Several public programs are offered by LearningQUEST each term as its gift to the community. No registration or fees. Registration for members is suggested during online registration or in-person registration. Please help spread the word and be sure to invite your friends and neighbors.

Fall, 2025

P1-Life in Zero Gravity Before and During Apollo
Download the Flyer
Instructor: John Ofenloch
Dates: 1 Tuesday July 22
Time: 2 – 3:30
Location: AUD

How do you live in zero gravity? When you turn a screwdriver, will you go around the tool? How do you eat, shower, or go potty? The experiments conducted to discover answers to the how-tos will be discussed during the interview with John Ofenloch as conducted by interviewer Bill Nunn. Join us to learn the evolution of the man/system integration dealing with zero gravity and the isolation of space.

P2-More Music in the Movies

Instructor: Billy Bob Nunn
Dates: 4 Tuesdays Sep. 2 – 16, 30
Time: 2 – 3:30
Location: AUD

Once again on Tuesday afternoons in September, the air will be filled with wonderful music from some of Hollywood’s most memorable productions. Join the crowd as LearningQUEST’s favorite disc jockey escorts you down the red carpet to a world of exhilarating tunes from 80 different movies. Chances are great that you will leave the auditorium humming an Academy Award winner. Come hum along!

P3-Freedom Riders: The Campaign to Integrate Public Transportation, 1961

Instructor: David Lilly
Dates: 1 Tuesday Nov. 4
Time: 10 – 11:30
Location: AUD

Although less well known than the events in Birmingham and Selma, the story of the Freedom Riders is one of the most remarkable episodes of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Their courageous effort to end segregation in public transportation was marked by
determination in the face of brutal violence and systemic injustice. Presenter David Lilly will recount the dramatic events of that spring and summer—from the firebombing of a bus outside Anniston, Alabama, to the determined campaign that filled the jails of Jackson, Mississippi.

P4-Celebrate the 4th Estate!
Instructor: John Archibald, Kyle Whitmire
Dates: 1 Friday Dec. 5
Time: 12 – 2
Location: TBD

This program continues what has become an annual speaking opportunity for these prize-winning journalists from Alabama Media Group. They will be discussing the work they have done since last year’s visit with LearningQUEST, the final products that we read, and the
back stories that inspired their writing. Our speakers encourage audience participation and will answer as many questions as the audience wants to ask!