacLeish and physicist
William Pollard. Throughout the past five decades, the series has
welcomed renowned speakers from a wide swath of professions,
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including everyone from talk-show host Phil Donahue in 1979 to
best-selling author Mary Higgins Clark in 1995 to Jack Hanna in
2015.
Palko notes that the series is one of the few independently
run lecture series in the country. Most lecture series purchase
a “package” of speakers, whereas Town Hall South culls from
numerous agencies to develop its own individual slate of
candidates from across a variety of industries. Each year, it
ultimately books five speakers, narrowed down from an initial list
of approximately 30 candidates.
The 2018-2019 season will feature lectures from presidential
historian and author John Meacham; NASA engineer Adam
Steltzner; Italian cuisine expert and TV host Francine Segan;
CBS News foreign correspondent Lara Logan; and scientist and
best-selling author David Eagleman.
All proceeds are donated to local charities that focus
exclusively on women and children. Over the past 50 years, Palko
says that Town Hall South has donated more than $600,000 to
local organizations.
The lectures run from October to March and are held at
the Upper St. Clair High School theater from 10:10 to 11:10
a.m. Registrants also have the option to purchase tickets to
the luncheon series at St. Clair Country Club, which includes
question-and-answer sessions with the speakers. For information
or to register, visit townhallsouth.org. n