East : the magazine of East Carolina University

              East The Magazine of East Carolina University
spring 2009
Portrait of
the Artist
Scott Avett of the
Avett Brothers
East The Magazine of East Carolina University
spring 2009
32
16
22
F E A T U R E S
16 POR T RAI T OF THE AR T IS T
By Jimmy Rostar Whether he’s holding a banjo or a
paintbrush, Scott Avett ’99 ’00 puts family ahead of fame.
22 INVISI BLE NO MORE
By Marion Blackburn On a spring night in 1969, about
150 mostly black students came knocking on President Leo
Jenkins’ front door asking tough questions about campus
desegregation. Their questions and his answers changed
minds and the history of campus race relations.
28 GO D CHE MIS TRY
By Leanne E. Smith It isn’t easy explaining organic
chemistry in terms students can understand. But that’s
a piece of cake for Brian Love, a fun-loving professor
with an oddball sense of humor and a cool Camaro.
32 	 EQUI TY, F I NALY
By Bethany Bradsher Women’s sports at ECU become
“fully funded,” meaning their teams offer the
maximum scholarships allowed.
D E P A R T M E N T S
FRO M OUR REA DERS 3
THE ECU RE POR T . 4
SPRING AR TS CALEN DAR 12
PIRA TE NA TION . 36
CLASS NO TES 37
UPON THE PAST 48
28
viewfinder
Pe De shapes up
A slimmer and healthier-looking Pee Dee
debuted at the Homecoming game. A series
of funny videos explaining the mascot’s new
look can be seen at ECU’s YouTube channel.
Just search for “Pee Dee.”
Jay Clark
2
Miss North Carolina No. 7
In the most recent edition
of East, in the section
entitled “East Carolina
Timeline,” there was
mention of six ECU
students who have been
crowned Miss North
Carolina. I know of at least one other. Lynn
Williford was crowned Miss North Carolina
1981, representing Wilmington. She also
competed in 1979, representing another
community.
—Margaret Daniel Gafford ’79, Vista, Calif.
Editor’s note: We overlooked Williford
because she had already graduated when
she was crowned Miss North Carolina
and thus was not on the ECU records we
researched. A theatre arts major, Lynn
headed to Broadway after graduation and
had a small role in a 1980 production of
Snow White. Today she’s director of national
field sales for Murad Inc., a global provider
of professional skin care products, and living
in Nashville, Tenn. “I still have wonderful
memories of ECU,” she told us.
That was my siste r!
I could not help but smile to see the article
on page 56 of the Winter 2009 issue titled
“Meeting Eleanor Roosevelt” by student
reporter Clarissa Humphrey—my sister!
She worked part time free of charge for
the newspaper in Greenville so as to learn
something about newspapers and journalism.
She taught English and journalism at Jenkins
High School in Savannah, Ga., for many
years and died in 1994.
—Richard Crotwell ’87, Metter, Ga.
Another Ira Baker prote ge
Loved the story on ECU students who have
gone on to become journalists. I had both
Ira Baker and Larry O’Keefe as my teachers.
During a 33-year career in journalism, I’ve
won two Associated Press awards and several
state awards for editorials and sports stories.
I am currently editor of the Caroline County
Times-Record and the Caroline County editor
for the Easton Star-Democrat (both on the
eastern shore of Maryland), as well as a
stringer for the AP. Tom Tozer and I worked
together on the student newspaper, where
I was first reviews editor and then sports
editor. I worked in Rocky Mount, Durham,
for the Washington Post Co., then the
Salisbury Times, the Annapolis Capital and now
my current job. In between, there was a 12-
year career as senior communications officer
for the Riggs National Bank.
—John Evans ’76, Denton, Md.
Time to replace the natatorium ?
After reading the article related to the
stadium expansion in the fall issue of East
I believe that the vision of our Athletic
Director Terry Holland, his staff and
the Pirate Club should be commended.
The range of projects would benefit not
only football but also basketball, softball,
volleyball, tennis and other sports and
activities utilizing these new facilities.
However, I did notice that there was no
mention of a new competitive swimming
facility. Swimming has been one of the
most successful sports in the history of East
Carolina University. The swimming facility,
though kept in great condition, is over 40
years old and is scheduled throughout the
day and night.
—Professor Emeritus Ray Scharf,
swim coach 1967-82, Harker’s Island
Editor’s note: Holland said he stretched the
budget as far as he could to devise a plan that
will significantly improve the facilities used by
13 of the school’s 19 teams. Building a new
swimming facility for the men’s and women’s
teams would cost about as much as all the
other Olympic Sports facility improvements
combined, Holland added. That does not
include expansion of the football stadium,
which will be funded by the sale of the
additional seats and the additional Pirate
Club donations of the new seat holders.
Bring bac k the old Pe De
I’m a very proud alum who loves coming
back to visit Greenville and ECU. I attended
Homecoming weekend and had a wonderful
time. As always, the campus, the weather,
the activities, the cleanliness, the Greenville
southern charm were all perfect. I even
proposed to my girlfriend of four years
(also an ECU alum) on the beautiful, grassy
campus mall late Friday afternoon. I couldn’t
have asked for a better weekend. My only
concern is the “new face” of Pee Dee, which
I noticed during the football game. My
girlfriend and I were very upset with the
mascot’s “new look” and I heard comments
from other fans sitting around us. Please
help bring the traditional Pee Dee back!
—Heath Courtright ’03 ’05, Charlotte
Editor’s note: Turn back a page to see the new
Pee Dee.
Pirates around the world
I was reading my wife’s most recent Clemson
alumni magazine. In it, they dedicate a
section (similar to what East does with
the Class Notes) showing alumni wearing
Clemson attire in various locations of the
world, anywhere from the Great Wall of
China to Afghanistan to South Africa. I
thought it was really neat and would be a
great way to show how our ECU alumni are
spreading the word about ECU throughout
the world. I say that because I immediately
start conversations with others, regardless
of where we may be, if I see them wearing
something relating to ECU. Just as the case
with the Class Notes, I am confident our
alumni would take great interest in not only
learning about how others are prospering,
but also “where” they are spreading the
pirate message.
—Drew Walker ’89, Greer, S.C.
Editor’s note: You can already see many photos
like that at the Alumni Association’s web site,
PirateAlumni.com.
Fall graduation We had reached my favorite part of commencement ceremonies, where the
graduates walk across the stage as their names are read aloud. I enjoy hearing
the shout-outs from parents and friends in the audience, and tonight Wright
Auditorium is ringing with laughter as the 140 School of Communication’s
graduates cross the stage. The loudest come when Pierre Bell, a popular
student who’s a star linebacker on the football team, walks across. He flashes
a dazzling smile, then hugs the lady department head as she hands him his
diploma. She practically disappears in his beefy embrace.
Seven departmental graduation exercises are going on across campus tonight but
I’m at this one for two reasons. First, my wife is the commencement speaker, and,
second, I’m just one course shy of completing a B.S. degree in communication
and would be walking myself tonight if I’d managed my time better.
I’ve been taking a couple courses each semester for the past two and a half
years. Once you get used to being older than everyone in the room, including
the professor, attending classes is fun. I didn’t originally go to ECU, so being
a student here now helps me understand the East Carolina experience that we
reflect in this magazine.
As the commencement speaker, Gayle McCracken Tuttle ’75 seems to really
connect with the Comm School graduates. She’s a corporate PR executive
now but previously she was a White House correspondent, and before that a
great beat reporter; she tracked down racist serial sniper Joseph Paul Franklin.
She sympathizes with the graduates, who are walking into the highest
unemployment rate since 1975—the year she sat where they sit now. She
struggled to land her first job and they probably will, too. But you’ll do fine,
she assures them, because you’ve acquired that special ECU spirit. She leans
into the microphone, her voice rising: “You know what I’m talking about. Skip
Holtz knows what I’m talking about. They don’t have it at Syracuse and they
don’t have it at Auburn. It’s what lets us get things done when the chips are
down.” The kids break into the “ECU, ECU, ECU” chant.
At the university’s main fall graduation ceremony the next night, Phil Dixon ’71
tosses off a statistic that put things into perspective for East Carolina’s 100th
commencement class. Recent statistics show, he says, that out of 100 ninth-graders
only 58 finish high school. Of those 58, only 38 will begin college, 28
will return for a second year and only 18 will earn a degree in six years.
“This puts you in very unique company,” he says. Plus, “You know you
attended the best university in the state and you’re not snotty about it.”
from the editor
Volume 7, Number 2
East is published four times a year by
East Carolina University
Division of University Advancement
2200 South Charles Blvd.
Greenville, NC 27858
h
EDITOR
Steve Tuttle
252-328-2068 / tuttles@ecu.edu
ART DIRECTOR/DESIGNER
Brent Burch
PHOTOGRAPHER
Forrest Croce
COPY EDITOR
Jimmy Rostar ’94
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Marion Blackburn, Bethany Bradsher,
Kellen Holtzman, Erica Plouffe Lazure,
Christine Neff, Jimmy Rostar,
Steve Row, Leanne Smith
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
David Butler, Brian Christiansen,
Jay Clark, Crackerfarm, Rob Goldberg,
Cliff Hollis, Kelsey Sutton
CLASS NOTES EDITOR
Leanne Elizabeth Smith ’04 ’06
ecuclassnotes@ecu.edu
ADMINISTRATION
Michelle Sloan
h
Assistant Vice Chancelor
for University Marketing
Clint Bailey
East Carolina University is a constituent institution of
The University of North Carolina. It is a public doctoral/
research intensive university offering baccalaureate, master’s,
specialist and doctoral degrees in the liberal arts, sciences
and professional fields, including medicine. Dedicated to the
achievement of excellence, responsible stewardship of the
public trust and academic freedom, ECU values the
contributions of a diverse community, supports shared
governance and guarantees equality of opportunity.
©2009 by East Carolina University
Printed by Progress Printing
U.P. 09-328 74,000 copies of this public document were
printed at a cost of $42,539 or $.57 per copy.
East The Magazine of East Carolina University
spring 2009
from our readers
3
4
the ecU Report
20,000 jobs arrive via Highway 17
The huge investment the state has made
in four-laning U.S. Highway 17 is paying
big dividends for eastern North Carolina,
according to an ECU study showing that
every dollar the state spent on the roadway
has generated nearly three dollars in direct
output and earnings and created more than
20,000 jobs.
Since 1989 the state Department
of Transportation has spent $2.43
billion upgrading Highway 17, eastern
North Carolina’s major north-south
transportation artery that stretches
300 miles from the Virginia border to
Wilmington. In that time, more than
$5.5 billion in output was produced
by the region’s construction sector,
resulting in more than $1 billion in
earnings, said Mulatu Wubneh, chair
of ECU’s Urban and Regional
Planning Department, who led
the study. Construction workers
earned $600 million during
the period studied.
“We were asked to find out what
did the state get back in return
for its investment,” Wubneh said.
“This study shows that the
investment in infrastructure
has a multiplier effect that
continues to grow over time
and generates additional
benefits to the region.”
ECU conducted the
study at request of
the Highway 17
Association,
an alliance of
businesses in
the region.
While the costs for materials,
labor and expenditures can be
quantified, Wubneh said, other
benefits from the highway
improvements can’t be
quantified, including
improved safety,
reduced
travel
time and lower
transportation costs.
“These benefits are
present but we cannot assign
them dollar values,” he said.
Fifty miles of Highway 17 still
are only two lanes and other
sections of the road remain in
need of upgrading.
—Erica Plouffe Lazure
Shaping leaders
Brad Congleton is vice president
of the student body, an office
he feels sure he never would
have sought successfully if he
hadn’t spent a week at ECU’s
Leadership Institute.
“Attending LeaderShape was the
difference maker in my life,” says
Congleton, a senior from Wendell.
“Before going, I thought I knew who I
was, and what I wanted to do. I learned
quickly that becoming a successful leader
you must stay committed. I was searching
for an easy road, but the program taught
me that being a leader is a daily job and
sometimes it’s very challenging.”
Each year, up to 60 students like
Congleton have the opportunity
to attend LeaderShape, a weeklong
intensive leadership camp that teaches
a “healthy disregard for the impossible.” The
ECU office that supervises LeaderShape is
making plans for a third annual retreat in
August, either on campus or at an outside
site. The previous two sessions were held over
spring break at Camp Carraway in Asheville.
Any ECU student with at least a 2.5 GPA
can apply for the program, which uses an
interactive approach with an emphasis on
small groups, problem solving and community
building exercises. Halfway through the week,
each participant develops a “Leadership
Breakthrough Blueprint” in which they
define a specific leadership goal they hope to
achieve within the ECU campus community.
Camp participants explore topics around
a theme like “The Value of One, The
Power of All” and “Living and Leading
with Integrity.” It’s not a week of leisure
by any stretch, said Krista Wilhelm,
assistant director of the Center for Student
Leadership and Civic Engagement and the
coordinator for ECU LeaderShape. “It’s
intensive,” Wilhelm says. “It’s almost like
leadership boot camp.”
“I enjoyed how you moved around a good
amount,” says Tiffany Mills, a senior from
Hertford who attended in 2007 along with
Congleton; both returned to the camp
as program assistants last spring. After
they complete the program, LeaderShape
graduates receive continuing encouragement
from the ECU LeaderShape Society, which
meets throughout the school year and
reinforces the principles taught at the retreat.
Students who are accepted to the August
session of LeaderShape will be asked to
make a nonrefundable deposit of $100, but
campus organizations and local businesses
are encouraged to sponsor a student who
might not otherwise be able to attend.
Anyone interested in sponsoring a student
or donating to LeaderShape can contact
Wilhelm at wilhelmk@ecu.edu.
—Bethany Bradsher
5
Closer to curing monkeypox
Brody School of Medicine microbiologist Dr. Rachel Roper is attracting national
attention, and a major grant, for research that brings doctors a step closer to
stopping the spread of monkeypox, a coronavirus that’s a cousin of smallpox.
Once found only in Africa, monkeypox recently turned up in prairie dogs in the
U.S. and spread to humans.
Her technique involves removing a specific gene from the pox virus that affects
immunity. Her research also may lead to better treatments for other viruses,
particularly the human severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus. “The
emergence of SARS [and other viruses, including monkeypox] may well be the
biggest infectious disease event since HIV,�� Roper says.
Roper, former program director for the British Columbia SARS Accelerated Vaccine
Initiative, was one of the scientists who sequenced and analyzed the SARS genome,
proving that the virus belongs to a previously unrecognized group of coronaviruses.
Now she’s working on a vaccine created by removing a gene from the virus that
seems to inhibit immune responses in mammals. She’s using a grant from the N.C.
Biotechnology Center to produce a vaccine that’s safer and more effective against
such threats as monkeypox.
Add two cups of science
The National Center for Research Resources, a part of the National Institutes of
Health, awarded a $504,000 grant to East Carolina researchers to study how K–12
students can use food to learn concepts in science, math and nutrition. The 2008
Science Education Partnership Award will fund the second phase of an earlier
ECU study that showed that such common items as measuring cups and spoons
can become valuable learning tools. “Children love anything to do with food and
food preparation,” said Melani Duffrin, professor of nutrition and dietetics. “We’ve
been watching enthusiastic, young students engage in scientific processes such as
measurement, data collection, critical thinking and comparative analysis in very
natural self-directed ways, and it’s exciting.”
Cliff Hollis
Campaign at $121 million
Halfway through its eight-year Second
Century Campaign, East Carolina
University has raised more than $121
million, or 60 percent of its $200
million goal. Launched in 2008, the
Second Century Campaign is providing
resources for student scholarships,
faculty, program, and athletic support,
and campus facility construction and
improvement.
“East Carolina is being called upon
to enhance its service to students,
the region and the state,” said Vice
Chancellor for University Advancement
Mickey Dowdy. “The Second Century
Campaign is vital to the university’s
ability to continue that service, now
and in the years to come.”
The Second Century Campaign is
one of the major steps necessary to
accomplish the ambitious goals of
ECU Tomorrow: A Vision for Leadership
and Service, the university’s strategic plan
adopted in 2007. To fully implement
this strategic plan will require in excess
of $1 billion in new resources from
state, federal and private sources over
the next 10–15 years.
“Even during these challenging
economic times, when they have chosen
where to spend their philanthropic
dollar, alumni, friends and supporters
have chosen East Carolina in record
numbers,” said Dowdy. “That
remarkable support is truly making
a difference at our university and we
are heartened by the dedication of the
Pirate Nation.”
Please use the envelope inserted in the
magazine to make a donation. For more
information about the Second Century
Campaign, please visit www.ecu.edu/devt
or call 252-328-9550.
the ecu report
6
Tuition rises 2.8 percent
Tuition at ECU will rise 2.82 percent next
year for both in-state and out-of-state
undergraduate students, an increase that’s
on the low end of what most other UNC
campuses are adopting. Currently, tuition
and fees are $4,219 per semester. The
Board of Trustees approved the increase
at a special meeting in November after
failing to reach a decision at its regular
October session.
North Carolina residents will face a $69
increase in tuition, while students from
other states will see their rates increase by
$366 annually. All students will pay an
increase in fees of $25. Graduate students,
both resident and nonresident, will pay an
extra $69 beginning next year.
Chancellor Steve Ballard proposed a 2.41
percent tuition increase at the trustees’
October meeting but several members
of the executive committee thought that
was too low. “We are trying to hold to a
minimum to North Carolina students,”
Ballard said. “I think this is a reasonable
compromise while paying attention to the
needs of our students.”
Around $650,000 of the tuition increase
will be used to boost faculty salaries;
about $1.5 million will go to financial
aid; the rest, nearly $500,000, will be
used for other support services at the
university. Trustee Margaret Ward, who
wanted to see a higher increase, voted
against the compromise.
The hikes at ECU are lower than fee and
tuition increases at UNC Chapel Hill, N.C.
State, UNC Wilmington, Appalachian State
and UNC Greensboro, where increases
were 5.5 percent or higher. The Board of
Governors limits tuition increases at the
state’s universities to a maximum of 6.5
percent a year.
ECU, the third-largest school in the
UNC system, ranks sixth in fees and
seventh in tuition.
—Greenville Daily Reflector
Supply of dentists declines
After four years of moderate increases, the
state’s supply of dentists per capita has
taken a downturn, according to the Sheps
Center for Health Services Research at
UNC Chapel Hill. According to the center’s
annual report, the dentist workforce grew
4.8 percent in 2003–2004 but the growth
rate slipped to 1.6 percent in 2006–2007.
Adjusted for population growth, this
translates into a 3.9 percent increase in ’05–
’06 and a 0.7 percent decrease in ’06–‘07.
Nationally, there are an average six dentists
per 100,000 population but in North
Carolina the ratio is 4.3 dentists per
100,000. Four counties in eastern North
Carolina—Camden, Gates, Hyde and
Tyrrell—did not have an active dentist in
2007, and Camden and Tyrrell haven’t had
a dentist since data collection began 1979.
“The fact that our dentist supply is not
keeping pace with population growth is
of concern and a trend worth further
monitoring,” said Erin Fraher, director
of the Health Professions Data System.
“North Carolina already lags behind the
nation in dentist supply and we have an
aging dentist workforce with nearly one
in three dentists aged 55 and over. As this
cohort begins to retire, it is likely that
supply will contract at an even faster rate
and some counties, particularly rural ones
where dentists are an average three years
older, may be left without a dentist,”
Fraher added.
East Carolina’s new dental school will
accept its first students this fall, and the
dental school at Chapel Hill is expanding,
but these additional graduates will not
enter the workforce until 2015 and 2016
respectively, Fraher said.
After adjusting for population growth, the
state’s supply of physicians, nurses and
pharmacists increased while the supply
of physicians in primary care specialties
declined slightly.
ECU plans
an online
high school
After studying
the feasibility
of opening an
Early College
High School
on campus for
pupils from the
region, East
Carolina has
determined
that the better
option is
creating the
special school
in cyberspace.
Chancellor Steve Ballard said UNC
System President Erskine Bowles and
the governor have given the go-ahead
for ECU to expand its existing Second
Life web portal, which already is used
by thousands of online students, to
house the Early College High School.
Ballard said Shirley Carraway ’75 ’80
’00, the recently retired superintendent
of Orange County schools, has been
hired part time to work on this project
with Pitt County Schools and Pitt
Community College.
DE enrollment grows
The number of distance education
students enrolled in East Carolina
grew to 6,190 during fall semester.
They are studying for more than 60
types of undergraduate, advanced and
certificate degrees. They range from 18
to 81 years old and log on to virtual
classrooms in 99 of the state’s 100
counties, 43 of the 50 states and five
countries other than the United States,
according to a new report. The 16
UNC system campuses combined now
have more than 22,000 DE students,
up 20 percent in just the past year.
—Christine Neff
North Recreational Complex opens
Interior design students display their ideas for “barracks of the future” that are better
able to accommodate sick and wounded Marines during their rehabilitation at Camp
Lejeune’s Wounded Warrior Battalion. The students visited military bases and talked
with wounded Marines about what they would like to have in their barracks and
incorporated their input into the designs. The designs include public areas for Marines
who do not like to be alone, furniture specially crafted for wheelchair-users and storage
space designed to hold military gear.
7
Cliff Hollis
Cliff Hollis
East Carolina officially opened
its newest student recreation
facilities last semester with
plenty of lacrosse sticks, rugby
balls, soccer cleats and free
food. Chancellor Steve Ballard
led the ribbon-cutting for the
North Recreational Complex,
an $8.5 million project on U.S.
Highway 264 six miles from the
Main Campus in a booming area
of big-box student apartment
complexes. Women and men’s
club sports teams put the fields
to good use before downing lots
of hot dogs and hamburgers.
Construction began on the project
in March 2006. It sits on 129
acres and features eight lighted
regulation fields for rugby and
soccer. It is financed by student
fees. Ballard noted that with
the new fields and the existing
Student Recreation Center on
the core campus, ECU offers
students some of the best and
most comprehensive recreation
and fitness opportunities in the
nation. Nance Mize, assistant vice
chancellor for campus recreation
and wellness, said the new fields
put the university in a position
to host state, regional and
national championships in
several club sports.
9
Heart Center opens its doors
After two years of construction, the
university and Pitt County Memorial
Hospital jointly dedicated the East
Carolina Heart Institute on Dec. 11. The
$220 million heart institute includes a
six-story patient bed tower to be used by
the hospital and a 206,000-square-foot
research, education and outpatient care
facility for the Brody School of Medicine.
The dedication capped more than four years
of collaboration between ECU and PCMH
supported by $60 million from the N.C.
General Assembly and $160 million from
PCMH for the bed tower.
Just how blue is ECU?
The widespread perception that college
professors and top administrators are
politically liberal would seem to have even
greater credence now that North Carolina
has turned blue for the first time since 1976.
But according to records at the State Board
of Elections, the East Carolina community,
at least, is about as divided in its politics as
everyone else.
According to a search of records of the 500
highest-paid employees of East Carolina
University available online from the State
Board of Elections (SBOE), 36 percent are
registered as Democrats and 23 percent are
registered as Republicans. A little less than 20
percent are unaffiliated and about 21 percent
of them couldn’t be found in SBOE records.
As state employees, the university’s employee
and salary records are public documents, as
are state voter registration lists.
Those statistics indicate that ECU
employees—at least the highest paid
ones, most of whom work on the medical
campus—are less Republican than the
state as a whole. Statewide, 45 percent
of all registered voters are Democrats, 34
percent are Republicans and 21 percent are
unaffiliated, according to SBOE data.
“Those with higher levels of education
are likely to be further to the left on the
ideological scale,” says political science
professor Bonnie Mani. “Remember that
ideology and party affiliation are two
different concepts—although Republicans are
more likely to be conservative and Democrats
are likely to be further to the left.”
Despite ECU’s Democratic leanings, the
Republican Party does target students with
groups such as College Republicans and
Students for McCain. Kim Hendrix, the chair
of the Pitt County Republican Party Executive
Board, echoed Mani’s sentiments. “Most
educators are Democrats, but there does seem
to be a Republican presence on campus.”
“I’ve noticed that just driving through the
faculty parking areas during the day that
most cars are sporting Obama bumper
stickers, ” says grad student and teaching
assistant Nicole Keech. “There are very few
in support of McCain—maybe that just
means that McCain supporters are more
conservative in publicly expressing their
political stances.”
A Democrat hasn’t carried North Carolina
since Carter in ’76. In 2004, George Bush
defeated John Kerry here 56 percent to 44
percent. In Pitt County, Bush edged out
Kerry 53 percent to 46 percent.
Barack Obama carried Pitt County by 54
percent to 46 percent. Of the 14 other
counties that host a UNC system campus,
only New Hanover County, home of UNC
Wilmington, went for John McCain, and
that by only the slightest of margins.
—Kellen Holtzman
Editor’s note: East occasionally publishes original
writing by ECU students. This story was
prepared by Holtzman as a research project
for the Communications 3320 Investigative
Reporting class.
the ecu report
Spiders for scholarships
There’s a new reason to give money to
ECU: You could get a spider named for
you. Biologist Jason Bond, who received
international attention last summer for
naming two of his newly discovered trapdoor
spiders after musician Neil Young and talk
show host Stephen Colbert, is offering similar
naming rights to donors to a scholarship
fund for students studying biodiversity.
“We want this event to be a lot of fun, as
well as informative,” says Jeff McKinnon,
chair of the biology department.
The largest donor to the fund will win the
opportunity to name one of Bond’s trapdoor
spiders. The winner was to be announced
on Feb. 12. Bond discovered the new species
of trapdoor spiders in late 2007 and is in
the process of naming them. Other species
in Bond’s collection have been named after
Nelson Mandela, Neil Young, Angelina Jolie,
and Bond’s wife, Kristen.
To learn who won and how much money was
raised for scholarships, visit www.ecu.edu/
biology.
8
Greenville’s expensive real estate
Let’s say you’ve just taken a job teaching at East Carolina and will be moving
to Greenville from, say, Raleigh. You should be able to buy a much nicer
house in Greenville than the one you had in Raleigh, right? Wrong. Based
on sales over the past year, the average price of a 2,220-foot, four-bedroom
home with 2½ baths, a family room and a two-car garage here will cost
you about $50,000 more than in Raleigh, according to a national survey
by Coldwell Banker Real Estate. Greenville real estate also is pricier than
Winston-Salem and Durham.
Rank School City Housing cost
1 Stanford University Palo Alto, Calif. $ 1,740,731
17 University of Virginia Charlottesville, Va. 408,475
21 University of North Carolina Chapel Hill 369,966
30 West Virginia University Morgantown, W.V a. 331,333
42 Virginia Tech University Blacksburg, Va. 302,075
47 East Carolina University Greenville 283,022
74 North Carolina State University Raleigh 236,124
78 Wake Forest University Winston-Salem 230,667
83 Duke University Durham, N. C. 221,491
90 University of Tennessee Knoxville, Tenn. 208,637
100 University of South Carolina Columbia, S. C. 189,262
The Access Scholarship program, begun just two years ago, has grown to serve 62 students as of fall semester. The scholarships are worth
$5,000 a year for four years, enough to cover college costs beyond what’s available in most student loans. More than 9,000 undergraduate
students at East Carolina have demonstrated financial need, the highest in the UNC system. With existing resources ECU is only able to
meet 60 percent of financial aid requests from students with the most need. A $250,000 gift from BB&T allowed the program to expand by
two scholarships. For more about this gift, see page 38.
The fact that Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Sarah Palin all campaigned in Greenville stoked a
noticeable increase in political activity on campus. Obama filled Minges Auditorium on April
18 and Sarah Palin did the same on Oct. 7. Three weeks later, Joe Biden walked out of the
student center wearing an ECU baseball cap and talked to students gathered on the mall.
Nancy Ballard
welcomes Barack
Obama to Minges.
Contributed photo
E a s t C a r o l i n a t i me l i n e
The first faculty arrives
In the spring and summer of
1909, President Robert Wright
(far right) hires 10 teachers to
instruct the inaugural class of
174 East Carolina students, who
will arrive in the fall. Today,
several buildings on campus are
named for those first faculty
members. From left to right, top
row, are Kate W. Lewis, William
Henry Ragsdale (residence hall),
Birdie McKinney, Sallie Joyner
Davis (library), Maria D. Graham
(classroom building), Mamie E.
Jenkins (originally the infirmary,
now an office building), Claude W. Wilson (residence hall), Jennie M.
Ogden, Fannie Bishop and Herbert E. Austin (classroom building).
Computerized
registration begins
As student complaints soar
over long lines at registration
and drop-add, East Carolina
buys 50 IBM computers in the
spring of 1984 and becomes
the first college in the state to
move toward a computerized,
decentralized system of
registering students for classes.
The system requires students
to go to their advisors’ offices
and make out class schedules.
The schedules are then given
to computer operators who feed the data into the campus mainframe. Observers are
awed that the mainframe is able to crunch the data and confirm the requested classes
“within minutes.” After a year of testing, the system is first used in March 1985.
Images courtesy University Archives
President Messick’s last year
The rigors of leading a college
undergoing constant growth
and change begins wearing on
President John Messick. In his 12
years at the helm, the student
body triples in size to 4,000, 11
new buildings are constructed
and 13 others on campus are
enlarged or remodeled. In early
1959 he tells friends, “I’m just
getting tired of the pressures
involved, mostly the pressure
of obtaining sufficient funds to
operate a college like ours.” He
announces his resignation in
October. Leo Jenkins, Messick’s
longtime right-hand man, is
named to lead the college.
Robert Wright dies
Amid enthusiastic
preparations for the
25th anniversary
of the school’s
founding, and Robert
Wright’s 25th year
as president, the
64-year-old leader
suffers a heart
attack while working
at his desk in the
Spilman Building
and dies two days
later, April 25, 1934.
He lay in state in
the auditorium later
named for him.
100
YEARS AGO 25
YEARS AGO 40
YEARS AGO 75
YEARS AGO
the ecu report
Marilyn
Sheerer was
appointed
provost and
senior vice
chancellor for
academic and
student
affairs, a post
she had held
on an interim
basis. Sheerer came to ECU in 1996 as a
professor and chair of the Department of
Elementary and Middle Grades Education.
She served as dean of the College of
Education from 1998 to 2006 and also led
the university’s fund-raising operation and
the Division of Student Life. In making the
appointment, Chancellor Steve Ballard said
that Sheerer “is exactly the right person to
fill this critical role at the university.”
John Given, an assistant professor in the
Department of Foreign Languages and
Literatures, is the new director of the program
in Classical Studies within the College of Arts
and Sciences. He replaces John Stevens, who
directed the Classical Studies program for
the past five years. Stevens will return to the
classroom. Given has worked to create a full
curriculum in Greek.
Mary A. Farwell was appointed director
of undergraduate research in the Division
of Research and Graduate Studies. She had
worked for 14 years as associate professor
and director of undergraduate studies in
the Department of Biology. Farwell will be
responsible for helping to organize and fund
undergraduate research projects.
David Weismiller was named associate
provost for the Office of Institutional
Planning, Assessment and Research. He
was vice chair for academic affairs in the
Department of Family Medicine. A faculty
member since 1996, he was recognized
in 2004 with the School of Medicine’s
coveted Master Educator Award.
Beth Velde, a professor of occupational
therapy and assistant dean in the College of
Allied Health Sciences, was named director
of East Carolina’s new Outreach Scholars
Academy. The academy will develop engaged
scholars who are leaders in their professions,
working with communities to improve the
quality of life and foster economic prosperity
for North Carolinians. The academy will
provide professional development for faculty
and enable them to pursue sponsored
scholarship related to curricular engagement,
outreach and partnerships.
Patrick Pellicane, dean of the Graduate
School, has resigned to become vice provost
for research and dean of the University of
Arkansas at Little Rock Graduate School.
Paul Gemperline, associate vice chancellor
for research, will serve acting dean for the
Graduate School while a search continues for
a permanent replacement.
Dr. Lessie Louise Bass, 62, died
Jan. 18, weeks after receiving the
2008 Board of Governors Award for
Excellence in Public Service (above).
Dr. Bass joined the ECU College of
Human Ecology School of Social
Work faculty in 1993. She also
taught at the University of Maryland,
Fayetteville State University and
Barton College. She also was Executive
Director of the Lucille W. Gorham
Intergenerational Community
Center of West Greenville. She was
a founding member of the Wilson,
Omicron lota Zeta Chapter of Zeta
Phi Beta Sorority and a life member
of Norwayne Alumni.
Kelsey Sutton
The Green Grass Cloggers, founded at ECU in 1971, received the 2008 Mountain Heritage
Award at the 34th annual Mountain Heritage Day at Western Carolina University. In the
years since the group was started by Dudley Culp ’71 and Toni Jordan Williams ’77, helped
by recreation professor Ralph Steele and geology professor Stan Riggs, a third of its nearly
160 members have been ECU graduates or faculty. Green Grass Cloggers now has a team
based in Asheville, and a Home Team based in Greenville that performs regionally. The two
teams perform together at least once a year. A 40th anniversary reunion of all former and
current members is being planned for 2011 in Greenville.
U n i v e r s i t y L i f e
Photo courtesy Western Carolina University
12 13
The ECU Opera Theatre’s spring
production will be Puccini’s
Madama Butterfly March 4, 5 and
6 in Fletcher Recital Hall. John
Kramar will direct three evening
performances and one afternoon
performance, which will be sung
in Italian and accompanied by the
ECU Symphony Orchestra.
The Four Seasons Chamber
Music Festival closes its season
with trios, quartets and quintets.
The March 19–20 program will
feature Haydn’s Piano Trio in
C, Schumann’s Piano Quartet
in E-flat major and Faure’s
Piano Quartet No. 1 in C-minor.
Performers will be ECU’s Ara
Gregorian, violin; Shai Wosner,
piano; Hsin-Yun Huang, viola;
and Zvi Plesser, cello. The finale
April 30 and May 1 will consist
of Bloch’s Piano Quintet No. 1
and Dvorak’s Piano Quintet in
A. Joining Gregorian will be
guests Thomas Sauer, piano;
Soovin Kim, violin; Elina Vahala,
violin; and Amit Peled, cello.
The programs will be played in
Fletcher Recital Hall.
ECU Theatre and Dance. The
ECU-Loessin Playouse series
presents Shakespeare’s All’s
Well That Ends Well April 2–7,
and the season concludes
April 23–28 with Dance
2009, the annual program
featuring ECU dancers in
ballet, modern, jazz and
tap. The Family Fare series
winds up April 17 with an
ECU Storybook Theatre
production of Willy Wonka,
based on the book by Roald
Dahl. The ECU production will be
the musical version, with music
and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse and
Anthony Newley.
The ninth annual NewMusic@
ECU Festival takes place Feb.
25–March 1, with the Daedalus
Quartet and Pulsoptional among
the featured guest performers.
Festival director Edward Jacobs
planned seven concerts, along
with master classes with visiting
composers, performers and
conductors, and reading sessions
of student composers’ works.
New this year is an orchestra
composition competition. Among
the ECU performers will be
the Chamber Singers, Feb. 26
at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church;
NewMusic Camerata, Feb. 27 and
Feb. 28 at Fletcher Recital Hall;
and Symphony Orchestra, March
1 at Wright Auditorium. Clarinetist
Christopher Grymes of the music
faculty will lead off the festival
Feb. 25 with a program at the
Starlight Café.
ECU Symphony programs in
late winter and early spring will
include an unusual range of
musical selections and also will
highlight winners of orchestral
composition and concerto
competitions. A March 1 concert
in Wright Auditorium at 3 p.m.
that is part of the NewMusic
Festival will include Folksongs
of the Vikings, a work by David
Dahlgren for tuba and string
orchestra, which will feature
tuba soloist Tom McCaslin, and
a world premiere piece by Marc
Faris of the Music School’s
composition program. Faris also
is a co-founder of Pulsoptional,
the ensemble scheduled to play in
the NewMusic Festival. The April
26 concert (Wright Auditorium,
3 p.m.) will include Borodin’s
overture to Prince Igor and
Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three
Movements.
The ECU Jazz Studies Program’s
Jazz at Night series at the Hilton
Greenville Hotel ends Feb. 20
and March 27. Jazz students,
as well as faculty members and
guest musicians, perform, and the
hotel donates a portion of ticket
holders’ restaurant purchases
to the university’s Jazz Studies
program. Performances begin at
8 p.m.
The School of Art and Design’s
annual exhibition of art and
craft work by undergraduate
students will be on display
March 4–April 8, with an
awards ceremony scheduled
March 4. The annual
exhibition of thesis works
by graduate students is
scheduled April 17–May 22.
Who’s in town?
Uzee Brown Jr., president of the
National Association of Negro
Musicians, former chair of the
music department of Clark
Atlanta University, and choir
director at Martin Luther King’s
home congregation, Ebenezer
Baptist Church, will be the special
guest of the School of Music
for a program, “The Art of the
Spiritual,” in A. J. Fletcher Music
Center Recital Hall March 17 at 8
p.m. Brown recorded a CD of his
own solo spiritual arrangements,
Great Day, in 2006.
Rebecca Penneys will present a
piano recital March 21 at 7 p.m.
at Fletcher Recital Hall. She has
been a resident artist at the
Chautauqua Festival since 1978
and was appointed visiting artist
at St. Petersburg College in
Florida in 2001.
Sole Nero, a piano and percussion
duo, will perform in Fletcher
Recital Hall April 5 at 7 p.m.
Percussionist Anthony Di Sanzais
and pianist Jessica Johnson
explore new and existing works
for piano and percussion.
Gary Smart, Yessin Professor
of Music at the University of
North Florida in Jacksonville, will
present a piano recital in Fletcher
Recital Hall April 9 at 7 p.m. Smart
is a composer and improviser
whose music has been performed
at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall
and Kennedy Center.
—Steve Row
For ticketing and
other information, go
to www.ecu.edu/arts
Jennifer Licko Shelton ’98 will present a special St. Patrick’s Day
concert March 17 at 8 p.m. in Wright Auditorium as a fund-raiser for the
S. Rudolph Alexander Performing Arts Series. Licko sings Celtic music
and plays piano, guitar and bodhrán—the Irish drum. The Swansboro
native started performing as a Highland dancer before she was a
teenager. She has recorded several CDs since graduating from ECU
with a music degree. She’s also studied in Scotland and Ireland. Hear
songs from her new album at www.jenniferlicko.com.
The S. Rudolph Alexander Performing Arts Series concludes its season
with internationally known piano accompanist John Wustman and
Metropolitan Opera baritone Nathan Gunn, who will perform Franz
Schubert’s Die schone Mullerin Feb. 20, and the Russian National
Ballet’s production of Giselle April 2. Wustman, the Robert L. Jones
Distinguished Visiting Professor in the ECU School of Music, will
accompany members of the ECU Vocal Studies Department in the first
and second parts of Wolf’s Spanisches Liederbuch March 22 and 23.
Jazz singer Nnenna Freelon will be the principal guest artist
for the Billy Taylor Jazz Festival April 16 –1 8, with most events
held at the Greenville Convention Center a nd adjacent Hilton
Hotel. Freelon lives in Durham a nd is married to Phil Freelon, the
architect who is designing ECU’s new student center. Nnenna was
discovered in 1990 by jazz pianist Ellis Marsalis and signed by
Columbia Records, which has releas ed 11 of her albums. F ive of
them garnered Grammy nominations. She has received the Billie
Holiday Award from the Academie du Jazz i n France and the
Eubie Bla ke Award from the National Ja zz Institute. She toured
with the Monterey Jazz Festival’s 50th Anniversary Band in 2008.
Freelon’s April 18 performance at 8 p.m. closes the festival, which will
run under the direction of Carroll V. Dashiell Jr., director of jazz studies
in the School of Music. Over three days the festival will include a free
“Jazz Bones” program April 16 at the Hilton, a ticketed performance by
the ECU Jazz Ensemble April 17 at the convention center, and critiques
of visiting high school and middle school jazz ensembles April 18 at the
convention center.
20 09 Spring Arts Calendar
14 15
Portrait
of the Artist
Whether he’s holding a banjo or
a paintbrush, Scott Avett ’99 ’00
puts family ahead of fame.
16 17
By Jimmy Rostar
It’s the last week of December, and
the Avett Brothers are playing the third
of five back-to-back, sold-out concerts.
Sweat flies, strings break and fists pump
inside Asheville’s Orange Peel club as
the band performs a string of their own
songs and covers of tunes made famous
by Townes Van Zandt and Bob Wills.
The audience cheers for an encore and the
band complies, first with the ballad “If It’s
the Beaches,” a song from their 2006 album
The Gleam that’s been featured on the NBC
drama Friday Night Lights. Then the concert
ends with the anthemic “Salvation Song,”
from the band’s 2004 album, Mignonette. As
the song reaches the final chorus, band and
audience become one as they sing together:
“W e came for salvation
We came for family
We came for all that’s good
That’s how we’ll walk away
We came to break the bad
We came to cheer the sad
We came to leave behind
the world a better way.”
The lights dim with the band right where
they spent many nights in 2008—on stage,
performing for enthusiastic fans who love
the music and seemingly know all the lyrics
by heart. And with a new album coming out
produced by the legendary Rick Rubin—the
man who revived Johnny Cash’s career—many
believe 2009 will be the year the band emerges
as the next big thing in American music.
If that does happen, it’s unlikely the
Avett Brothers—Scott Avett and younger
brother Seth, a graduate of UNC
Charlotte, with bandmates Bob
Crawford and Joe Kwon—will
follow the path of so many bands
before them, from discovery to
sudden success, followed quickly
by burnout and oblivion. They
aren’t performing for the fame,
the money, the attention.
“Salvation Song” tells you
exactly why the Avetts came.
‘Day by day—that’s the key’
It’s difficult to define the type of music
the Avett Brothers play. The San Francisco
Chronicle describes it as “the heavy sadness
of Townes Van Zandt, the light pop
concision of Buddy Holly, the tuneful
jangle of the Beatles, the raw energy of the
Ramones [which] allows them to express a
full range of emotions and opt for honesty
and optimism over irony and cynicism.”
Scott primarily plays the banjo, and he also
plays the guitar, piano, harmonica, and
drums. Seth’s mainly a guitarist, while he too
plays piano and drums. The brothers share
most of the singing and songwriting duties.
Crawford is the bassist, and Kwon plays cello.
However you categorize the tunes, 2008 was
a momentous year for the Avetts. The band
released its 10th album, The Second Gleam, and
continued building an ever-growing fan base
through a grueling tour schedule. A visual
artist as well as a musician, Scott showed
paintings and other artwork at a gallery in
New York City. On personal notes, he also
became a father, and Seth got married.
This year is shaping up as an even greater
seminal period, with the much-anticipated
new album and another heavy touring
schedule on the way. The Avett Brothers
will play several shows with the Dave
Matthews Band, including an April
22 concert at Raleigh’s Time Warner
Cable Music Pavilion at Walnut Creek
and an April 24 show at Charlotte’s
Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre.
With all of that ahead, Scott says it’s
more important than ever for him
to keep focused on the family values
he learned growing up in Concord,
N.C., and the work ethic that
earned him two degrees from
East Carolina.
“I can’t think about the big
picture too much and what’s
ahead because it’s way too
overwhelming,” he says during
an interview in his art studio in
Concord, a suburb of Charlotte.
“Day by day. That’s the key.”
He credits his parents, Jim and Susie, for
nurturing a love for family and the arts. A
welder by trade, Jim Avett played guitar and
had a collection of records and 8-tracks that
he shared with his family. As children, Scott,
Seth and sister Bonnie all learned to play
the piano. Family sing-alongs were common,
and the three siblings regularly sang with
their father at church services. Some of those
songs would make their way onto the 2008
album Jim Avett and Family, a collection of
gospel tunes featuring the Avett patriarch
along with his children, as well as Crawford
and Kwon.
“As far back as our memory goes, it’s there,”
Scott recalls of his first exposure to music.
“The earliest memories are of whatever
my parents were listening to and my dad
was playing. I always remember this sort
of mid-’70s John Denver vibe, and Tom T.
Hall. Those old country and country rock
things were really inspiring, and they really
impacted us as kids.”
Interest in the visual arts also developed
early, Scott says, recalling a game in which
his father encouraged his children to create
images out of simple shapes he would draw.
“They had art around,” Seth Avett says
of his parents. “We weren’t a family of
means—there wasn’t a lot of money—but
if we wanted to hear music, there was
a record player in the living room. We
could hear Dad playing guitar and singing
to us. There were some art books in the
bookshelves, and there was a lot
of good literature around.”
The brothers agree that the family
bond has been essential in shaping
who they are as people and as
artists. “I’ve been very fortunate
to grow up and realize how much
that’s carried me,” Scott says. “Seth
and I wouldn’t be able to do what
we do if our parents hadn’t been
so generous and forthcoming with
supporting the music.”
Now a father himself, Scott says he
even more deeply appreciates the
importance of family as he and his wife,
Sarah, tend to their infant daughter.
“Our family has stepped up,” he says.
“We just do things for each other.
There’s no talk about how anybody needs
favors returned or how anybody is on
borrowed time or anything like that. As I get
older, I realize how important that is.”
Coming to Greenville
At East Carolina, Scott found a home in the
College of Fine Arts and Communication. In
1999, he earned a BS degree in communica­tion.
A year later, he earned a BFA degree in
Each week Time magazine asks
a notable person what they’re
reading, watching or listening
to. In the Jan. 8 issue, John
Grogan, author of the best-seller
Marley & Me, said he’s listening
to Emotionalism by the Avett
Brothers: “I discovered the Avett
Brothers while browsing in one of
those iconic hippie shops in San
Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district.
The album was playing on the
store’s sound system, and I was
instantly smitten. It is impossible
not to grin while listening to this
infectiously upbeat blend of folk,
rock and bluegrass, all played on
acoustic instruments and with
whimsical, witty lyrics to boot.”
The Avett Brothers—Joe Kwon, Bob Crawford, Scott Avett and Seth
Avett, from left—perform at the sold-out Belk Theater in Charlotte on
Dec. 30. They are joined by Bonnie Avett Rini, Scott and Seth’s sister.
David Butler
Crackerfarm
19
art, focusing mainly on painting. “ECU was
absolutely awesome,” he says.
He says his college experience was especially
fruitful once he opened himself to the
support his professors gave in shaping his
craft. “ECU was there to offer whatever
direction it was that I needed,” he adds. “It
was there to guide me. There was nothing
stopping me after I homed in on what I
wanted to do. For that, I have ECU to thank.”
Leland Wallin, a professor emeritus of
painting, recalls Scott Avett the art student
as “an individual with enormous potential,”
and he encouraged the budding artist to
continue in his studies. “The works he did
with me were quite beautiful—painterly
portraits, lush brushwork and color, with
considerable amount of control,” he says.
“Scott was one of my outstanding students.
He’s a very talented guy in many ways, quite
diversified in his abilities.”
Scott also took an interest in printmaking
and continues to keep in touch with
professor Michael Ehlbeck. He regularly
returns to campus to create elaborately
crafted prints that commemorate the band’s
annual New Year’s Eve and other big shows.
“I have the highest opinion of Scott—the
work he does, the work ethic that he has
set up for himself, things that he does on
the road, things that he does at home,”
Ehlbeck says. “He wants to keep his hands
in the printmaking and in the painting.
He continues to make prints and paintings
because he feels it’s important.”
Scott says his music and visual artwork
are pursuits that parallel and complement
one another, adding that his time at East
Carolina definitely shaped his dedication to
both as career and artistic options.
“The same year that Leland Wallin said,
‘You’ve got to stay in this [painting]; this
is what you’re obligated to do,’ I picked up
the banjo and started playing,” he says. “So
I committed myself to both of them at the
same time.”
He sang in bands throughout his years at
East Carolina. One, a rock outfit called
Nemo, eventually brought Scott and Seth
Avett together along with a few friends.
In the late 1990s, a side project featuring
acoustic instruments was born, and the
Avetts began collaborating on songs over the
phone. In 2000, Scott and Seth—along with
Nemo guitarist John Twomey—released a
CD under the Avett Brothers name.
Since that first album, the Avett Brothers
have continued a period of intensive
songwriting, performing and recording.
Their songs focus on many aspects of the
examined life—love, loss, regret, resolve,
truth and honesty among them.
David Butler, who hosts an Americana music
radio program on Guilford College’s WQFS
in Greensboro, first heard the Avett Brothers’
music on a box set of Charlotte-area
musicians. Later he saw the band perform
at MerleFest, the perennial music festival in
Wilkesboro. He says he knew he had seen
and heard something special.
“They impressed me more than anybody
I saw at MerleFest that year,” Butler says of
that 2004 performance. Since then he has
been to nearly 70 of their shows and plays
the band’s music regularly on his program.
He says the artistry of their songs keeps his
interest engaged.
“I love them live, and I like the fact that
you can see them several nights in a row
and it’s radically different each night,” he
says. “But to me, it’s their basic songwriting
skills. They’ve got the ability to write great,
amazing songs. Whether I’m listening to the
studio things or listening to them live, it’s the
songs that stick with me.”
‘They want to make great art’
In 2003, the Avett Brothers connected
with Dolph Ramseur, a former tennis pro
from Concord who owned an independent
label called Ramseur Records. The Avetts
have been with him ever since. “They want
to make great art,” Ramseur says. “Their
artwork is pretty much an extension of how
they really live. They’re doing it the right way.”
Even as they achieved early success with
18
In a recent post to the Ramseur Records blog
(ramseurrecords.blogspot.com), Scott Avett talks
about his passion for printmaking:
My introduction to printmaking was by professor
of printmaking at East Carolina University, Michael
Ehlbeck. While focusing on painting as a concentration
at the School of Art, I also found time and the good
fortune to learn multiple printmaking processes under
Ehlbeck’s instruction. Among these processes was relief
block printing, which I initially learned on wood and
then later on linoleum.
The process has proven very useful in the moving
world that I live in, where mobility is a must due to the
changing workspace. Over the past five years I have
used The Avett Brothers’ annual New Year’s shows as a
commercial outlet to produce prints using this process.
In between show posters I have also completed prints
using other subject matter as well.
The process of relief block printing starts with a
drawing, usually in one of my many sketch books and
then it is transferred, in parts, to a large piece of tracing
paper to make up a unified composition. The image is
then traced again on the opposite side of the tracing
paper and then burnished onto a piece of linoleum. I
then redraw the image over the lines I have transferred
and add touches and possibly more elements to
the image on the linoleum, sometimes changing it
completely. Some images are drawn straight to linoleum
when traveling with scrap pieces.
After the image is completely drawn in black ink on
the linoleum, I began carving the unmarked areas
away. This creates the “negative” space that ink will not
touch, and will leave the paper exposed creating the
lighter value of the image. The black areas that make
up the drawing become the surface in which the ink
is carried and make up the dark value of the image.
Once the linoleum block is entirely carved I began the
printing process.
Printing has been done in the printmaking department
at East Carolina University with the help and support
of Michael Ehlbeck and others. Without the faculty
within the printmaking department at the School of
Art at ECU, printmaking, for me, would not be possible.
The prints are made in limited runs and are signed and
numbered accordingly. Some will not be reproduced.
Some of Avett’s artwork can be viewed and purchased
at Envoy Gallery located in New York City’s Lower
East Side or at www.envoygallery.com. Prints are also
available through Applewood Gallery of Charlotte, N.C.
D i s c o g r a p h y
2000
The Avett Bros.
2002
Country Was
2002
Live at the Double Door Inn
2003
A Carolina Jubilee
2004
Mignonette
2005
Live, Vol. 2
2006
Four Thieves Gone:
The Robbinsville Sessions
2006
The Gleam
2007
Emotionalism
2008
The Second Gleam
Scott Avett returned to campus in 2008 to create this print commemorating the band’s year-end concerts.
20
Town and Gown = Hand in Glove
Jacqueta Thomas
volunteers as
a tutor at the
Building Hope
Community Life
Center
21
Ramseur, the Avetts remained a small, do-it-yourself
operation consisting of the band,
the label, a road manager, a sound engineer,
a booking agent and a distributor. Marketing
has largely been by word of mouth and the
support of fans who volunteer to hang up
concert posters.
To date, they’ve sold more than 150,000
albums. They’ve performed in all but a
handful of the continental United States,
and they’ve done a string of shows in the
United Kingdom. They’ve built a successful
business model based on good will and a
handshake—the band and Ramseur never
signed any contracts with one another.
“I want the whole world to hear them,”
Ramseur says. “I think they’ve got something
that touches everybody. We started out just
winning over a fan at a time and selling one
record at a time. I feel we’ve grown at a great
pace, and it’s just a good situation.”
Megan Westbrook ’08 was won over as a
freshman at East Carolina when she saw
the band perform in Greenville. She’s seen
them perform about 25 times since then.
“It’s real music and honest lyrics, and
they’re such great songwriters,” Westbrook
says. “There’s a wide range of emotion you
can feel in their songs. They write what
they feel.”
Their last two albums, Emotionalism and
The Second Gleam, made it to the Billboard
Top 200 chart. When Emotionalism debuted,
it was No. 1 on the Billboard Heatseekers
chart as well. The band has appeared on Late
Night with Conan O’Brien and won awards
from the Americana Music Association.
Scott Avett continues to immerse himself
in visual work as well as his music. A self-portrait
still in process is among a variety of
paintings in various stages of life at his art
studio. He recently began selling sketches
through Envoy Gallery in New York, where
he has shown his works on several occasions.
And he still regularly visits Ehlbeck’s shop on
campus to make prints, often accompanied
by his brother.
“You watch Scott and Seth printing together,
and it’s like they’re good friends who haven’t
seen each other in a couple of years—and
they’ve been on the road for 200 days
together,” Ehlbeck says. “It’s a pretty unique
combination for all of them, and I think it
feeds Scott’s work.”
Working with a luminary
The music world sat up and took notice last
July when the band announced that its next
album would be produced by Rick Rubin
and released on his American Recordings
label. Ramseur will stay on as manager.
The Grammy-winning Rubin, co-founder
of Def Jam Records, has produced albums
by Johnny Cash, Metallica, the Dixie
Chicks, Neil Diamond, the Beastie Boys
and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. “It’s really
amazing,” Scott says of working with Rubin.
“Surreal at first, absolutely. The more we’ve
grown, the more serious we’ve become as
musicians and the more serious we’ve gotten
as songwriters. The songs aren’t as light
as they once were, and [Rubin] gravitated
toward that. He gravitated toward the bigger,
serious-topic songs.”
The band was prepared to surrender a certain
level of creative control to Rubin as they
made the record, but Scott says 95 percent of
the decisions made were the band’s own.
Ramseur says the core organization that is
the Avett Brothers remains intact. “It’s still
a day-to-day operation,” he says. “There’s
going to be a lot more hard work ahead, and
we’re prepared for it. We could continue to
put records out on Ramseur Records, and we
could have done really well. But sometimes
you���ve got to see the big picture and realize
that if we partner with someone, maybe we
can take this to a wider audience.”
Scott recalls that it wasn’t too long ago that
he and his brother were performing songs in
front of 10 people on a Charlotte sidewalk.
Last summer, the band played to 7,000
people at the Koka Booth Amphitheatre in
Cary, near Raleigh. Whether the audience
includes 10 or 7,000 people, the connection
with them continues to be vital to him, Scott
says. As he meets fans and hears their stories,
he says he is nourished by their energy and
feels a strong sense of obligation to continue
producing art.
“There’s a real goodness to this that has kind
of blindsided me,” he says. “Where I’m at in
my life, I want to grab at that obligation, and
if we can make it into positives, then we
ought to.”
He pauses to consider his future in music
and art. “I’m going to see to it that my skill
and my craft are as well-refined in whatever
way refined means,” he says. ��I am going to
educate myself and learn. But everything
learned and established and achieved amounts
to nothing if there’s not some type of good
coming from it. That takes a while to get to.
“You can’t own enough to make yourself
feel good. You can’t make enough to make
yourself feel good. You can’t know enough to
make yourself feel good. You’ve just got to
do the best at what you do and try to return
the favor by being positive.” East
23
One spring night 40 years ago, about 150 students
came knocking on President Leo Jenkins’ front door
asking tough questions about campus desegregation.
They wanted to know why Dixie persisted at football
games, why there were no black faculty members, and
why the only other blacks on campus were janitors
and housekeepers. The moment was tense but lines of
communications were opened, and although the students
continued pressing for answers that spring, the path to
campus equality continued peacefully.
Invisible no more
The iconic photograph captures a
moment when minds and history
were changed: On the evening of
March 26, 1969, a group of angry students
surround President Leo Jenkins on the front
porch of Dail House, their arms crossed,
their faces intent.
It was not a social call. Frustrated by
lingering prejudice on campus, the students
rose from a meeting and strode across Fifth
Street to ask why, nearly seven years after the
first black student enrolled at East Carolina,
they still endured the playing of Dixie at
football games. Why the Confederate battle
flag appeared at sponsored events. Why there
still were no black professors.
The visitors felt campus desegregation had
stalled, and they wanted Jenkins to take action.
Because of Jenkins’ natural empathy for
their cause, and the students’ own maturity,
the face-off ended peacefully that night.
The students went home with a promise the
university would continue addressing their
concerns, and Jenkins kept his word.
That night marked an especially rocky
stretch on East Carolina’s road to
desegregation, which began in 1962 and
perhaps culminated when the first group of
African American faculty arrived in 1974.
They were critical years for the university,
marking its departure from provincialism
into the ways and values of a modern,
multicultural university. Behind the
transformation were leaders like Jenkins and
the late Dr. Andrew A. Best, Greenville’s first
African American physician. Together, they
crafted a thoughtful path to desegregation—
avoiding the courts, the National Guard and
federal intervention.
In the weeks after the front porch summit,
Jenkins held several high-profile meetings
with students. By the next year, no one
heard Dixie at games and the battle flag was
unwelcome. Though it would be years before
African American faculty were hired in
significant numbers, the university was on its
way toward full desegregation.
b y m a r i o n b l a c k b u r n
University Archives
24
First steps
In 1962, a single African American student
arrived on campus, Laura Marie Leary Elliot
’66. Two years later, a hopeful class of 16
other black students arrived with a sense that
they weren’t just going to learn history, they
were going to write it.
“We stepped out on faith,” says Ray Rogers
’72 of Greenville. “If you live in a dorm
with only four blacks and you walk across
campus and you’re always in class by yourself,
it takes a lot of inward peace and feeling
good about yourself. Everywhere you went,
there was a culture of 16 versus 10,000.”
He later met and married another dynamic
African American student, Eve (Everlena)
Clark ’69, who arrived on campus in 1967.
Rogers, a financial administrator, today
works as a consultant, and his wife, a retired
juvenile justice administrator, has been
recognized with the Order of the Long Leaf
Pine award.
“We had a sense that there was a movement
afoot concerning civil rights,” Eve Rogers says.
Though without a lot of money, she says,
her parents were keenly aware of the value of
a good education for their daughter. She felt
inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King to take
part of the change happening around her.
“We felt that however small, we were part of
it,” she says.
Meanwhile, out of the public eye, Jenkins and
Dr. Best worked to accelerate desegregation.
They knew strong forces beyond the
university opposed them. They also knew
what happened further south, where armed
intervention ushered desegregation onto
campuses in Mississippi and Georgia in the
early 1960s.
The two men held deep personal commit­ments
to racial equality. Dr. Best befriended
the trailblazing African American students, and
tirelessly advocated for them. Jenkins instructed
staff and faculty to welcome and support black
students, seeing to it they received financial aid.
That assistance was critical, because though
they were high achievers, they likely could not
have afforded college.
For campus pioneers like Ray Rogers, an
ordinary walk across campus took enormous
inner strength. It was common to hear racial
slurs whispered and sometimes shouted at
him. He recalls a rally by the Ku Klux Klan
at the site of today’s Minges Coliseum,
and says his classmates were aware of their
unspoken boundaries. “Downtown was not a
place you were welcomed,” he says.
When Rogers returned to ECU from overseas
military service in 1970, he noticed quite
a few changes. He no longer heard Dixie at
sporting events; he didn’t feel so alone. By that
time, about 200 black students were enrolled.
Second wave
In 1969, however, the mood was grim. Dr.
Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy
were assassinated the year before and racial
tensions were high throughout the nation.
Black students numbered about 90 on a
campus they felt was still largely segregated.
Student William Lowe was quoted as saying
in 1969, “When you see your race being
cast in the role of invisible people, it gives
you a feeling of inferiority.” There was work
to be done.
To unify their calls for progress, the students
created SOULS, or Society of United
Liberal Students. They developed a list of
requests and in a dramatic move, presented
them to Jenkins on his front porch on March
26, 1969. While by the late 1960s most
universities had successfully desegregated,
memories of the beatings, high-pressure water
hoses and imprisonments could not have been
far from the students’ minds that night.
For them, Jenkins was a lightning rod. “If
we were to be a true part of the campus, we
needed to have our ideas heard,” says Luther
Moore ’72, who was among the 150 or so
students facing Jenkins that night. “One of
the first concerns was with playing Dixie at
football games…and displaying Confederate
flags at school sponsored events.
“Our job was to try to make the student
body understand how we felt, why we didn’t
like the playing of that song and what it
stood for. It brings thoughts of slavery and
Jim Crowism, those kinds of things that
occurred after slavery was abolished.”
Today, Moore works as a guidance counselor
at Clinton High School and, as the county’s
only African American male counselor, is
still something of a pathfinder. He vividly
remembers those heady days.
“We were a small group of African
Americans and bonded,” he says. “We
became a group I could socialize with, and
feel part of something. I am humble, but I
knew we were pioneers, because there were
very few of us. I felt like I had to be my best.
Academically, I didn’t set the world on fire,
but I was successful.”
The students weren’t alone that night on
the front porch of Dail House. Watching
from the shadows were campus police, state
troopers and an agent of the State Bureau of
Investigation, who took the historic image.
In the original photograph stored in the
University Archives, you can see numbers
written on several faces, an apparent attempt
by the SBI agent to identify those involved.
“We were aware of the fact that we were
involved in events where there were people
taking photographs,” says Roosevelt Morton
’84 of Raleigh, who works with the state
Department of Public Instruction. “We
didn’t know who the people were, but it
wouldn’t have been a stretch to imagine that
it was an official arm of the government.”
As a result of that meeting, Jenkins initiated
a series of roundtable discussions and
eventually held a special convocation.
Morton remembers those meetings. “He gave
us the opportunity to sit down and talk about
what was on our minds,” he says. “I think
that was an initial step. But we also weren’t
sure of the changes that would result, after
our meeting. We didn’t see immediate change.”
In his convocation, Jenkins asked students
for patience during those turbulent times.
“We will settle what we can here, but on
matters requiring a broader consensus,
we must be patient and we must take into
consideration that we do not get everything
Ray and Eve Rogers,
at home with
daughter Adeea
26
we want. I am aware that this
may be taken as a statement
for the maintenance of
the status quo in a time of
change. But you are well
aware that I do not have the
reputation of a defender of
the status quo.”
First black Greeks
In 1969, Ken Hammond ’73
’83 ’85 was among the change
leaders who helped establish
ECU’s first black fraternity,
Alpha Phi Alpha. These days
Hammond pastors Union
Baptist Church in Durham,
a congregation of more than
5,100 members.
He remembers how Dr. Best
successfully negotiated a
change in the rule barring
students who received
financial aid from joining a
social organization, which
effectively banned black
fraternities and sororities.
“That rule was suggested as
a means of keeping blacks
from joining white sororities
and fraternities,” Hammond
recalls. “Dr. Best had to
negotiate with Dr. Jenkins
to have it changed.” It’s no
surprise that Dr. Best, himself
a member of APA, paid the
charter’s start-up fees. The
university’s first black sorority,
Alpha Kappa Alpha, was
founded in 1973.
Hammond became senior
class president and later
worked at the university for
many years before leaving
his post in 1991 as associate
director of student activities
to assume leadership of the
Durham church. During 2008
Homecoming festivities, he
was named an Outstanding
Alumni, one of the
university’s highest honors.
“From day one I was involved
in campus life, and those are
memories that I cherish,” he
says. “ECU will always be a
very special place. It provided
an atmosphere to excel.”
A legacy for tomorrow
In 1974, the university hired
several African American
faculty, including Ledonia
Wright, a community health
professor originally from
Rockingham County with a
distinguished career in New
York and Boston. She briefly
served as adviser to SOULS
before her death in 1976.
In 2006, the university
awarded the Jarvis Medal,
its highest service award,
posthumously to Dr. Best,
who died in 2004.
Ray and Eve Rogers today
are proud of their daughter,
Adeea Rogers ’05, for many
reasons, but high on the list is
a passion for leadership. You
could say it runs in the family.
Adeea Rogers works at the
university union as an event
planner, but she’s carrying on
her parents’ legacy as staff
adviser to the Black Student
Union—the grandchild
organization of SOULS.
“I tell my students stories
about my parents, and remind
them they can learn from
others,” Adeea Rogers says.
“We have immense pride
in ECU and the strides it
has made. It’s important for
students to know that history.”
East
Giselle
E A S T C A R O L I N A U N I V E R S I T Y ®
Thursday, April 2 www.ecu.edu/srapas TEH RUSSIAN AN TAILNO BAEL T
In Volatile Economic
Times, Invest In
What You Believe In
As you evaluate your top priorities, know that your investment
in East Carolina University through one of our foundations
(East Carolina University Foundation Inc., the East Carolina
University Medical & Health Sciences Foundation Inc., and
the East Carolina Educational Foundation Inc. [Pirate Club])
will ensure meaningful future opportunities for students.
A revocable gift such as a bequest provision in your will,
a beneficiary designation from your qualified retirement
plan such as an IRA or 401(k), or an owner/beneficiary
designation from an insurance policy serves as a meaningful
gift that does not distribute assets from your estate during
your lifetime. These options are an excellent way to leave
a future gift (either dollar total or percentage) to ECU.
Your planned gift enables you to designate your future
contribution to any area for the purpose of your choice.
Your support will help us attain our Second Century
Campaign goal while you earn membership benefits in the
Leo W. Jenkins Society.
Please call Greg Abeyounis, Assistant Vice Chancellor for
Development, at 252-328-9573 or e-mail at abeyounisg@
ecu.edu for more information or to schedule an appointment
to discuss these or other planned giving options.
www.ecu.edu/devt
planed giving a t east ca r o l i na university® I n te g r at i o n T i me l i n e
1962 Laura Marie Leary Elliot ’66 of Vanceboro
becomes East Carolina’s first black student.
1964 Sixteen African American students are
enrolled, including Ray Rogers ’72.
1966 About 50 black students are enrolled. Paul
D. Scott is the first black student to receive
a football scholarship. Vincent Colbert and Marvin Simpson
become the first black players on the basketball team. Elliott
becomes the first black graduate.
1967 Dennis Chestnut is selected for the SGA
Judiciary Board, the first black in a student
leadership role.
1967 Bennie Teel, managing editor of The East
Carolinian, is the first black from East Carolina
in Who’s Who. Lillian T. Jones and Nellie Ross graduate.
1968-69 About 90 black students form
the Society of United Liberal
Students, or SO ULS. They come up with a list of demands
at a March 3 meeting and present them to President Leo
Jenkins. At SO ULS ’ next meeting on March 26, 1969, the
students decide to march to Dail House to press Jenkins for
faster action. In coming weeks Jenkins meets with SO ULS
several times, then calls the entire student body and faculty
together for a convocation in Ficklen Stadium. He urges
patience and predicts progress will be slow, but he makes
it clear that overt prejudice will no longer be tolerated.
Referring to two professors accused of discrimination by
SO ULS , Jenkins says “one of these is no longer with us, and
the other is leaving at the end of this year.”
1970 Black enrollment grows to about 200.
1971 The Admissions Office turns to the SGA
Office of Minority Affairs for help writing a
recruitment brochure aimed at black high school students.
Although brutally frank about the state of race relations
on campus—it admits there have been “open displays of
prejudice by some whites to some blacks” and that some
white professors discriminate against black students—the
brochure is highly effective and widely praised. Ken
Hammond ’73 ’83 ’85 and other black students establish
the Eta Nu chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha, ECU’s first black
fraternity. Alpha Kappa Alpha, the first black sorority, is
formed.
1973 Hammond is the first African American
elected senior class president.
1974 The first black faculty members arrive
on campus, including Ledonia Wright, a
community health professor originally from Rockingham
County who has had a distinguished career in New York and
Boston. She becomes adviser to SO ULS.
1975 The old “Y” Hut is converted into the Afro-
American Cultural Center. A year later, it is
renamed the Ledonia Wright Cultural Center upon Wright’s
sudden death.
1976 The separate black and white homecoming
queen contests are merged, and Jeri Barnes
becomes the school’s first black Homecoming Queen at ECU.
1981 Natalear Collins and Brenda Klutz became the
first African American graduates of the Brody
School of Medicine.
from the classroom
28 29
Brian Love says most of the problems his
students confront involve mixing materials,
identifying variables and predicting what
will happen in the ensuing chemical reaction.
“We don’t have to study that sugar makes
tea sweet,” he explains. Students just need to
know that A+B=C. “We learn by doing and
remembering.” However he explains it, Love
says he knows he’s reached students when
their facial expressions change from “What?”
to “Now I get it!” Then he knows “they can
solve a problem they couldn’t before.”
Even some colleagues don’t fully understand
Love’s specialty: organic synthesis and
synthetic methodology. To those who say
“all you’re doing is cooking” in his field of
study, Love responds with the ever-present
twinkle in his eye: “So? How do you eat?
Someone has to make the molecules, so it’s
not an insult to be accused of cooking.”
As for culinary preferences, he loves desserts.
That’s why there’s a Periodic Table of
Desserts poster in his office peeking through
hanging storage for his molecular models. It’s
stylish efficiency: suspend the models from
the ceiling and they don’t get tangled in a
box. He says, “It’s quirky. It’s chemical.
I just pluck them down when I need them
for class.”
Love has taught at East Carolina since 1994.
He received his undergraduate degree from
Texas Christian University in 1980. He
received his doctorate from Princeton in
1986, completed his postdoctoral fellowship
at UCLA the following year, and taught
at Auburn University before settling in
Greenville.
He chose teaching as a career almost as
an afterthought. “There was no big aha
moment,” he says. In college he had many
good teachers and some bad ones. He
observed his professors’ lifestyles and
thought, “I could do this.” Besides, teaching
sounded better than company lab work, plus
he likes “explaining stuff to people, not
having to wear a suit to work, and picking
my own projects.”
Andrew Morehead, director of graduate
studies, says Love is “a wonderful colleague
and mentor to the young faculty. He
tirelessly serves the department and students,
but what I enjoy most about him is his
sneaky sense of humor. As his many lucky
students can attest, Brian’s dry wit and puns
can enliven the driest of subjects—and
fortunately for his colleagues, meetings.”
Students don’t forget his influence. Love’s
first thesis advisee, James Wynne ’94 ’96, now
is senior research chemist at the U.S. Naval
Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.,
and a professor at George Mason University.
As a professor Wynne says he tries to pass
on Love’s “immense passion for organic
chemistry and immeasurable patience with
new researchers.” He recalls a time when Love
captured the imagination of the class by
letting students create esters, or fragrances,
and try to identify the starting ingredients.
He says, “I still practice Dr. Love’s perfected
technique of glassware cleaning—no bubbles
allowed in the base bath!”
Good Chemistry
It isn’t easy explaining organic chemistry in terms students understand. But that’s a
piece of cake for Brian Love, a fun-loving professor with an unique sense of humor. “If we
were making cars instead of molecules,” he says, “we’d be building the drill presses and lathes to
make the parts.” It’s not surprising that Love uses cars in his analogy because his hobby is
maintaining his classic ’74 Camaro that’s often parked near the Sci-Tech building.
By Leanne E. Smith
from the classroom
30
Love teaches both undergraduate
and graduate classes. He says
the latter are fun for him
because they are more like his
lab work, and he can integrate
current research. He has greater
expectations for independence
and gives take-home problem sets
to be completed on the honor
system, for which his analogy is:
if two paratroopers jump out
of a plane, one who studied and
one who cheated, the one who
studied is more likely to land
safely. At the graduate stage, he
assumes, “There’s a drive to learn
instead of just get by.”
One of his most vivid teaching
memories challenged his
preconceptions but showed he
was doing something right. A
student, unhappy with an exam
grade, complained that the
test wasn’t fair because some
questions weren’t straight out
of the book. He asked the
student, “Do you think it’s
unfair to expect students to think
on exams?” Love says he was
blown away when the student
responded, “Yes.” He laughs
about it now, calls it a “slap-my-forehead
moment,” but his tests
still have at least one question
requiring students to explain
something.
“I try, anytime we’re talking about
something we’ve done, to show
connections,” he says. Sometimes
students ask, “Do we need to
remember that?” To which he
responds: “Yes, we’re now using
what seemed useless.”
One of his biggest surprises
about teaching is the fact that
professors must keep updating
their lectures and teaching
strategies. But he’s philosophical
about that and likens it to the
near constant work he must do
to keep his Camaro running. It’s
the first car he ever drove; he says
he keeps it around because “it
seems silly to sell it now.”
Keeping things running also
is what he enjoys about being
director of Organic Labs, a
position he’s held for eight years.
In that capacity he’s responsible
for revising the lab course pack,
scheduling classrooms, restocking
supplies and many routine tasks
such as repairing drawer locks.
“His ability to organize labs has
helped our students have the best
learning experience possible in the
lab classes,” says Morehead, the
graduate studies director. “The
job needs someone who can keep
it together, so I’ll do it till it’s
set so the next person won’t have
trouble,” says Love, who admits
he’s an “organization freak.”
In research, too, he looks forward
to a sense of accomplishment.
He’s won numerous grants and
published a dozen articles but
says it’s a “way bigger thrill
[when] something we did
is getting used. When Love
read in a journal article that
someone was finally able to
solve a problem using one of his
methods, he thought, “Woohoo!
Circle that!” Most of those
revelations happen accidentally
from working on projects where
he found published research
methods impractical. bent,” he
says. “Like my students, I want
something to be easy.”
But his sense of humor shines
through in the serious subject of
research. “How can there be this
many chemists, and we haven’t
done everything already?”
B o o k s b y E C U F a c u l ty
If you think politics was hot and
voters were demanding change in last
fall’s presidential election,
you should have been
around in 1888, when
an issues-dominated
campaign
produced an
80 percent
voter turnout.
That heated
race between
Democratic
incumbent
Grover Cleveland
and the GO P’s
Benjamin Harrison
foreshadowed both
the modern political
campaign and the
modern presidency,
or so ECU history
professor Charles W.
Calhoun argues in his new
book, Minority Victory.
Americans had money in the Gilded
Age and spent a lot of it on imported
goods. Tariffs on those goods piled
up as surpluses in the federal budget.
Most Democrats, Cleveland among
them, took the small-world view of
government and supported slashing
duties on imports, thereby cutting
prices for consumers. Harrison stood
on his front porch daily to rail against
“Cleveland’s pinched sense of what
the government could and should do.”
Cleveland won the popular vote but
Harrison took the Electoral College,
becoming one of only four presidents
(Bush is another) to lose the popular
vote but win the White House.
Harrison told Americans “Yes we can,”
an outlook that kept his party in
power for a generation.
—Steve Tuttle
Minority Victory
By Charles W. Calhoun
University Press of Kansas,
243 pages, $29.95
The Voice of the
Pirate Nation
arrrrgh
listen free online
www.pirateradio1250.com
32 33
Equity,
Finally
Women’s sports become ‘fully funded,’
meaning their teams offer the maximum
number of scholarships allowed.
By Bethany Bradsher
Tracey Kee and Charina Sumner wore the
same uniform and played the same sport. But
20 years have passed since Kee represented
the Pirates on the softball diamond where
Sumner stars today. And there’s a world of
difference in how the two women athletes
were treated.
Kee, who is Sumner’s coach, came to
East Carolina from Virginia on a partial
scholarship and many of her teammates
received only textbook money. Sumner was
recruited all the way from Hawaii and was
offered a full scholarship.
When Kee was a player, the women’s softball
team stayed in budget hotels, sometimes five
to a room, and ate on $12 a day. For their
away games this season, the Lady Pirates
will stay in Marriotts and Hiltons, two to
a room, and receive $30 a day for meals.
Kee remembers walking along the railroad
tracks in downtown Greenville to get to
their weightlifting facility in a warehouse
on 14th Street. Today’s teams lift in the
Murphy Center, considered one of the finest
collegiate fitness centers in the country.
“I share lots and lots of stories from back
in the day when I played,” says Kee, who is
starting her 12th season as the women’s softball
coach. “I want them to appreciate what they
have, and appreciate those that helped build
our program by playing with less.”
Jay Clark
35
It’s a new day for the female athlete at East
Carolina in terms of scholarships, amenities,
facilities and victories. “It’s hard to compare
where we were,” says Tom Morris, the
women’s tennis coach and a 10-year veteran
of the athletics staff. “Women’s sports are
really on the rise here. And I think that’s
going to continue to improve.”
It’s been an uphill climb and no one can see
the summit yet. That may come when new
playing facilities for sports like softball,
tennis and volleyball, now on the drawing
board, actually become reality. Still, in the
gauge that means the most to the coaches—
scholarship numbers—East Carolina is
finally right where it should be.
In coach talk, the magic word is “fully
funded,” which means that a sport is able to
offer the maximum number of scholarships
allotted to it by the NCAA. In 2001, at
the urging of the NCAA, East Carolina
drafted a gender equity plan and appointed
a task force to make sure it was followed.
That year basketball and golf were the only
fully funded women’s teams. At the time,
the women had a total of 63.5 scholarships
overall out of a maximum allowed 99.
“We just made sure we stayed on track
and improved on the schedule as more
funding became available,” athletic director
Terry Holland says of the gender equity
plan. “Having the maximum number of
scholarships allowed by the NCAA is
normally viewed as essential to having an
equal opportunity to be competitive.”
Today all sports teams are fully funded,
which allows coaches to recruit superior
players, compete with tougher opponents
and amass more wins. “I don’t think it’s any
mistake that we’re very close to being fully
funded now, and you start to see some success
in women’s programs with that,” says women’s
soccer coach Rob Donnenwirth, who will use
all 14 scholarships—the maximum—for the
first time this fall. “That’s a big piece of the
puzzle that is now there for us.”
In the past, most women’s teams were led by
the coach who also headed up the men’s team.
Now, the swim team and track and field are
the only teams that still have just one coach
and one training program for both teams.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that as the
number of scholarships available to women
athletes rose, and coaching improved,
there has been a corresponding increase in
victories and other successes. Over the past
three years:
n Both the basketball and softball teams
earned bids to the NCAA tournament.
The basketball team stunned Conference
USA by winning the tournament and
making the field of 64 in 2007, and the
softball team earned its first-ever NCAA
at-large bid last spring after reaching the
semifinals of the C-USA tournament.
n The soccer team made a national name for
itself last fall, becoming the first women’s
team to clinch a C-USA regular season
title after going 12 games without a loss
in the heart of conference competition.
They made it to the championship game
of the C-USA tournament, where they fell
to Memphis and narrowly missed an at-large
bid for the NCAA field.
n The golf team has finished second in the
conference for the past two seasons. Junior
Abby Bools—the reigning C-USA Golfer
of the Year—finished in the top four in all
but one of the fall tournaments the team
played this season. And the competition
for the golf team keeps getting steeper—
their first tournament of the spring season
is hosted by Ohio State and features 15 of
the nation’s top Division I teams, including
Florida, Notre Dame, Stanford and the
University of Southern California.
n The women’s swimmers finished the 2007–
08 season 7-1 in dual meets. The tennis
team has compiled four consecutive winning
seasons, including a 17-6 mark in 2008.
More success, more pressure
When the administration throws its support
behind women’s sports with full funding, the
coaches feel the need to set higher goals, Kee
says. “When someone is putting that much
money and care into your student athletes,
then with that comes a lot of responsibility
and a lot of pressure. You want to win.”
And more victories by the women’s teams
is translating into greater fan support of
the rabid kind usually reserved for the
“big three” of football, baseball and men’s
basketball. “When we’re getting closer to
these postseason invites and that kind of
thing,” Kee says, “I think that’s when the
regular fan notices us.”
When the women’s soccer team started
to climb the C-USA ladder last fall, the
message boards on several Pirate fan sites
were heavy with positive comments from fans
who normally only follow football. Bodies
in the bleachers are also a tangible gauge.
“Every year that I’ve been here attendance
has been up,” said basketball coach Sharon
Baldwin-Tener. “The year before I got here
we averaged 191 [fans per game in Minges],
and this season it was 2,500. I think people
are realizing that it’s a pretty good game.”
The softball team benefits from close
proximity to the baseball stadium. At times
during the season, men’s baseball fans will
stick around after that game ends to watch
the women play. Kee remembers one of the
first times that happened, in 2006, when the
Lady Pirates were in extra innings against
UNC Chapel Hill. “I bet they were 25
people deep along our sideline, just heckling
[the Tar Heels]. You see a little bit more
rowdy crowds, and I think that’s a good
thing. People are getting a little bit more
passionate about it.”
Junior tennis player Brooke Walter says she��s
seen public awareness and fan support—as
well as the team’s expectations of itself—rise
every year. “Last year we were nationally
ranked for the first time in years, so that got
some people’s attention.”
Smart players, smart students
Female athletes at ECU historically have
excelled in the classroom, and that tradition
is continuing even as the teams win more
games. The volleyball, golf, soccer and
softball teams all were honored by their
coaching associations in the past year for
their high cumulative team GPAs. In April
the tennis team was the only sports program
at ECU to receive a special NCAA honor for
compiling a team GPA in the top 10 percent
nationally. The softball team was recognized
by C-USA in July for having the highest
GPA of its sport among conference members
The men’s basketball, men’s golf and men’s
tennis programs also were at the top of their
sports academically.
While most women’s teams have achieved
parity with the men in scholarships, coaching
and equipment, they still largely lag behind
in one major area—facilities. But that
is changing with a plan adopted by the
university that will see major enhancements
to women’s sports facilities over the next two
or three years: East Carolina has committed
to a new women’s softball stadium; a new
track and field facility; and a new auxiliary
gym at Minges Coliseum that will house
practice courts for the men’s and women’s
basketball teams and the volleyball team.
Also on the list are 12 new tennis courts,
a women’s soccer field and practice facility,
a women’s sports field house and a sports
medicine facility. Funding for the new
facilities is coming out of the student
activity fee.
When Rick Kobe started coaching the swim
team in 1982, he had exactly one-half of a
scholarship for a female swimmer. Today he
is fully funded at 14, but his swimmers—
both male and female—are still using the
natatorium that was built in 1968. Kobe can
promote an array of benefits to recruits who
are considering ECU—decades of winning
records, the team’s camaraderie, dedicated
coaches—but he still occasionally loses
swimmers to schools with superior facilities.
Baldwin-Tener is competing in recruiting
against schools that have three different
dedicated gyms—one each for men’s
basketball, women’s basketball and volleyball.
ECU has one gym for all three sports, a
facility that’s used by physical education
classes in the mornings. The volleyball
coaching staff can schedule up to 20 hours
of practice a week according to the NCAA,
but the team never comes close to that
number because they have to share the gym
with so many others.
“We need a practice facility, and I think
everyone knows that,” Baldwin-Tener said.
“It’s a huge factor right now in recruiting.”
No one denies that women’s sports have
come a long way since 1932, when President
Robert H. Wright refused a request for an
organized girls’ basketball on the grounds
that such “boisterous activity” would be
unladylike for the young women who
attended ECTC.
Funding is up, success in many seasons
is surpassing that in the men’s arenas,
and talented recruits are choosing to be
Pirates by the dozen. Once the physical
accommodations catch up to the talent and
motivation among the Lady Pirates, ECU’s
evolution to a friendly place for female
athletes will be complete. East
Rob Goldberg
37
2008
Maggie O’Neil is the new executive director at
Wake Forest Downtown Revitalization Corp. From
Raleigh, she previously was deputy town clerk in
Garner; town clerk and finance director in Bethel; and
a management intern in Ayden, which was named a
Small Town Main Street Town during her time there.
2007
Amanda Faye Hal of Fayetteville and John
Delanion Fisher II of Stedman were married May
24 in Fayetteville and live in Buies Creek. She teaches
business at West Johnston High School in Benson.
Leslie An Hart and Jason Scott Mozingo were
married July 12 at Yankee Hall Plantation in Pactolus
and live in Winterville. She works at Golden Living
Center of Greenville. Emery Derek Smith and
Sonya Nichole Edens of Grifton were married June 28
in Winterville. He works at West Greene Elementary
School in Snow Hill. Laci Le Stanley of
Fuquay-Varina and Justin Keith McDonald of
Winston-Salem were married Oct. 11 at the Cape Fear
River Deck in Wilmington and live in Morrisville. She
teaches at the Ballet School of Chapel Hill and Cary
Ballet Conservatory.
2006
APRIL PAUL BAER, originally of Benson, is the
project coordinator for university wellness at Frostburg
State University in Maryland. His latest project is
Creating Healthy Informed Lasting Lifestyles, where he
will manage modeling a biomedical and health initiative
that may be used at universities across the county.
Nick D. Kistler is the new corporate sponsorship
sales executive with ISP Sports’ University of Southern
Mississippi property in Hattiesburg. Kistler was assistant
general manager with a collegiate summer league baseball
club in Edenton. Clayton McCullough is
the youngest inductee for the J.H. Rose Walk of Fame
at J.H. Rose High School in Greenville. After playing
baseball and football at Rose and baseball at ECU,
he was drafted by the Cleveland Indians, made AAA
Buffalo, worked as a hitting coach and manager for
minor league baseball operations in the Gulf Coast
League for the Toronto Blue Jays, and now manages the
rookie league Lansing Lugnuts in Michigan. Joanne
Morace is a nurse practitioner at Eastern Psychiatric
& Behavioral Specialists. An RN for 15 years, she
worked with critical care patients at PCMH.
2005
Celeste Amstutz and David Leich ’06
were married July 26 at Airlie Gardens in Wilmington.
At ECU, she was in Alpha Xi Delta, he was in Kappa
Alpha, and both are in the MBA program.
A l u m n i S p otlig h t
CLASS NO TES
In a ceremony in the Old House Chamber in the State Capital
building, James R. Gorham ’81 of Kernersville (at podium)
was promoted to brigadier general in the N. C. Army National
Guard. State and Army officials congratulated Gorham on
becoming the first African American to attain that rank in
the state Guard. A vice president of First Citizens Bank,
Gorham enlisted in the Army after high school and used the
GI bill to earn a history degree from ECU. He’s been in the
Guard for 34 years. In 2004, his unit was deployed to Iraq for
15 months, where he was promoted to colonel. He told the
Winston-Salem Journal that his latest promotion is as much
about opportunity as race. He said it “gives soldiers the
knowledge that they can go from private to general.”
Roger W. Newsom ’86 made a lot
of birdies as a member of the ECU
golf team from 1982-85, and he’s
still sinking long putts, as evidenced
by his win at the 2008 SunTrust
State Open golf tournament. His
July victory was followed by golfer
of the year honors from the Virginia
State Golf Association.
Newsome, 44, is an ophthalmologist
who practices in the Hampton
Roads area. After ECU, Newsom
studied at the Eastern Virginia
Medical School, then did his
residency at the Wake Forest
University Eye Center, where he
won a fellowship to study plastic
and reconstructive surgery of the
eye at the University of Toronto. He is especially skilled in
cataract and implant treatment techniques and the treatment
of other ocular problems. Dr. Newsom also serves as a
diplomat on the National Board of Medical Examiners.
pirate nation
April is service month
The university’s motto, Servire, meaning To
Serve, is dear to the hearts of many East
Carolina alumni and friends. To capture that
spirit, the Alumni Association celebrates
service month every April. Hundreds of
alumni and friends will be volunteering
their time helping their
communities through
service projects, helping
others in need. The
leaders of many regional
Alumni Association
groups are planning
service projects in their
corners of the Pirate
Nation. We hope you will
volunteer wherever help
is needed. Have fun and be creative—there
are plenty of ways to serve the environment,
children, senior citizens, four-legged friends,
nonprofit organizations, local hospitals and
schools, and even those in your family.
The Alumni Association is glad to assist
you in promoting your planned service
projects by spreading the word to fellow
alumni in your area. Be sure to take plenty
of photos, and remember to wear purple
and gold to show your Pirate spirit!
We’ll put all service project photos on our
web site at PirateAlumni.com. Contact
Kendra Alexander at 800-ECU-GRAD
or Kendra.Alexander@PirateAlumni.com.
Pirate Career Calls
The Alumni Association has teamed up
with the Career Center and ECU’s Human
Resources office to offer monthly training
sessions via teleconference. Pirate Career
Calls offer career advice, tips and tools to
help you get ahead in your
profession. Offered the first
Thursday of each month from
noon to 1:00 p.m., Career
Calls are free to alumni and
friends. Topics that will be
covered this spring include:
Salary Negotiations (March
5), Career Changers (April
2) and Taking Advantage of
Development Opportunities
in Your Workplace (May 7). Visit
PirateAlumni.com/careercalls to register.
Call for nominations
Vacancies will soon occur on the Alumni
Association board, and Chair Sabrina Bengel
is asking for nominations to fill the seats.
Nominees must be dues-paying members
of the association but do not have to be
graduates. Members of the board serve three-year
terms and can be reappointed for an
additional term, including a term as an officer.
A slate of candidates will be presented to the
board in April. New directors will assume
office July 1. Nominate someone today at
PirateAlumni.com/boardnomination.
Come out to run for fun
Lace up your running shoes for a good
cause—student scholarships. The Alumni
Association will host its second annual
Pirate Alumni 5K Road Race and 1 Mile
Fun Run on Saturday, April 18, as part of
PirateFest. All proceeds will benefit Alumni
Association scholarships that are awarded to
undergraduates who excel in the classroom,
on campus and in the community. Our 5K
race travels down historic 5th Street and
is a USATF certified course. Awards are
presented to the first three male finishers
overall, the first three female finishers overall,
and the top three male and female finishers
in each of six age categories. Registration
is $15 and includes a race packet and
complimentary T-shirt. Visit PirateAlumni.
com/roadrace or call the Alumni Center at
800-ECU-GRAD to register.
Buy a Painted Pirate
Last spring 16 “Painted Pirate” statues were
unveiled during Greenville’s 2nd annual
PirateFest. After spending a year on display
at each sponsor’s business, 15 statues will
be auctioned off during PirateFest 2009.
Proceeds will benefit the Historic Fleming
House Renovation Fund and the Alumni
Association Scholarship Fund. The ECU
Office of Centennial Events, the Greenville-
Pitt Chamber of Commerce, and the Alumni
Association sponsor this public arts project.
Sa ve the Date !
April 4—Alumni Association
Scholarship Luncheon
April 16–19—26th Annual
Pirate Purple/Gold Pigskin
Pig-Out Party
April 18—Pirate Alumni Road
Race and Fun Run
April 18—PirateFest 2009
The Alumni Association recognized its 2008 Alumni Award recipients during halftime of the Homecoming football game. Standing left
to right are Chancellor Steve Ballard, Distinguished Service Award recipient Steve Showfety ’70, Alumni Association Board Chair Sabrina
Bengel, Honorary Alumni Award recipients Charles Rogers, Mrs. JoAnn Eakin and Dr. Richard Eakin, Outstanding Alumni Award recipients
Capt. (Ret.) David Fitzgerald ’66, Rev. Ken Hammond ’73, ’83, ’85, Dr. Jerry McGee ’66, and Lt. Gen. Gary North ’76.
Brian E. Christiansen
Amy Brit Askew and Stephen Douglas
Craft III were married Sept. 20 in Kinston and live
in Greenville. She is office manager of Hometown
Pharmacy of Greenville. Nichole Dun ’05
’08 is a student counselor at Edgecombe Community
College. She was a rehabilitation counselor at
Vocational Rehabilitation in Rocky Mount. Jef
Gadis is a maintenance sales consultant at the
Greenville office of Piedmont Air Conditioning.
He previously worked with a property management
company. Erin Marie Sowell and David
Charles Davis of Greenville were married Nov. 1 in
Wilmington. She is an advertising executive with
Inner Banks Media.
2004
Jason Matthew Eldridge and Kendra
Nicole Clement ’06 were married Oct. 18 at the
Village Inn Golf and Conference Center in Clemmons,
and they live in Mount Airy. He is a graphic artist
with Encore Group in Winston-Salem, and she is a
court counselor with the N.C. Department of Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention in Stokes County.
Michael Holt is a vice president and commercial
banker in the Greenville office of The Little Bank. He
worked for First Citizens Bank and Albemarle Bank &
Trust. Marian Ione Lowe ’04 ’06 of Raleigh
and Darryl Ros Kenedy ’05 of Goldsboro
were married Oct. 25 in Winston-Salem. A 2001
debutante and member of Phi Kappa Phi and Kappa
Omicron Nu honor societies, she is an early intervention
service coordinator for the N.C. Department of Health
and Human Services in Smithfield. He is a project
manager for Hine Sitework in Goldsboro, where they
live. Kristie Michele Peterson of
Pfafftown and Jonathan Bruce Comer of
Yadkinville were married Dec. 6 in Winston-Salem
and live in King. In Winston-Salem, she is an R.N. at
Forsyth Medical Center, and he is a quality engineer for
BE Aerospace. Wiliam Le Percise II of Snow
Hill is an attorney with White & Allen, a regional firm
based in Kinston. He received his law license on Sept. 8.
Erica Lyn Stocks and Christopher Brian Evans
were married Aug. 2 at Yankee Hall Plantation and live
in Greenville. She is self-employed.
2003
Christina Lyn Crawford ’03 ’08 and
Frederick Casey Edwards of Ayden were married
Oct. 4. She works for Pitt County Schools. Dena
Marshal and Jeremy Konkel of Apex had a son,
Nolan Adam, on May 2. She is assistant director of
public affairs at the N.C. Medical Board. Leigh Ann
Potter and Kely Christopher Hodges
’04 of Wilmington were married Oct. 11 in Greenville.
She works at Cape Fear Academy, and he is a project
superintendent with Harold K. Jordan Construction.
Benjamin Taylor Wiliams and Jeanne
Nicole Horne Wiliams ’04 of Pinehurst had
a daughter, Kenley Nicole, on Sept. 6.
class notes
2002
Dr. John Howard Brooks, a cardiologist at
Scotland Memorial Hospital and a Pembroke native,
opened Lumber River Cardiology in Laurinburg.
At BSOM, where he completed a three-year
cardiovascular-disease fellowship, he received the
PCMH Presidential Service Award. Steve Setser
of Belhaven was promoted to vice president and
auditor for The East Carolina Bank. He was a staff
auditor for four years, completed his third year at the
N.C. Bankers Association School of Banking, and is in
ECU’s MBA program.
2001
Patrick F. Abrams of Mount Olive was
promoted to banking officer in the Warsaw office
of Southern Bank. He previously was a repairman
at Buddy’s Jewelry in Mount Olive. Jenifer
Diane Angevine and James William Gentry of
Winterville were married July 19 in Wilmington. She
works at the N.C. Biotechnology Center in Greenville
and is in Pitt Community College’s nursing program.
Melisa Dawn Barrington and Matthew
Douglas McClelland of Raleigh were married Aug. 23
in the Preston Woodall House gardens in Benson. She
is a realtor for Keller-Williams in Raleigh. Melisa
Dawn Casper ’01 ’04 and Christopher Aaron
Reaves were married Sept. 17. She is a financial analyst
for Time Warner Cable in Wilmington. Laurin
Leonard Deaton and Zachary Noris
Deaton ’04 ’07 had a son, Luke Zachary, on Nov.
6. Tod Alston Hales ’01 ’05 and Emily
Kelly Fleming of Greenville were married Aug. 9 and
live in Durham. He is a project analyst with PRA
International. April Nicole Hering ’01 ’02
and John Patrick Garver ’03 of Goldsboro
were married Nov. 8. She is marketing director at
Southco Distributing Co. in Goldsboro. He is a
sales representative with Eastern Turf Equipment in
Fayetteville. Bryan Holey ’01 ’07 of Wilson, a
fourth-grade teacher at Corinth-Holders Elementary
School in Zebulon, received the Milken Family
Foundation National Educator award, which includes
$25,000 and a free trip to the Milken National
Education Conference in Los Angeles. The award goes
to no more than 80 teachers each year, and since the
program’s start in 1985, 43 N.C. teachers have received
the award. Joseph Hoover was promoted to
assistant vice president with BB&T in Raleigh. From
Greensboro, he joined the bank in 2005 and is an
investment counselor. Donna Weler Stalls
was promoted to vice president at BB&T. Since 2001,
she was process and quality manager in BB&T’s branch
operations department in Wilson. Chad Tracy ,
the Arizona Diamondbacks’ third baseman, visited
Clark-LeClair Stadium for the first time during
Homecoming 2008 and talked with the ECU baseball
players. He is married to Katie Martin Tracy
’03. Ashley Wright of Newport News, Va.,
and Morgan Ryan Terry of Dallas, Tex., were married
in Williamsburg, Va., on Nov. 1 and live in Charlotte.
She is a transportation planner with PBS&J, a national
planning and engineering consulting firm.
2000
Donna Des Aldredge, a Chi Omega sister,
had a son, William Beecher Aldredge, on Jan. 23, 2008.
Richardson Cowles Tally of Oakland,
Calif., and Elise Marie Kopesky of Camden, Maine,
were married July 27 outdoors at Garre Vineyard in
Livermore, Calif., and live in Oakland. He is patron
services manager for the Berkeley Symphony.
1999
Tamika “Mek” Jackson and Onjeinika
“Polly” Brooks, sisters originally from Wilmington,
founded Polly & Meek Partnership, a book writing
company. Their first book, Sisters Are from Heaven,
includes Meek’s photos and Polly’s lessons for children.
A l u m n i S p otlig h t
After a 33-year career, W. Kendall Chalk ’68 MBA ’71
retired from BB&T in September and the bank honored
his 33 years of service, most recently as CFO, by
donating $250,000 to East Carolina to endow two
scholarships in the Access Scholarship program. The
contribution creates the first two endowed Access
Scholarships, which are given to students with the best
academic potential and the least financial resources.
The grant is the latest in a long list of gifts to East
Carolina from BB&T. Three of the five executives who
helped transform a regional farm lender in Wilson into
the nation’s 14th largest bank are graduates of ECU’s
business school and the MBA program.
Of the three, only President and CEO Kelly King ’70
‘71 still goes to the office every day. Henry Williamson
’69 ‘72, Chalk’s predecessor as CFO, retired earlier.
All three are active supporters of the university. Ken
Chalk is a former chair of the ECU Foundation board
and currently is co-chair, with King, of the board of the
BB&T Center for Leadership Development within the
College of Business.
“I am very grateful to my associates at BB&T, the
executive management team, and the board of
directors for this recognition,” Chalk said about the
grant. “The Access Scholarship program is essential to
help students who could not otherwise afford higher
education to attend ECU and become successful
leaders in their communities.”
BB&T has contributed more than $1.6 million to date in
support of ECU’s efforts to become the best leadership
university in the state.
38
Chalk (center) with
Williamson (left) and King
40
Jackson works in biotechnology in Washington, D.C.,
and owns Portraits by Tamika, a company specializing
in affordable location and small wedding shoots.
1998
Debra An Bard and Gregory Thomas Fowler
Jr. of Raleigh were married Oct. 4 at Haywood Hall
in Raleigh. She is a pharmaceutical representative
with Merck & Co. Ian Andrew Cary and
Jenifer Joy Prevatt Cary ’99 of
Statesville had their first child, Callum Andrew, on
June 12. Joy Euban ks started the Marley Fund
in 2001 to memorialize her cat who died of feline
leukemia, and the Greenville-based program has
expanded to the Triangle with a foster program called
Marley’s Cat Tales for cats with feline AIDS. Ted
Lockamon is recreation services supervisor for
Henderson, Nev. There since 1998, he is married
to Elizabeth Brussock ’95. Edward
Wiliam Turcotte III and Meghann Rae
Stubbs were married July 12 on the promenade deck
of the Henrietta III in Wilmington. He is a sales
associate with Carolina Jewelry in Wilmington, where
they live. Rusel Vernon of Wentworth was
named Rockingham County Schools 2008–2009
Assistant Principal of the Year. He taught science, and
since receiving his master’s from Appalachian State
in 2006, has been assistant principal at Wentworth
Elementary School. CHRIS WALKER of Greensboro
launched Produce-A-Pic, a company that sells film
promo packs to help finance independent films in pre-production
stages. Walker also owns 5Rings Design, a
branded content development company, and Ve-Shan, a
documentary and feature film company.
1997
Matthew Cave was promoted to senior project
manager for the Target store construction team
with John S. Clark Co., where he has worked at the
corporate office in Mount Airy since 2003. He and
his wife, Emily Cave ’05, live in Dobson, manage
a family farm, and have three daughters. Jeny
Gay and Jason Everett of Huntersville were married
Sept. 13 in Clinton. She works with Stone Properties
of Huntersville. Amanda Ros Mazey and
her husband, Randy, had a daughter, Sierra Maranda
Mazey, on Aug. 24. A WITN news/sports anchor/
reporter for eight years, Mazey is now a freelance
broadcaster in Fort Worth, Texas, and also works for
The Mountain Network. Janie Sowers Taylor
is a licensed marriage and family therapist and an
approved clinical supervisor at CareNet Counseling
East in Greenville, and she is working on her doctorate
in medical family therapy.
1996
Debra DAVis Bailey ’96 ’00 became director
of student loans at ECU in July after eight years
as the financial administrator at Philippi Church
of Christ. Kathy Flick ’96 ’97 of Atlanta
founded It’s Her Team, a women’s line of sportswear.
Jenifer Hemink is the new owner of A
Proper Setting in Greenville’s Arlington Village after
teaching middle school for nine years. Dr. Scott
Alan Kendrick ’96 ’02 is a nephrologist at the
Greenville office of Eastern Nephrology Associates
after completing his residency in Maine and
fellowships in Alabama.
1995
Lisa Wright Cartwright and Clay
Cartwright ’96 expanded their 10-year-old
Halloween Express franchise to two locations in
Greenville for the fall 2008 season. Lisa also owns
Debu Cafe and Catering. Claire Culbreath
of Winston-Salem started a new career as a singer-songwriter.
A music therapy major, she went blind
from juvenile diabetes in 1998 at age 28, and
underwent years of rehabilitation that included
learning to play piano by ear with the help of Michael
“Zoo” Zeoli of the band Joe Next Door. She plays
jazz, sacred and popular songs in a band called
Shadowbox Two. Wiliam Hunter Lloyd Jr.
and Kathryn Elizabeth Lenox ’01 of
Greenville were married Nov. 22.
1994
Matt Holder returned to Greenville, reopened
his hair salon and expanded his Matt Holder
Hairstyling products to 14 shampoos, conditioners,
sprays, mists, foams and smoothers. A stylist for
20 years, he was a product formulation educator
for Joico in California, but left for lack of sweet tea
and barbecue. He plans to start an apprenticeship-style
education alternative to community college
beauty school programs. Brian Johnson and
Jamie Rothman of Raleigh and Jacksonville, Fla.,
were married Oct. 25 at Old St. Andrew’s Episcopal
Church in Jacksonville. They work for a local television
station. Charlie Le Meks Jr. of Newport
and Erin Ruth Bradley of Garner were married Oct.
18 at Jones Chapel at Meredith College in Raleigh
and live in Morehead City. He is a probation officer in
Jacksonville. Jean M. Sug ’94 ’06 of Grifton is a
legal administrator with White & Allen, a regional law
firm based in Kinston.
1993
Kim Hampton ’93 ’05 is the new student support
specialist at Edgecombe Community College. She was a
counselor and taught French and Spanish at Southwest
Edgecombe High School. Lisa Spiridopoulos
Herman and her husband, Josh, of La Quinta,
Calif., had their first child, Mackenzie Barbara, on June
17. Michael Polard ’93 ’06, assistant principal
at Greenville’s Hope Middle School, was named Pitt
County’s assistant principal of the year. In education
for 16 years, he was president of the N.C. Bandmasters
Association Eastern District and helps coordinate the
“Stang Power” mentoring program.
1992
CHRISTIAN KEIBER of Los Angeles guest
starred as Boston wise-guy Paul Reilly on TNT’s
Raising the Bar, as ex-mobster Paulie on ABC’s General
Hospital, and federal marshal Panicali on NBC’s ER in
September. Keny Strickland of Fayetteville
was appointed to the ECU Board of Visitors.
Kendrick Whitehurst was promoted to
senior vice president with BB&T in Greenville. From
Wilson, he joined the bank in 2001 and is a group
director in the private financial services department.
He is president of Literacy Volunteers of Pitt County
and treasurer of the United Way of Pitt County.
1991
David Crumpler of Greenville was promoted
to assistant vice president for East Carolina Bank
marketing, which works with all 24 ECB locations
and ECB Bancorp. He previously was a marketing and
public relations consultant in Wake County. MARK
A. MOORE of Raleigh co-produced a surf-rock
album, Encomium In Memoriam Vol. 1: Jan Berry of
Jan & Dean, with Cameron Michael Parkes of Box o’
Clox. The album includes more than 20 guest artists,
five of whom played or sang for original Jan & Dean
material in the 1960s. It was also featured in The News
& Observer.
1990
Susan Lanehart Rhodes of Fuquay-Varina
received her National Board Certification in school
counseling. She has 16 years of experience as a teacher
and counselor in Wake County Public Schools. She and
her husband, Michael Rhodes ’04, have three
sons. Doug Walker, a Miami, Fla.-based steel
drum artist, released a 17-track CD titled Caribbean
Christmas: Holiday Songs in a Steel Band Style.
1989
Mark Klaich is the new manager of the
ReStore at Habitat for Humanity of Pitt County.
He previously worked with design and installation
of commercial security systems. He is married to
Karen Klaich ’83. Nancy McNeil
Peterson ’89 ’93 and Jeff Peterson of Wilmington
had a son, Chase McNeill Peterson, on Aug. 5.
1987
Charles Pilkey of Mint Hill exhibited his
sculpture The Sound of Waves at the Mint Hill Arts
November show “Three in One.” After growing up
in Hillsborough, working for an oil company, sailing
the East Coast, bartending in Wrightsville Beach,
living in Japan for 15 years and teaching at Kyushu
Sangyo University in Fujuoka, he paints and sculpts
at his home studio. He teaches part time at Central
Piedmont Community College and Spartanburg
Community College; he has exhibited pieces in Japan,
China, Korea, Turkey and Italy.
1986
Karen J. Renz was a finalist for Cincy Magazine’s
ATHENA Award for women professionals and
community leaders in the Greater Cincinnati Area.
A partner in Graydon Head & Ritchey law firm, she
co-chairs the firm’s communications and information
industry and women’s professional development
groups. She is involved in the Cincinnati Area Senior
Services Board, Leadership Cincinnati Class XXVIII,
Executive Women’s Golf Association, and volunteers in
pet therapy at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical
Center and with VITAS. The West Chester Chamber
Alliance named her a Woman of Excellence. Olivia
Scott founded a promotional products company,
Promotional Partners, in 2007. Based in Cary, it
supports two high school intern programs, PTA school
improvement teams, and business alliance committees.
As an Apex Chamber ambassador, she is on an
education committee that develops opportunities for
youth and business leaders to interact.
1985
Kathee Brown Staton ’85 ’88 and Boyd
Ingram of Nashville, Tenn., are married and live in
Lebanon, Tenn. They were regulars on the Renfro
Valley Barndance show in Kentucky, where he was a
lead singer for The Casinos and she recently hosted the
annual Alumni Day performance.
1984
Tom Hales of Greenville received the Regional
Service Award from the N.C. Association of Realtors.
He was president of his local association in 1994,
director and chair of the Legislative Committee and
Professional Standards, and for 20 years has been a
member of the Greenville-Pitt Association of Realtors.
BETH A. WOOD of Raleigh, a Durham CPA,
was elected North Carolina state auditor. It was her
first run for office. When not crunching numbers,
she enjoys shag dancing, snow and water skiing, and
reading bestsellers.
class notes
A l u m n i S p otlig h t
Grover J. “Russ” Whitehurst ’66,
director of the Institute of Education
Sciences in the U.S. Department of
Education, won the prestigious Peter H.
Rossi Award for contributions to the
theory or practice of program
evaluation. The Association for Public
Policy and Management presents the
award annually. Whitehurst has led IES
since it was established in 2002. He
previously was assistant secretary for
the Office of Educational Research and
Improvement. Before that he was chairman of the
Department of Psychology at the State University of New
York at Stony Brook. He is the author or editor of five books
and has published more than 100 scholarly papers.
Whitehurst was born and reared in Washington, N. C. After
majoring in psychology at ECU, he obtained a Ph.D. in
experimental child psychology from the University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign. He is married and has two children.
Professor Emeritus and former swim
coach Ray Scharf won f