Archives of the 13th Headwaters Conference, Nov. 8-10, 2002
Conflict to Consensus: Meeting Obstacles to Community Action
Western student Kristen Lawrynk and faculty members Lara Starcevich
and Terry Schliesman contemplate the difficult content of words and bratwurst at
a "Headwaters Cafe" scene Friday evening at Headwaters XIII.
Western's "Lucky 13th" Headwaters Conference coincided with a fairly substantial effort by the weather gods to break the Southwest's drought. Among other things, the weather forced a theater troupe from Denver to cancel their planned trip to bring the play "Weed" to the conference for the main Friday evening event. But a hastily assembled troupe of local faculty members, one student and two community members rallied to put together a slightly rehearsed reading of the play — a necessary thing since the play was foundational to some of the subsequent Headwaters presentations. "Weed" is a play about a community, in transition from a "resource economy" (ranching, mining, logging) to an "amenities economy" (tourism and recreation), in which a "weed" is discovered that might be an endangered plant species. Idaho playwright Micki Panttaja was commissioned to write the play by the Rural Development Councils of several Rocky Mountain states for exactly this type of conference presentation. Saturday's activities involved a poster show and some hands-on process sessions all illustrating techniques, either field-tested or still somewhat theoretical, for trying to get divided communities past (or at least constructively into) such conflicts.