A dinner to honor Harrison Kash – founder of the International Film Society at Missouri Southern – will be held at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 15, in Room 356 of Billingsly Student Center.
Harrison Kash
The Film Society was founded in 1962 by Kash, Alma Doan, Arthur Boles and Philip Jones as an activity of the Ozark Artists Guild. It has been supported by a combination of ticket sales, contributions and funding provided by the Missouri Arts Council and the MSSU Institute of International Studies.
Nearly 500 foreign films have been screened for audiences since its inception.
Kash, an assistant professor of chemistry at MSSU from 1958-1997, provided a $50,000 endowment to the Film Society in 2014. It was renamed the Harrison and June Kash International Film Society in his honor.
The endowment will help fund guest lectures by film scholars to accompany screenings. The first undertaking will be the “Kurosawa: Sword of Cinema, Force of Life” symposium on March 15 featuring Stephen Prince from Virginia Tech. Prince will speak at 11 a.m. in Cornell Auditorium on “Akira Kurosawa: A Life in Cinema” and participate in a 3 p.m. panel discussion in Phelps Theater.
“That’s something we’ve always lacked – bringing speakers here,” Kash said. “But we also want the endowment to honor the people who have contributed so much all these years by volunteering their time. There were dozens and dozens of people, and my wife was one of them.”
The cost of the dinner is $20 per person. Reservations must be made by March 10. To RSVP, contact Cindy Jordan at the Institute of International Studies at 417-659-4442.