By DR. JOHN STEWART / Guest Columnist

During the month of June, the Alabama Department of Tourism is promoting a June Walking Tours project in participating communities throughout the state. These tours provide wonderful opportunities to learn more about the history behind the communities where we live, work and play. Montevallo is one of 27 cities and towns in Alabama, and the only one in Shelby County, that is participating.

If you are a regular reader of this publication, you have undoubtedly seen information about these tours, which began the first Saturday in June. The first tour, “A Geode, a Graveyard, and a Garden,” brought visitors to the University of Montevallo campus to see the world’s largest known geode. The second tour was centered around the ghost lore that is so entrenched in the University’s history, and the third provided a behind-the-scenes tour of Palmer Hall on the UM campus, complete with information about the building’s history and a glimpse at the mechanics of theatre operation. One additional tour remains.

As a liberal arts university community informed by the humanities and steeped in classical tradition, we see great value in this kind of “learn-while-you-walk” activity. Indeed, the likes of Socrates, Aristotle and Plato practiced this peripatetic approach to learning when their own students followed them as they taught.

The final tour will take place Saturday, June 25. Clark Hultquist and Carey Heatherly, members of the UM faculty and co-authors of “Montevallo,” will talk about the stories behind the photos in this recently published volume from Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America series.

The book, replete with vintage photographs, illustrates the history of the town of Montevallo from its founding in 1826 through the opening of the Alabama Girls’ Industrial School in 1896 and into the 21st century with the University of Montevallo at its center. (Hultquist, Ph.D., is professor of history and chair of UM’s Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences. Heatherly, MLIS, is an assistant professor, reference librarian and archivist in the university’s Carmichael Library.)

The tour, which is free and lasts approximately one hour, begins at 10 a.m. at the Chamber of Commerce Office, located in UM’s Will Lyman House at 720 Oak Street in Montevallo.

We hope you will join us for this final tour, which offers a great way to spend a leisurely Saturday morning. And who knows? You may even meet the next Aristotle as you walk.

Dr. John W. Stewart III is president of the University of Montevallo.