Springfield to perform at Missouri benefit

Cape Girardeau, Mo. – Rick Springfield will perform a concert in southeast Missouri to help raise money for a 12-year-old girl’s fight against brain-stem cancer.

The pop singer, whose string of hits in the 1980s included “Jessie’s Girl,” will perform Dec. 8 at the Show Me Center, center officials and Springfield’s management firm, Doyle-Kos Entertainment, said Thursday.

Proceeds will benefit Sahara Aldridge, of Cape Girardeau, who was diagnosed with the disease this summer. Springfield is a longtime friend of Sahara’s family.

Winfrey raises money for private college

Greensboro, N.C. – Oprah Winfrey headlined a fundraiser at a private college for black women, encouraging about 300 guests to support education and give back to their community.

“You can’t continue to move forward unless you give back what you are given,” Winfrey said Friday. “It is our calling.”

The famed talk-show host spoke at Bennett College, which is in the midst of a $50 million fundraising campaign co-chaired by poet and novelist Maya Angelou, a close friend of Winfrey, and former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan.

Angelou, who sits on the school’s board of trustees, and gospel singer Shirley Caesar, a native of Durham, also attended the gala.

Winfrey said she limits her speaking engagements to events that “really matter” and decided to visit the central North Carolina school because “Bennett really matters.”

“It is important that this institution continues to thrive,” Winfrey said, “and offer opportunities for women in this country and around the world.”

Ford ‘fit to continue’ playing Indiana Jones

Rome – Harrison Ford says he feels “fit to continue” to play Indiana Jones despite growing older.

Ford, 64, said at the inaugural Rome Film Festival on Friday that he was delighted to team up again with directors Steven Spielberg and George Lucas for the film. Lucas co-wrote and executive produced the earlier films, which Spielberg directed.

“We did three films that stay within the same block of time. We need to move on for artistic reasons and obvious physical reasons,” Ford said at a news conference. “I feel fit to continue and bring the same physical action.”

“Indiana Jones 4” has been in development for over a decade, but the production has recently gained momentum. Lucas has said he and Spielberg, who would direct, are working on a script, though no details have been disclosed.

Ford played Indiana Jones in 1981’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” 1984’s “Temple of Doom” and 1989’s “The Last Crusade.”