OTC bringing reading group to campus

Booked for Lunch is a book club open to the local community hosted on the OTC campus. The club invites faculty, staff, students, and the general community to join together to read “The Heart and the Fist: The education of a humanitarian, the making of a Navy SEAL,” by Eric Greitens.

Karen Foresee, who is organizing Booked for Lunch, said its the first time faculty, staff and students have been brought together to read a common book.

“Everyone will be on an equal basis to read and to enjoy the book together. We can take a break and find common ground reading,” said Foresee, an English instructor at OTC. “Booked for Lunch will create a space to talk about and listen to how reading intersects with our memories, our everyday lives, and current events. Id like to invite anyone interested to join us and become part of a larger community through reading.”

Lyndsey Fronterhouse, an English instructor at the OTC Richwood Valley Campus, was the Colleges representative on the committee established by MSU to choose a book, which will be used for MSU’s freshmen class in Fall 2014.

“We researched the success of book reading at other campuses and have found that most have common reader classes,” she said.

In the book, Greitens, who is also a Rhodes Scholar, lives in St. Louis and serves as the CEO of The Mission Continues, recounts his life of working with volunteers who taught art of children in Bolivia and who led Marines to hunt terrorists in Iraq. As a Navy SEAL, he fought in Afghanistan. Today, he works with disabled and severely wounded veterans.

Foresee said reading the book will begin in March and be completed before the end of April so it does not interfere with final exams in May. She also said the public is invited to come to the Booked for Lunch meetings.

Foresee and Fronterhouse said there is a chance Greitens will be coming to MSU in the fall to speak. If that happens, OTC readers will be invited to attend the event.

Booked for Lunch’s first meeting will be Wednesday, March 5, from noon to 1 p.m. in the Norman K. Myers building, Room 235C.

For more information, contact Karen Foresee at foreseek@otc.edu, 417-447-6686 or 417-766-1226 or join the Facebook group: Booked for Lunch (OTC Book Club).