Model-turned-Activist speaks

Ann Simonton was once a top model featured in such beauty-conscious magazines as Glamour, Vogue, and Cosmopolitan. Today, decades after turning her back on her lucrative modeling career, Simonton travels nationwide to expose what she calls mass media's blatant propaganda. The model-turned-activist will speak on the issue of 'Media and Power' and its effects on society on February 18 at Grand Valley State University.

Simonton's multi-media presentation begins at 9 p.m. on Wednesday, February 18, in the Pere Marquette Room (2nd floor) of the Kirkhof Center, Allendale Campus. The event is open to the public free of charge. Free parking is available.

More than two decades ago, Simonton appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated and Seventeen and on the pages of Glamour, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Women's Day, Bride, and many other national magazines. She also acted in dozens of national television commercials before becoming disillusioned with the way she said media images glamorize dangerous stereotypes of both women and men. Now one of the nation's leading authorities on the effects of media images, Simonton travels nationwide to present her compelling expos¿ on the disturbing consequences of those images and to encourage people to become critical consumers of the media. She has been arrested and jailed 11 times for her nonviolent and often humorous protests.

In 1984 Simonton founded Media Watch, the organization behind the vociferous and flamboyant MYTH California Protest and foe of the Miss America Program. She remains its director, and has been interviewed on CNN, ESPN News, Inside Edition, numerous national talk shows, and for scores of newspaper and magazine articles. She is listed in 1995's Who's Who in America and her media-literacy videos have garnered national acclaim.

More information can be found at www.mediawatch.com . Simonton's visit is sponsored by the GVSU Women's Center, the Counseling Center, the Women's Issues Volunteer Corps (student group), the Center for Women in Transition, and other organizations.