With country singer Elizabeth Cook performing at Bates College on Veterans Day, the college’s Olin Arts Center Concert Hall is offering military veterans and currently enrolled military personnel two free tickets to the concert.

The offer is good while ticket supplies last. Please contact 207-786-6163 or olinarts@bates.edu to reserve tickets.

Praised for the honesty of her lyrics and her wide stylistic range, Cook performs at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 11, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Cook has toured worldwide and hosts a morning radio show, Elizabeth Cook’s Apron Strings, on Sirius XM’s Outlaw Country channel. She’s “an intriguing bunch of contradictions,” wrote a reviewer for Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

“She lives in Nashville, has the good looks of a country pin-up and has made regular performances on that legendary country show, the Grand Ole Opry. But she’s influenced by rock and punk as well as bluegrass and rockabilly, and many of her direct, no-nonsense songs are far too daring for the Opry.”

Born in rural Florida, Cook began singing and playing guitar early on. In 2002 she released her major label debut, Hey Y’All, on Warner Brothers. The record included the song “Dolly” in which Cook playfully seeks advice from country star Dolly Parton. Cook’s five studio albums also include This Side of the Moon (Hog Country, 2005) and the Rodney Crowell-produced Balls (31 Tigers, 2007).

Her most recent record, this year’s Welder (31 Tigers) has received glowing reviews. Many of the songs are inspired by family experiences, and the album title pays tribute to her father, a welder who learned to play bass in prison. The record was produced by Don Was (Rolling Stones, Kris Kristofferson), and features appearances by Dwight Yoakam, Crowell and Buddy Miller.

Learn more at her website.

Doctor and retired U.S. Army Col. Dave Lounsbury ’72 speaks with pre-med students during a lunch planned for his College Key Distinguished Alumni-In-Residence visit. An expert in military medicine and ethics, he is co-editor of the nationally discussed volume “War Surgery in Afghanistan and Iraq: A Series of Cases, 2003-2007.” [More...]

Scott E. Rutter, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who led his battalion in the capture of Baghdad’s airport in 2003, will discuss his Iraq experiences and make a case for the war at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 10, in Chase Lounge, 56 Campus Ave.

Sponsored by the Bates College Republicans, the college’s Representative Assembly and the Young America’s Foundation, the lecture is open to the public at no cost.

As a lieutenant colonel, Rutter commanded some 150 tanks and other fighting vehicles and more than 850 soldiers in a battalion of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq. At Bates, he will relate his personal experiences in Iraq and explain his belief that the U.S. military mission there is essential to fighting global terrorism.

Rutter’s battalion led the capture of Baghdad International Airport, and he went on to direct the security and stabilization mission in Baghdad’s central business and financial district. “He likes to get close to the fight, so close that his soldiers sometimes worry about his safety,” wrote Michael Corkery, a Providence Journal reporter embedded with Rutter’s battalion. “He insists on traveling into battle with the lead company.”

Rutter earlier received a Bronze Star for valor for his service as a rifle company commander in Operation Desert Storm.

A Philadelphia native, Rutter was a military graduate of Campbell University, Buies Creek, N.C. His Regular Army service included stints with the 101st Airborne Division and 1st Infantry Division (“The Big Red One”).

An instructor at the United States Army Infantry School during the 1990s, Rutter was appointed chief of tactics for the school in 1995. He later served in Korea. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and has a master of science degree in management from St. Mary’s College.