Six years after their last visit, a delegation from Tochigi City,
Evansville’s sister city in Japan, is renewing family ties.
Six women and four men from the Tochigi City International Exchange
Association will arrive April 21, launching a three-day tour of Evansville’s
cultural and educational resources.
The delegation, which includes a businessman, a restaurateur, current and
retired teachers, a retired engineer, a transportation worker and two
homemakers, will meet members of the community at a public reception from 6:30
to 8:30 p.m., April 23, in the atrium lobby of Old National Bank, on Riverside
Drive.
It will be the sixth time a group from Tochigi City has visited Evansville
since November 1998, when a delegation came to sign a friendship agreement with
city representatives. Mayors from both cities signed the official Sister City
agreement the following July, when Evansville played host to a 21-member group
from Tochigi.
Since then, representatives from Japan have made three Evansville trips, the
last in Dec. 2002, when members of the Tochigi Girls Choir and Orchestra
arrived, participating in Evansville’s First Night New Year’s Eve celebration.
Over a decade of sisterhood, representatives from Evansville, including three
mayors, have made a total of eight trips to Tochigi City, including a concert
tour by the Evansville Philharmonic Youth Orchestra in November 2002.
As part of this month’s visit, delegation members will tour The Victory,
where the Tochigi City and Evansville Philharmonic Youth orchestras are
scheduled to play a joint performance in September 2009.
Other stops on their tour will include Harrison High School, the
Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation’s Tech Center, the University of
Evansville, the Evansville African-American Museum, the Koch Family Children’s
Museum, the Evansville Museum, the Bower-Suhrheinrich Foundation Gallery, the
Pagoda, Evansville Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel’s office and Old National Bank.
The April 23 reception at Old National will open with music by the Rhein
Valley Brass Band leading into remarks by Mayor Wienzapfel and the Tochigi City
delegates at 7 p.m.
The evening’s entertainment will feature performances by the Harlaxton
Quartet, the USI Chorus, Evansville Dance Theatre and The Boom Squad.
And Old National Bank hosts “Quietude of a Gentle Culture,” an exhibition of
photography by Mary Powelson and sculpture by Amy Musia, honoring Evansville’s
sister city relationship with Tochigi City. The show, which opens Monday, will
remain up through May 2 in Old National’s Wayne Henning Atrium.
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2008/apr/10/japanese-sister-city-visit-renews-family-ties-evan/
