Born in 1881. Earned a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University. Married a minister and had seven children. Maude Brannen Edge is one of the most fascinating women in Bulloch County history.
    On Friday, the public is invited to view a free film about her life and attend a book signing in the Emma Kelly Theater.
    The film, “A Visit from Maude,” is an original one-woman play written by Bulloch County historian Dr. Del Presley, which documents the life and personality of Edge. The play was originally presented at the Bulloch County Historical Society’s annual meeting in June and performed by Carol Thompson, director of the Georgia Southern Performing Arts Center.
    “She was an amazing woman,” Thompson said. “Truly a renaissance woman.”
    The film will be shown in the Emma Kelly Theater at 6:30 p.m.
    Beforehand, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., book editors, Presley and Marvin Goss, will be in the theater lobby signing copies of “Out of the Past, Selected Writings by Maude Brannen Edge.” Books will be on sale in the gift shop.
    Also, two gallery openings will be held Friday in the Averitt Center for the Arts.
    In the Legend’s Gallery, the Betty Foy Sanders Department of Art will present Elsie Taliaferro Hill: Recent Work. The department will host an artist reception from 5 to 7 p.m. which is free and welcomes the public.
    An assistant professor in the Betty Foy Sanders Department of Art at Georgia Southern University,
    Hill’s exhibition represents a series of paintings that explore the space where subject, style, and materiality intersect to create irregular contextual relationships. Guided by the structural similarities between man-made systems and natural systems, Hill creates images that merge formal abstraction with representational imagery.
    Hill holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and a MFA from Columbia University. Hill is represented by the Nabi Gallery, in New York City; and her work has been exhibited widely throughout the United States. Her exhibition at the Averitt Center will run through Jan. 31.
    In the third floor Youth Gallery, works by Brooklet Elementary and Langston Chapel Middle School students will be on display.
    The Averitt Center for the Arts is open Tuesday through Friday, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and  Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.