Classes do not meet this week. Use your time to register for the upcoming Encore Day of Learning!
 The Encore Day of Learning is THE culminating event for celebrating five years of Lifelong Learning in Rock Hill! This special day of learning will provide you the opportunity to attend one, two or three of the four lectures by this phenomenal mother-daughter duo from NC! All presentations are Thursday, November 20 at Northside Recreation Center. Read the descriptions and choose the one(s) that are of most interest to you! A catered lunch option will be available for purchase. More details to come to registrants closer to date regarding the meal option.
#599E1: Ernest Hemmingway and the Birth of Big-Game Fishing
Dr. Ashley Oliphant
TIME: 9 AM; Fee: $5
Join longtime Ernest Hemingway specialist Dr. Ashley Oliphant for an engaging look at the author's iconic career as a big-game fisherman and his contributions to the formation of the International Game Fish Association as an original founder. Oliphant, a full professor of English with 20 years of teaching experience and the author of the book Hemingway and Bimini: The Birth of Sport Fishing at ‘The End of the World,’ will take participants back in time to examine the people, places and events that made Hemingway fall in love with Bimini, the westernmost Bahamian island and the site of some of the most important fishing moments of the 1930s. Students will also learn about Hemingway’s big-game fishing education in Key West and how that transitioned to Cuba and then the Bahamas as the author worked to establish himself as one of the most accomplished big-game fishermen of his day. Come prepared to laugh and learn with Dr. Oliphant.
#599E2: Grassroots Historic Preservation
Ms. Beth Yarbrough
TIME: 9 AM; Fee: $5
If you care about old houses, feel helpless when you see one crumbling, wonder why someone is letting it happen, wonder what can be done, have no clue where to start but would help if you could, then you should attend this exciting session. Beth Yarbrough, an experienced historic preservationist in Lincoln County, NC and the author of The Grassroots Guide to Saving What Matters, will offer hopeful preservation stories from her travels on America’s backroads. As writer and photographer of historic structures, Yarbrough mourned the loss of countless houses that need not have died. But through the years, and through friendships and collaborations with preservation professionals, she learned there are solutions available, and there is no reason the information can’t be shared and put to use everywhere, for everyday people. Even if you are only one person, this workshop can empower you to make a difference right where you live.
#599E3: Shelling & Shark Tooth Hunting
Dr. Ashley Oliphant
TIME: 10:30 AM; Fee: $5
Join nationally recognized sheller and shark tooth hunter Dr. Ashley Oliphant for an interactive workshop on building a better beachcombing strategy. With an engaging storytelling style and a double dose of humor, Oliphant will inspire participants to view their hunting with a new perspective and a much more calculated approach. Students will learn how to find the best shark teeth and seashells on beaches across America. The presentation will explore topics like how to read the moon, the winds, and the tide charts to ensure the best results. Oliphant will teach students specifically where to hunt and how to how to do it in the Carolinas, Florida and beyond. Participants will have the opportunity to interact with the species being explored with a show-and-tell table that includes Oliphant’s finds from all over the world. As well, for an optional $12 materials fee, students can elect to participate in a dig activity that will allow them to keep the shells, fossils, and shark teeth they find while getting help with species identification. Oliphant is the author of Shark Tooth Hunting on the Carolina Coast, the forthcoming Ultimate Shell Seeker’s Guide: Building a Better Beachcombing Strategy, and the popular Facebook page “On the Beach with Dr. Ashley Oliphant.”
#599E4: Jean Laffite Revealed: A Pirate in the Piedmont
Dr. Ashley Oliphant & Ms. Beth Yarbrough
TIME: 1 PM; Fee: $5
Join Dr. Ashley Oliphant and Beth Yarbrough for a fun afternoon talk about their research and how they proved that the pirate Jean Laffite actually made the Tarheel State his final hideout. Their groundbreaking book Jean Laffite Revealed: Unraveling One of America's Longest Running Mysteries, offers their explosive theory about Laffite's faked death, his various aliases and the nefarious activities that kept him busy well beyond the point on the timeline when the majority of historians thought he was dead. Oliphant and Yarbrough's journey to piece together the artifacts and archival documents that proved Laffite ultimately came to Lincolnton, NC, using the alias "Lorenzo Ferrer" led them to seven states and to libraries, museums, historical societies and private collections all over the country. Come hear the incredible story of their final research stop - the North Carolina Freemason Lodge where Laffite's sword was discovered. You don't want to miss this opportunity to hear from two real-life sleuths who are proof that history still has plenty of mysteries left to solve. Participants who are interested in genealogical or other historical research should note that this lecture will offer insight into the useful methods that Oliphant and Yarbrough employed.
*Non-City Residents*
If you have not already paid the $75 annual fee to participate in Lifelong Learning, this will be collected by staff following registration for the Encore Day of Learning. For those who paid the $75 fee for any LL@RH class in the fall, remember the fee covers from July 1, 2025-June 30, 2026.
Preview the guest speakers' research by checking out this intro video from 2021. Watch HERE.
Dr. Ashley Oliphant is a retired Full Professor of English with teaching specialties in 20th-century American literature, the works of Ernest Hemingway, literary modernism, and rhetoric and composition. She travels all over the US offering interactive shark tooth and seashell workshops for children and adults and presentations about her other books. She is a longtime member of the Hemingway Society and a contributor to its conferences and The Hemingway Review.
Oliphant is the author of seven books. Her doctoral dissertation, completed at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2007, was titled "Hemingway's Mixed Drinks: An Examination of the Varied Representation of Alcohol Across the Author's Canon." Shark Tooth Hunting on the Carolina Coast, published by Pineapple Press in 2015, is the only color guide to fossil shark teeth found in the Carolinas. It has sold more than 20,000 copies. Hemingway and Bimini: The Birth of Sport Fishing at 'The End of the World' was published by Pineapple Press in 2017. It follows Hemingway's 1930's fishing adventures in Bimini, the westernmost Bahamian island, from 1935-1937 and his significant contribution to the founding of the International Game Fish Association. Oliphant's latest book, The Ultimate Shell Seeker's Guide: Building a Better Beachcombing Strategy, is forthcoming from the University of Georgia Press in Spring 2026.
In her spare time, Oliphant likes to hunt for shark teeth and seashells, garden, travel with her family and float in her swimming pool. Her lifelong dreams are to own a signed first edition of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea and to meet Willie Nelson.
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Beth Yarbrough is a writer living in NC with a husband, a family and two cats who don't like each other. A seasoned and successful veteran of the gift and home decor industry with more than three decades of licensed art and product design to her credit, she one day decided to go for a drive, curious to see what was around the bend. Eleven years, thousands of miles, and tens of thousands of words and photographs later, she is still curious. Through her online brand, Southern Voice, Beth is one of the South's best-known "armchair enthusiasts" for the cause of historic preservation. She founded and is current president of Lincoln Landmarks, Inc., a preservation non-profit in Lincoln County, NC. Her book, The Grassroots Guide to Saving What Matters: Historic Preservation for Everyday People, is a practical layperson's guide for anyone interested in saving old houses. Her latest book, Higher Ground: Southern Churches and Their Stories, is in development.
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