Paper cranes are landing all over the Fort Lewis College campus this week. On Wednesday, Oct. 11, the Common Reading Experience will set firm roots on the college’s campus.

During a special ceremony beginning at 4:30 p.m., Fort Lewis’ Hesperus Park, located south of the Art Building, will be renamed Hesperus Peace Park. A sculpture created by Fort Lewis art students will be decorated with paper cranes in the name of peace and to celebrate Leonard Bird’s book Folding Paper Cranes: An Atomic Memoir. Bird will be on-hand for the ceremony.

In addition, Fort Lewis College Theatre will present a special preview performance of “Folding Paper Cranes: An Atomic Memoir,” an adaptation of Bird’s book, and the play will continue to show on Oct. 12-15 at the Mainstage

Theatre. Like the book, the play discusses not only the devastation of atomic blasts, but the hope that springs from destruction. Students from the United States and Japan have worked together as an ensemble on the play.

Fort Lewis’ Common Reading Experience will continue to reach out to the community through a variety of events. On Oct. 25, a panel discussion will debate the decision to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And a Nov. 9 forum will explore the impacts of uranium and radiation on the Four Corners area.

For more information on Fort Lewis College’s Common Reading Experience, visit http: //library.fortlewis.edu/reference/subjects/cre.asp.

– Will Sands