"We welcome a project like the Rural Studio in Central Pennsylvania"

(Harrisburg, Pa.) - Harrisburg law firm Nauman, Smith, Shissler & Hall, LLP, is sponsoring the WITF-TV documentary, "The Rural Studio Film", an award-winning PBS documentary on the work of Auburn University's famous Rural Studio among Alabama's rural poor, which will air April 7 at 8:00 p.m.

The documentary won Best Feature Length Documentary Film at the Barcelona International Film Festival this year and is receiving rave reviews on PBS stations in major markets around the country. "The Rural Studio Film" is generating growing national interest in the education of architects and the use of the design-build environment as a core resource for community development.

"We are proud to help sponsor this wonderful documentary," Craig Staudenmaier, Managing Partner of Harrisburg's oldest law firm said. "Nauman, Smith, Shissler & Hall is supportive of the efforts of Mayor Stephen Reed and his on-going vision to advance community development in our city."

"We think this film is a great opportunity to highlight the importance of innovation in community development and we praise WITF for airing it. The possibility of a Harrisburg Urban Studio, modeled on Auburn's Rural Studio, is well worth pursuing," Staudenmaier added.

In 1993 a group of Auburn architecture professors led by Samuel Mockbee founded The Rural Studio campus as a way to improve community and living conditions in the poorest rural counties of Alabama while providing architecture students with a practical design-build learning environment.

More than a decade later it has become an internationally acclaimed program for advancing social change through the education of architects.

Projects built by Mockbee -- a MacArthur Grant "Genius Award" recipient-- and his students have created a positive sense of place and a pride in community for residents of Alabama's "Black Belt," remnant communities from the Delta cotton plantation economy, and among the poorest in America.

Unfortunately, Samuel Mockbee died in 2001 at the age of 57 after a long bout with leukemia. He will be awarded the highest honor in the architecture profession -- the AIA 2004 Golden Award -- posthumously, next month in Washington, D.C.

Following the airing of "The Rural Studio Film," WITF-TV will host a live, 60-minute discussion by a panel of distinguished architects and planners focusing on topics related to replicating the work of the Rural Studio in central Pennsylvania.

The panel, which will include Harrisburg Mayor Stephen R. Reed, Rural Studio Director Professor Bruce Lindsey, and other prominent architects and experts, will explore how Auburn's innovative studio approach to creating a design-build environment in distressed neighborhoods applies in south central Pennsylvania.

"The Rural Studio film is the beginning of our focus on important, fundamental community issues," Barry Stoner, WITF Senior VP in charge of Content Development, said.

Founded in 1871, Nauman, Smith, Shissler & Hall, LLP, is the oldest law firm in continuous existence in Harrisburg. For more information regarding this news release, please contact Victoria Radabaugh at (717) 975-2148 or visit the newsroom at www.hersheyphilbin.com.