Information provided by the Hardeman County Association for the Preservation of Tennessee Antiquities

Step back with us to "Places in Time - Circa 1862-1920 Historic Tour" in Bolivar, TN.  On May 5th and 6th, The Association for the Preservation of Tennessee Antiquities (APTA) will be conducting The APTA Annual Historic Tour.  Bolivar is located only about an hour east of Memphis and 30 minutes south of Jackson, TN.  With over 150 homes and buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, it has a lot of history, just waiting to be told.

With cameras in hand, 22 Mississippi high school students and eight teachers are discovering that art exists everywhere, even in the smallest communities.

The Wide Angle Learning project, which allows high school students to plan and create original art projects, is in its second year. The project is coordinated through the Mississippi Teacher Corps, or MTC, at the University of Mississippi and sponsored by the Southern Education Foundation.

Eight student groups from six schools took on this year's challenge of creating photo books that examine some aspect of their communities and the people within them.

"The program lets students use many skill sets," said Ben Guest, MTC program manager. "Photography is an art form. The layout is a design skill. How you edit and arrange the photos is a technical skill and interviewing people is a multifaceted skill. Bringing these skills into one long-term project is what education should really be."