Dave Barnett was recently asked why he was coming back to North Texas to do play-by-play for Mean Green football and men’s basketball. After all, he’s a two-time Emmy winner who has worked in the NBA, Major League Baseball, and for ESPN.

He didn’t have to consider the question long.

“Working for friends and with friends, for my school,” Barnett said. “I‘m doing what I love for an institution I love and to which I owe my entire career. What’s not to like about that?”

It’s been more than 30 years since Barnett, a Denton native and 1979 graduate of North Texas, landed his first full-time play-by-play job with the Dallas Mavericks. Now in his mid 50s, Barnett’s formerly brown hair is graying and cut short. His voice is a little deeper but still instantly recognizable, one of those golden throats men dream of having.

His journey through professional and major-college sports broadcasting has occasionally crossed paths with the Mean Green, but his distance from North Texas was a bit of an illusion.

“I feel like I never actually left,” Barnett explained. “We lived for nine years in San Antonio, but other than that we lived in Denton or the area. It’s not like I was away for a long time and now I’m back. It’s more a greater level of involvement.”

The unique qualities inherent in jazz music express to the listener concepts of individual freedom. In Nazi Germany, many people, including some isolated members of the SS and Wehrmacht, appreciated this art form in spite of its being officially banned by the government. This music saved lives.

Rich DeRosa teaches jazz composition and arranging in the UNT College of Music, and is currently the chief conductor of the prestigious WDR Big Band in Cologne, Germany. He will discuss how jazz made a significant impact in Germany and how it thrives there today.

You might also get Rich to discuss his composition "Neil" from Lab 2015, nominated for a Grammy in the Best Instrumental Composition category.

Dark night skies are becoming a rarity all over the Earth. There was a time, not that long ago, when we could step outside, look up, and view a sky filled with tiny, sparkling, pinpoints accompanied by a tenuous, almost ghostly, band of light stretching across the dark sky from one horizon to another. This band of light, the Milky Way, has become one of the casualties of the onslaught of Light Pollution. Scientists, Artists, Doctors, Musicians and countless other people have pondered how Light Pollution has affected our lives.

As Director of the University of North Texas Astronomy Laboratory Program and planetarium, Ron DiIulio is responsible for the daily operations of one of the largest astronomy laboratory programs in the United States. Each semester, almost 3000 students participate in UNT's introductory astronomy classes which have been developed to fulfill the academic lab requirements of non-science majors. The astronomy program's facilities include the Monroe Remote Observatory, located 50 miles north of UNT's campus, as well as UNT's digital Sky Theater, and the Rafes Urban Astronomy Center.

Ron represents NASA/JPL as a Solar System Ambassador, charged with the responsibility of sharing and interpreting NASA developments. Ron is past President and current Board Chairman of the Fort Worth Astronomical Society and also serves on its Board of Trustees. His works and publications include several award-winning video documentaries that have been shown on PBS, including "Dark Noon," a video taken during the great solar eclipse of 1979, in which he captured shadow bands of phenomena on digital video, a feat not successfully recorded by any other video crew. Ron also maintains an extensive collection of meteorites, many of which are on display in the lobby of the Sky Theater at UNT.

Jessie Frye has spent the past few years honing her keen songwriting talent and visceral stage presence into a dynamic juggernaut, performing all over North Texas with the likes of Beck, Avett Brothers, Flyleaf, Black Joe Lewis, and Chvrches. The press has taken notice, describing her as "a force field of power (35 Denton)" with a "robust and versatile voice (Wall Street Journal)" who "confidently holds her own against distorted guitars and a thunderous beat (New York Times)." With critically acclaimed albums, a performance on Good Day Fox 4, and a personality that is inspiring to many- Frye is primed to make a move into the spotlight. Jessie Frye won Best Pop Act in the Dallas Observer Music Awards and is gearing up for a busy 2016 full of touring with her band.

"Jessie Frye is a Goth Pop Superhero" -Dallas Observer

"She has steadily ascended to front of the North Texas musical ranks. The grand, theatrical beauty of her studio recordings is increasingly reinforced in her full-tilt concert appearances. Be warned — her conquest is nigh." -Star Telegram

Dr. Jean Greenlaw loves researching new topics, and will share some interesting facts about the Chisholm Trail, which, as you may know, ran right through this area.

M. Jean Greenlaw is Regents Professor Emeritus at the University of North Texas, where she taught for 27 years. Dr. Greenlaw has been very active professionally, both as a writer and a speaker. Her numerous publications include the books Ranch Dressing: The Story of Western Wear and Welcome to the Stock Show. She has also been a docent at the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in Fort Worth.

In 1997, Texas Monthly writer Skip Hollandsworth came across a story in the tiny East Texas town of Carthage that seemed so unbelievable it felt like fiction: a young assistant funeral home director named Bernie Tiede had murdered the town's grande dame, shooting her in the back and burying her in her deep freeze, where she remained for nine months before anyone started looking for her. When Bernie was arrested, the townspeople supported him, begging the District Attorney to let him go free. Hollandsworth will not only tell the story of Bernie, he will also talk about how his Texas Monthly article was, sometimes hilariously, turned into the 2010 movie "Bernie," starring Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine, and Matthew McConaughey.

Hollandsworth is the author of the true-crime thriller, set in Austin in 1885, The Midnight Assassin, which will be published by Holt in April.

Brent M. Jones, an assistant dean with TAMS (Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science), will discuss how 200 bright students are admitted each year to this early college entrance program for STEM talents. 

After earning an undergraduate degree, Jones worked in a Philadelphia chemical laboratory performingpesticide research.  He returned to Texas to complete graduate studies after which he accepted a post as associate director of admissions at the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine at the UNT Health Science Center in Fort Worth.  Later he was appointed director of TAMS admissions, and for 20 years has overseen the enrollment of almost 4,000 select students to the academy. Jones will discuss how these scientifically and mathematically precocious students are impacting the nation and the world.

Nancy and Frank Howard were happily married for three decades. Then he fell in love with another woman, embezzled $30 million, and hired a hit man to murder her.

"In the morning, she headed to the First Baptist church in Carrollton, not far from her home. There was a women’s tea, and Nancy was hosting two tables. Her husband Frank had helped her pack the decorations into her car before he’d left on a business trip a few nights earlier. After tea, she went home before returning to church for a baptism service of a family friend. By the time she left First Baptist again, just before 7:30 in the evening, it was raining. A silver Nissan trailed her.

On her way home, Nancy stopped at Taco Bueno and picked up a steak fajita dinner in the drive-through. Then the 53-year-old mother of three grown children drove to the family’s immaculate two-story brick house on Bluebonnet Way, where she expected to relax in front of the TV. She pulled into the garage and got out of her car, carrying her purse and her Taco Bueno bag. That’s when she felt someone grab her around the neck and put a gun to her head."

Michael J. Mooney is a staff writer at D Magazine. He also writes for ESPN: the Magazine, Popular Mechanics, GQ and Outside. He is a graduate of the Mayborn School of Journalism at UNT, and is on the advisory committee of the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. His stories have appeared in The Best American Crime Reporting and multiple editions of The Best American Sports Writing. He lives in Dallas.

Dr. Pamela Padilla, Associate Professor at UNT, is a geneticist interested in all that is relevant to heredity and health. Join Dr. Padilla to discuss how genes may or may not impact your future. She will discuss her research using genetic modeling to study how both diet and genes are central contributors to the phenotype and physiology of individuals. At the root of many human health issues is the excess of calorie intake relative to calorie expenditure. In particular, the increasing amount of dietary sugars in the human diet is contributing to the rise of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Individuals with obesity and type 2 diabetes have compromised oxygen delivery leading to health issues. She will discuss how she investigates the impact a high-sugar diet has on oxygen deprivation responses.

As a professor of Genetics she can also discuss other topics of interest related to DNA, heredity and genes.

When there is a President on the ticket, roughly 65% of Denton's voting population goes to the polls. But when it comes to voting in a city council election, a small 5% of the city's voters show up. Dine with City Councilman Kevin Roden and discuss Denton and the state of democracy in our city and our nation.

Kevin Roden is currently serving his third term as the representative for District 1 on the Denton City Council. Kevin chairs the council Mobility Committee, Citizen Engagement Committee, and serves as the city's representative on the Regional Transportation Council.

Professionally, Kevin is the Chief Implementation officer for Pascal Learning, an educational technology startup working in more than 30 communities throughout the nation. His experience includes fifteen years of service as an administrator with the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science at UNT. Kevin received a bachelor's degree in political science from UNT in 1998, and a master's degree in philosophy from the University of Dallas in 2007. He came close to, but never really finished a doctoral degree in philosophy.

Dr. Sandra Spencer, Faculty Member in the Department of English at UNT, has led six study abroad trips to Britain as well as visiting there numerous times. London originally attracted her to the United Kingdom, but she then discovered many more wonderful, out-of-the way places since that first trip. Please ask her to tell you about laying the wreath at the grave of Charles Dickens in Westminster Abbey in June, 2014, and how it felt to have such an honor in the presence of her students—and the great grandson of the author himself.

Tex Zimmerman (AKA Mike Steinel from the UNT Division of Jazz Studies) came to his interest in Bob Dylan late in life.  In 2009 Steinel formed a Bob Dylan tribute band (Tex Zimmerman and His All-Star Revue) to perform at a fundraiser for Instruments of Change® (a musical charity).  Since that time he has studied the rock star's development from his earliest "folk song" beginnings, through the decades, right to the present. Zimmerman says "In the last 50 years there has been no more influential pop artist than Bob Dylan.  As an artist I find him endlessly fascinating and inspiring.  I look forward to a lively discussion about his life, both musical and personal, and his role as a cultural icon."

Hidden in the archives at the museum and the library, there are historical tales of Denton residents from long ago. The town had its share of lawmen, outlaws, and painted ladies, but there are other less flamboyant (though no less colorful) characters in our past that have been long forgotten. Shelly Tucker, a professional storyteller who is also known as "The Ghost Lady," delights in digging up these skeletons in our closet to share them with audiences. Although not all of them are the subject of ghostly tales, all of them haunt her! Guests at her table will be treated to some of her presentations about favorite Denton denizens from days long gone.

Shelly Tucker tells stories for a living. She was named an American Masterpiece Storyteller in 2008 by the National Endowment for the Arts. For more than twenty-five years, Shelly has traveled the Lone Star State telling stories at schools, libraries, and museums. These days, it's more likely that you will find her leading The Ghosts of Denton tour groups around a dark downtown weaving a narrative spell that resurrects the past, uncovers buried secrets, and dusts off forgotten mysteries. This professional storyteller, a Denton resident, has wrapped her passion for research and local Denton history and lore into ghost tales that chill and delight.