The Harding Response
4/28/2000 —The Arkansas Times
April 28, 2000
When Bette Greene's speaking engagement at Harding was cancelled—she later spoke at the University of Central Arkansas and Arkansas State University—a Harding spokesman told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette April 12 he could not readily respond to questions about the visit because he could not determine who invited Greene.
A school spokesman told the Times, however, that Greene had never been formally invited to speak at the school. "We didn't rescind an invitation," said David Crouch, the director of public information.
Crouch said a faculty member had talked with a teacher in Jonesboro who was arranging Greene's tour of Arkansas about speaking at Searcy to a group of education majors April 27. But, Crouch said, Greene was among four or five being considered and ultimately not the one chosen. "Where the lapse in communication happened, I can't say," he said.
Could content of Greene's book have been a problem? "I don't know about that," Crouch said, but he noted that two of Greene's books are used in Harding classes. Asked about Greene's report that her agent was told some of her writing might be at odds with Harding teaching, Crouch said, "I was not a party to that conversation. If there was a problem philsophically, that could very well be the reason she wasn't chosen. But we never talked to Mrs. Greene, never sent her a letter or worked out financial arrangements."
Greene, 66, was born in Arkansas and lived in Parkin until moving to Memphis at age 12. She became a newspaper reporter and then novelist. She was a National Book award finalist for "Summer of My German Soldier," which was also made into a movie and tells the story of a young girl who becomes attracted to a German POW working on her family's farm. She won a Newberry Award for "Philip Hall Likes Me. I Reckon Maybe."
Greene's novel about the harassment of a gay couple in a small Arkansas town dominated by homophobic Christians, "The Drowning of Stephan Jones," won wide praise. It has been published in paperback. She now lives in Massachusetts.
