Hesston College will honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., with a week-long celebration titled Martin Luther King: The Spirit, Service and the Arts Jan. 18 to 22. The week will feature multiple events, including concerts and special lectures. All events will be free and open to the public.

The events all are organized around the theme of the spirit of Dr. King’s work along with its connection to service and the arts. According to event planner and Hesston College professor Dwight Roth, music and the arts are able to convey meaning in ways that other communication cannot.

“Leonard Bernstein said ‘Music can name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable’ and that’s the idea behind our celebration of Dr. King’s legacy,” Roth said. “King’s essence and legacy overlap with the Mennonite emphasis on service and justice, and we hope to use the arts as a vehicle for inspiring us to continue King’s work.”

Featured presenters will include Kevin King, Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) executive director from Akron, Pa.; Aleen Ratzlaff, associate professor of Communications at Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kan.; Tony Duplessis, a pianist, Louisiana resident and Hurricane Katrina victim whose home was rebuilt by MDS; Jessie Roth, accomplished flutist and teacher; John Sharp, Hesston College History professor; and Tony Brown, Hesston College artist in residence.

In addition, the college will host an intergenerational, African-American panel, featuring alumni Brenda Webb Papin and Dave Coleman and students Sonsharae Graham of Philadelphia and Rickey Vick of Edmond, Okla.

The week will begin with a special chapel service at 11 a.m. Monday, Jan. 18, at Hesston College Mennonite Church. Sharp will present Martin Luther King: Keeping the Charge.

Tuesday, Jan. 19, community members are invited to join Hesston College’s Religions of the World class where Kevin King will present A Charge to Dream. The class will meet from 10 to 11:15 a.m. that morning in the Hesston Mennonite Church Community Center. Tabor College associate professor in Communications Aleen J. Ratzlaff will present on The Black Press and Community Building at 7 p.m. at Hesston Mennonite Church. Ratzlaff’s presentation is sponsored by the college’s Language Arts Division and the Kansas Humanities Council.

Kevin King will offer two presentations Wednesday, Jan. 20. He will speak about Disaster Management Leadership Development from 10 to 10:50 a.m. at Charles Hall room 1, and at 11 a.m. he will offer A Charge to Serve at chapel in the Hesston College Mennonite Church.

Events Thursday, Jan. 21, will begin with a 10 a.m. presentation by Duplessis on Social Diversity and Martin Luther King in the Hesston Mennonite Church Community Center. Then, a benefit concert for the Hesston College Disaster Management Program Scholarship Fund will begin at 7 p.m. at Hesston Mennonite Church. The concert will feature African-American spirituals as well as piano-flute duets, performed by Brown, Duplessis and Roth.

An Artistic Celebration: Martin Luther King will be from 9 to 10:30 p.m. that evening in the Larks Nest. Students, faculty and staff will read poetry and provide music and dancing, including a rendition of “The Evolution of Dance.”

Duplessis will speak at 10 a.m. Friday, Jan. 22, on A Sociology of Louisiana in Kropf Center room 150. The week-long celebration will conclude that day with an 11 a.m. forum featuring an intergenerational panel of African-American Hesston College alumni and students reflecting on Dr. King.