Take a sunny trip to the cradle of pop culture as Academia Hernando journeys back to the 1950s to celebrate the music, movies and TV shows, fads and fashions of yesteryear.
Its Spring 2024 Lecture Series continues as Academia Hernando welcomes professional speaker and pop culture expert Michael Hayes, who will present “Americapalooza” at 10 a.m. Friday, Feb. 9, at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 2301 Deltona Blvd., Spring Hill.
Academia Hernando is a not-for-profit lifelong learning organization providing quality instruction and learning experiences for adult students throughout Hernando County and beyond. Their goal is to inform, educate and inspire adult learners through a series of weekly lectures on a wide variety of topics.
With the backdrop of history, we will take a tour of the music and movies, fashion and fads, television, and radio of the 1950s, when we were all ‘younger, so much younger than today.’ Remember the pioneer days of television? Lucy and Desi, Uncle Miltie, Howdy Doody, and Buffalo Bob? Perry Mason, Leave it to Beaver, Dobie Gillis. What about the movies portraying teens as juvenile delinquents? Then, of course, there was Marilyn. And the music revolution, from Bill Haley to Elvis, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and many more. We will see and hear all of them in this course.
With degrees from Purdue University and Lehigh University, and after a more than 40-year career in the food industry with companies such as Kraft Foods and ConAgra Foods, Michael Hayes has been an OLLI-USF instructor for the past four years. He has specialized in pop culture topics, and this lecture is taken from a 6-week, 12-hour course covering the 1940s – 1970s, those “wonder years” when the Baby Boomer Generation was coming of age. He also recently completed an OLLI-USF course about the Beatles in 1964, commemorating their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, “The Night That Changed America and the World, Forever.”
Through “Americapalooza,” Hayes plans to offer a virtual tour of the stars, the music, the movies and shows, the toys and the games, the fads and the fashions, the people and places that entertained audiences during a pivotal time in our nation’s history.
“Audiences can expect a nostalgic tour of the 1950s, seeing and hearing about those thrilling days of yesteryear,” he said, “including Lucy Has a Baby, Hi-Yo Silver, Bill Haley, Juke-Box Memories, Creature Features, Hula Hoops, TV Westerns, ‘Just the Facts, Ma’am,’ Annette, Uncle Miltie, Marlon, Elvis, Marilyn, Barbie, and many more.”
Sharon Printz, a board member of Academia Hernando, looks forward to welcoming this popular presenter to the Academia stage. “Michael will allow us to listen again to our music, laugh at the clothes we wore, and consider the new and fresh ideas to us in our younger days,” she said. “This program should stir some memories, both happy and sad, as we reflect on where we were and what we were thinking! There should be some reflective questions as we travel back in time to the days of our youth.”
The fifth presentation in Academia Hernando’s Spring 2024 series, “Americapalooza,” features a brilliant range of topics presented by the subject matter experts who know them best.
The season will continue on Feb. 16 with Don Philpott’s “Coastal, Inland, and Freshwater Florida,” Feb. 23 with Sheryl Long’s “A Visual History of Mapmaking,” March 1 with Bruce Gobioff’s “The Science of Star Trek,” and a March 8 bus excursion or event.
Academia Hernando presentations begin promptly at 10 a.m. and last two hours with a 15-minute intermission. To register for the entire lecture series in addition to a March 8 mystery bus trip or event, print the registration form found at https://www.academiahernando.org/spring-series and mail with your check for $80 payable to Academia Hernando Inc. to: Bev Nuzzi
15027 Middle Fairway Drive
Brooksville, FL 34609
Checks can also be brought to an Academia Hernando presentation; in addition, walk-in admissions are available at $15 per presentation. Visit https://www.academiahernando.org/ for more information, or call (352) 345-8345 or (352) 515-0300.
