PORTSMOUTH — An anticipated 600 people will be visiting Shawnee State University from Friday to Sunday at the 32nd Annual Appalachian Studies Association Conference and Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland will be at the Saturday luncheon at the James A. Rhodes Athletic Center’s Waller Gymnasium. He will arrive about noon and welcome the participants to Ohio at 12:50 p.m. before the ASA business meeting and awards ceremony.

The theme of the conference is “Connecting Appalachia and the World Through Traditional and Contemporary Arts, Crafts and Music.”

Several faculty and staff from Shawnee State University will be presenting at the conference. Sessions are concurrent in Kricker and Massie Hall:

Barb Bradbury will present “The Integration of First-Generation, First-Term College Students from Ohio Appalachia: A Multiple Case Study” at noon on Friday;

John Simon will present “Cowboy Copas and the Golden Age of Country Music” at noon on Friday;

Mandilyn Hart will present “Philanthropy in Rural Appalachia” at noon on Friday;

Barbara Kunkle will moderate “The Patchworked Identities of Jesse Stuart’s Appalachian Subject” at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, and “Appalachia and the Theory and Method of Empire” at 9:45 a.m. on Sunday;

Andrew Feight will present “The Practice of Local Appalachian History in a Digital Age: Stories of Life and Labor – Oral Histories from Portsmouth, Ohio” at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday;

Michael Barnhart will present “Meeting the Woodworker and Viewing the Work at SSU” featuring local artist, Bradley Gray, of Stout;

Neil Carpathios will moderate “Student Appalachian Poetry – Poetry Reading” at 2 p.m. on Saturday.

Brenda Haas with the Ohio Appalachian Center for Higher Education at SSU will be presenting “Dreams and Plans: Appalachian Ohio High School Students” at noon on Friday.

SSU students presenting poetry with Carpathios are Katie Kaltenbach, Ammie Phipps, Kat Collins, Barbara Wilson-Battles and Cassaundra Mootz.