Each year we celebrate the culture & especially food of Lithuania!
Our Lithuanian specials have received an outstanding response & we look forward to continuing the tradition again this year. Join us the evening of March 11th to try the amazing three course meal Chef Dan & his team have prepared for you. The meal includes our chilled beet soup, your choice of two entrees & cottage cheese dough-nuts for dessert.
EVENING PROGRAM:
5:30pm - 6:30pm Cash Bar
6:30pm - 7:30pm Dinner
7:30pm Speaker
(Times may vary)
ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Nancy Heingartner
This celebration of Lithuania’s Independence Day(s) speaker will be Nancy Heingartner, Madison Vilnius Sister Cities’ own board of directors’ member and secretary of MVSC. Her presentation is entitled, "My Grandparents' Kaunas: Search for the 1920s in 2010."
Nancy Heingartner's paternal grandfather, Robert Heingartner, was a career U.S. diplomat who spent most of his life abroad, primarily in western-European posts. In June of 1926, while stationed very comfortably in Vienna, Robert learned that his next diplomatic post would be in Kaunas, Lithuania, the provisional capital of the country. Robert kept a very careful diary for much of his diplomatic career, documenting both personal and political events of note.
In fall of 2008, Nancy was introduced to Dr. Al Senn, UW-Madison professor emeritus of history and renowned expert on Lithuania. By late 2009, Dr. Senn had edited Robert's diary of his Kaunas years and published it in book form.
In October of 2010, Dr. Senn, Nancy, and her father, Alex, traveled to Kaunas together with the goal of visiting some of the landmarks recounted in Robert's diary. Nancy's presentation will tell you a bit about what they discovered.
As Assistant Director for Outreach, at UW-Madison's Institute for Regional and International Studies (IRIS), Nancy Heingartner creates cross-regional programs for a variety of target audiences. She works most often with K-12 teachers and students, creating internationally-focused professional-development opportunities for teachers and encouraging young people to learn languages, study abroad, and generally, to be open to the remarkable richness of our world.
She has a Ph.D. in Slavic linguistics from Brown University and is a fluent speaker of Russian. In addition to Russian, she has studied German, French, Czech, Mandarin, Persian, and several dead languages.
Dr. Heingartner has taught Russian at Brown University, Luther College, the University of Utah, and UW-Whitewater. In addition, she has done stints in the non-profit sector and as a diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, Ukraine. She is the proud granddaughter and great great granddaughter of career U.S. diplomats.
For questions please call 608.262.5023 or email [email protected]