343 ‘DESIGNING FOR THE SEXES’ HOST MICHAEL PAYNE LECTURES AT MTSU

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 6, 2005
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Lisa L. Rollins, 615-898-2919

Free Tickets Available on First-Come, First-Served Basis, Report Organizers

(MURFREESBORO, Tenn.)—Michael Payne, interior designer and host of the popular HGTV program known as “Designing for the Sexes” will present a free lecture on the MTSU campus beginning at 6 p.m. April 18 in Room 221 of the McWherter Learning Resources Center.
A member of the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) and a certified interior designer in the state of California, Payne—in addition to “Designing for the Sexes”—has been on numerous network television programs and on radio stations throughout the country and has been the featured speaker at various national home shows, design events, museums, conferences, corporate events and charity functions.
Each week on his popular weekly cable design show, Payne provides hope for the "he wants, she wants" design battlefront when he helps couples resolve conflicts as they tackle a home- or room-renovation project.
According to the “Designing for Sexes” Web site, “The program follows the couple in design trouble and witnesses an interior designer's creative approach—including encouraging compromise—to bring their fabulous project to completion.”
Author of a 2003 book titled “Let’s Ask Michael, ” Payne has a furniture design/manufacturing partnership with the Powell Company, which was introduced as the Michael Payne in April 2005 and available in furniture stores nationwide.
Payne, who currently resides in L.A. with his wife, earned a bachelor’s degree in physics and mathematics from Southampton University in England. Then, after 10 years in the computer industry, during which he was transferred from England to the United States, he pursued a career in interior design and graduated from the UCLA interior design program in 1980.
Payne’s local visit, which will include visits to MTSU design classrooms, is sponsored by the MTSU student chapter of ASID as well as the MTSU Distinguished Lecture Committee, the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost, Oakland's Historic House Museum. Deborah Belcher, Ken Robinson, Roy Eldon Hoffman and the Department of Human Sciences, including its interior design, textiles merchandising, design, nutrition and food science programs and MTSU’s child and family studies program.
• TICKETS: Payne’s April 18 talk is free and open to the public, but tickets are required and available on a first-come, first-served basis in the Ellington Human Sciences Room 222 and at the St. Clair Senior Center. For more information, please call Deborah Belcher, assistant professor of human sciences, at 615-898-5604 or via e-mail at dbelcher@mtsu.edu.
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ATTENTION, MEDIA: For interview requests with Michael Payne or event organizer Deborah Belcher, or to secure a color jpeg of Payne for editorial use, please contact Lisa L. Rollins in the Office of News and Public Affairs at 615-898-2919 or lrollins@mtsu.edu.