On April 4 and 5, students from 17 colleges and universities in the Carolinas will present research papers at sessions that are free and open to the public. The concluding session, "Confederates at the Keyboard: Piano Music During the Civil War Era" will be a lecture/performance by David B. Thompson of Limestone College in Gaffney.

Professor Thompson will wear period clothing during the presentation scheduled for Saturday, April 5 at 2:15 p.m. in the Edwards Building Recital Hall at Coastal. Thompson's performance will include a brief discussion of Southern composers whose music was prominent during the Civil War. He will also read excerpts from Confederate diaries, letters and memoirs in an effort to relay the emotions of the period.

Selections to be performed include traditional dances such as the waltz, mazurka, schottisch and polka, as well as marches and other song arrangements.

The conference is sponsored by Coastal's chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, the national honor society for students of history. Paper presentations will take place Friday, April 4, from 1:30 to 5 p.m. and continue the following day beginning at 8:45 a.m.

Research topics will include local and state history (Horry County railroads, the Ku Klux Klan in Horry during the 1920s, the William Enston home); and panels on indigenous peoples; slavery; colonial America; women's history; independence movements; religion and politics; Asian affairs; European history; and Southern oral history.

Conference activities for April 4 will take place in the Wall College of Business Administration; all April 5 activities will take place in the Edwards College of Humanities and Fine Arts. For more information, call 349-2421.