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Ed & Millie
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FEATURES
SPRING 2019 | VOLUME 14 | ISSUE 1
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____________________________________ PRESIDENT
J. Bradley Creed VICE PRESIDENT FOR INSTITUTIONAL ADVANCEMENT
Britt Davis
ASSISTANT VICE PRESIDENT FOR COMMUNICATIONS & MARKETING
Haven Hottel ’00 ____________________________________ DIRECTOR OF NEWS & PUBLICATIONS & MAGAZINE EDITOR
Billy Liggett
DIRECTOR OF VISUAL IDENTITY & MAGAZINE ART DIRECTOR
Jonathan Bronsink ’05
DIRECTOR OF WEB DESIGN
Nikki Zawol
COVER STORY
22 Ed & Millie
The Campbell community lost a matriach with the passing of Mildred "Millie" Wiggins in May at the age of 98. Shortly before her death, she sat down for a lengthy interview with former President Jerry Wallace and Campbell Magazine to share her story — from the moment she met Norman Adrian Wiggins ("Ed") through her final years. ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
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34 HQ RALEIGH
From a sleek, modern office space in the middle of North Carolina's capital city, Campbell students are teaming up with peers from other schools, with entrepreneurs and with start-up companies in a co-working hub designed to encourage collaboration and to place these students in the "middle of the action."
42 A Strong Defense
42
Tatiana Terry closed out her Campbell Law School career — alongside teammate Katie Webb — with the University's first international counseling title. With the coveted Top Gun competition on the horizon, Terry will leave Campbell with several accolades and a bright career in advocacy law ahead of her.
46 Faith in Film
Campbell alumnus Jeremiah McLamb is one of several Orange Owned businesses — a program created this year by the Office of Alumni Engagement. McLamb's JerFilm Productions was created weeks after his graduation in 2006, and today has grown into a sought-after company with feature-length films on its resume.
ABOUT THE COVER
From the personal photo album of Millie Wiggins, a rare photo of her and then-future Campbell University President Norman Adrian Wiggins. The two met at Campbell Junior College shortly after World War II (she worked for the military at Fort Bragg and he served in the Pacific during the war). This photo was taken in the snow in New York while both were seeking their master's degrees from Columbia University in the early 1950s. Photo couretsy of the Wiggins estate; edited by Jonathan Bronsink
2 SPRING 2019
DIRECTOR OF MARKETING
Sarah Hardin
SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR & MAGAZINE WRITER
Kate Stoneburner CONTRIBUTORS
Rachel Davis '19, Jebb Graff, Bill Parish, Bennett Scarborough ____________________________________ ACCOLADES
CASE International Circle of Excellence Cover Design: 2018 (Silver) Feature Writing: 2017 (Bronze) CASE III Grand Award Best Magazine: 2013 Editorial Design: 2018 Feature Writing: 2017 Illustration-Cover: 2018 Most Improved: 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 Photography Series: 2017 CASE III Award of Excellence Best Magazine: 2017 Best Article (Platinum): 2018 Editorial Design: 2017, 2018 Feature Writing: 2018 Periodical Design: 2018 Publications Writing: 2014 Illustrations: 2016 ____________________________________ Founded in 1887, Campbell University is a private, coeducational institution where faith, learning and service excel. Campbell offers programs in the liberal arts, sciences and professions with undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees. The University is comprised of nine colleges and schools and was ranked among the Best Regional Universities in the South by U.S. News & World Report in its America’s Best Colleges 2019 edition and named one of the “100 Best College Buys” in the nation by Institutional Research & Evaluation, Inc. EEO/AA/Minorities/Females/Disabled/Protected Veterans www.campbell.edu/employment
The Campbell experience in the heart of North Carolina Our Raleigh Campus is the perfect place to pursue or continue your education.
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MBA
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EDITOR’S INBOX
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FALL 2018
E RISE OF CAMPBELL FOOTBALL
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THE REMA RKABL
OUR HEARTFELT 'THANKS': Our Fall 2018 story on Capt. Eugene "Red" McDaniel's experience as one of this nation's most brutally tortured prisoners of war — and how his faith in God and his family got him through years in a North Vietnamese prison — became the most-read and most-shared Campbell Magazine feature since we started sharing these stories on social media. We wish to again offer our heartfelt thanks to Capt. McDaniel, his wife Dorothy and his son Michael, for not only sharing the story with us, but for inviting us into their home and treating us like family. Photo courtesy of Michael McDaniel Bill Parish
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THE REM ARKABL E RISE OF
Readers were moved by prisoner of war story of Capt. 'Red' McDaniel To the Editor: Thank you for your article on Red McDaniel — I read it in its entirety. Several times throughout, I teared up, and at the end I had a good cry. A good cry means a blessed cry — one that remembers when my own father came home after his second tour in Vietnam. My father was an Air Force pilot and flew C-130s. We were fortunate that his plane was never shot down, and he returned to us unharmed. He is still with us at 93 years old, living in Pinehurst, praise God. Your story on Red McDaniel’s experience as a prisoner of war is one that has touched my heart and soul.
To the Editor: As the son of a World War II veteran, I was doing research on POW/MIA veterans recently. Through destiny, I was brought to your compelling story on Vietnam veteran Capt. Eugene "Red" McDaniel and his wife, Dorothy. Mr. Liggett, this was a great article, one that will keep our POW/MIA history alive and will help preserve the many stories of our POW/ MIA veterans. Our nation and elected officials are often unaware of the sacrifices our veterans and their families make in the military. Your article assures us that our nation's veterans are not forgotten, even so many years after their wars and conflicts.
So I thank you for sharing it with our Campbell family. Blessings,
The Vietnam War finally brought the needed attention to the POW/MIA issues from all of the wars, including WWI, WWII and Korea. Too often, they're neglected and forgotten. Thank you.
PATTI TYNDALL Campbell University
CARLO ALBANESE Rolling Thunder, NY-3 Chapter
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To the Editor: I just came across your article, "The Prisoner of War," and immediately started reading it. It wasn't "easy reading," but it was compelling, and I was not able to stop. It brought back so many memories that were, of course, painful ... but filled with love for my uncle, Capt. McDaniel, and our family. I'm moved thinking about all the pain the family endured, and of course, all of the physical pain Capt. McDaniel endured. And endure, he did. His spirit, the strength of his faith, his forgiveness and his will to persevere — it's all unimaginable. But that’s our Red. Thanks so much for taking time to share this. MARY JOSIAH HOWARD Buies Creek To the Editor: What an incredible story. I wish this living history was taught in our schools so our children could really understand what true sacrifice and loyalty means. LISA CROSSWHITE OLVER Blacksburg, Virgnia
FROM THE EDITOR To the Editor: Thank you for telling this story. On the surface, it's a story about one brave man who had his faith challenged to the breaking point. Yet he never lost hope, and he never broke his trust in God that he would make it through and one day see his family again. But to me, just as important to this is the story of his wife, Dorothy, and their children. She also never lost hope and never lost her faith. To remain strong in front of the children, in front of the media and, most impressively, in front of pressure from her country to say certain things and act a certain way —I am equally impressed with the way she endured through all those years of fear and uncertainty. I know Capt. McDaniel's Campbell connection is the reason you wrote this story, but I hope people outside of Campbell — people of all political leanings and all backgrounds — take the time to read your story. LANCE A. MORGAN Laurinburg
LET'S HEAR FROM YOU! President Norman A. Wiggins and Millie Wiggins touched the lives of many who came through Campbell College and Campbell University from 1967 through 2007. We'd love to share your memories of them in our next edition of Campbell Magazine — whether it's your personal stories or simply thoughts on this edition's cover story. Email Billy Liggett at liggettb@campbell.edu. Write us at Campbell Magazine | PO Box 567 | Buies Creek, NC 27506.
Millie's sacrifice is her legacy BY BILLY LIGGETT
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’ll not spoil the cover story later in this magazine, but I want to repeat an observation made early in the piece.
At 98 years old, Millie Wiggins was sharp. Tired and frail, yes … but her mind? We’d only be so lucky to have a century’s worth of wisdom and memories so accessible. So fluid. I approached the cover piece of this magazine with the idea that this was going to be about the legacy of Norman Adrian Wiggins — this University’s third president and the first man to lead this school whose last name wasn’t Campbell. The man who launched a law school and a pharmacy school in rural North Carolina when so many people in higher education told him (warned him) it couldn’t be done. Stoic and direct. Warm and compassionate. An enigma to me — a man I wanted to learn more about. But in my 90-minute talk with Millie and her friend and husband’s right-hand man, Jerry Wallace, I found a different story. A story about a young man and woman who both made sacrifices for their country during World War II, both turning to education to better themselves during the aftermath. A young man and woman who fell in love and held tight to their dreams, making the most of what little they had … finding happiness in simply being with each other. Norman Adrian Wiggins was a big man — his accomplishments were impressive; his footprint on Campbell University unmeasurable. But I learned his true legacy wasn’t the programs or the University that continues to grow and flourish 12 years after his death. His legacy was sitting in front of me on a bed; her back supported by pillows, her legs kept warm by a quilt. His story was also her story.
Millie Wiggins’ role as First Lady here with terms like “elegance” and “grace.” She’s been lauded for “standing by her husband’s side” during the University’s biggest moments — reaching University status and the often-intimidating accreditation process for several new schools and programs. But these books don’t accurately describe the sacrifice she made for this school. She put her career on the back burner — she had a master’s degree from Columbia University and did what she loved as a teacher in Rocky Mount and Winston-Salem before coming to Buies Creek for good in 1967. An exchange between her and Jerry Wallace in the story stuck with me — he points out that the couple’s happiest time together came while both worked at Wake Forest in the decade or so leading up to his tenure at Campbell. Not that Campbell didn’t provide many happy moments — but the job of president required a lot of time spent apart. A lot. “She never complained,” Wallace says in the story. “Not once. And the day I became president, the one piece of advice she gave me was, ‘Don’t stay gone for too long. Don’t stay gone as much.’ It wasn’t easy on her. And I never forgot that advice.” So, back to legacies. I’ll forever be impressed by what Norman and Millie Wiggins were able to accomplish in their nearly 40 years side-by-side at Campbell. But I’m glad that I got to learn little things that maybe not everybody knew — that he was a dog person but eventually came around to her love of cats. That behind his business-like facade, there was a quick wit and warm smile. That he was her Ed. And that long after the other Adrian on campus was gone, he never tried to change it. Thank you, Millie, for sharing your story one final time. I hope we’ve done it justice.
A love story. And I was honored to tell it.
kayladeanphotography “Can we bring our dogs to the senior shoot?” Um yes, yes ... one million times, YES! @campbelledu MAG AZIN E .CAMPBELL.EDU
We were a week out from finishing this magazine when I learned Millie Wiggins was admitted into hospice care. She died one day later, a few months short of her 99th birthday. Campbell’s history books have defined
Billy Liggett is editor of Campbell Magazine and director of news and publications at Campbell University.
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SPRING SWING
A hammock outside of Luby Wood Hall provides the perfect spot to lean back, kick your shoes off and watch the passing cars on U.S. 421 as the sun sets to the west. It's also a fitting image for us to use as we say goodbye to another academic year. | Photo by Jebb Graff
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50 YEARS OF TRUST
First-of-its-kind (and still only) trust and wealth management program was the first initiative of President Wiggins after his inauguration
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ampbell College’s trust and wealth management program got its first taste of outside exposure at the Wake Forest University convocation ceremony in the fall of 1968.
ABOVE: Norman A. Wiggins was joined by the "Father of Trust" Gilbert T. Stephenson and some of the top trust officers in the region in August 1968 at Campbell's summer commencement, where he announced the launch of the trust and wealth management program.
It was there where Gilbert T. Stephenson — a Wake Forest alumnus considered not only the father of estates and trust, but the grandfather and uncle as well — delivered the convocation address before a crowd clad in black and gold and mercilessly praised a different private Baptist school in North Carolina for launching the nation’s first undergraduate trust and wealth management program that same month.
American Banker and Tar Heel Banker declared that summer to be a “major academic innovation” for business schools. A few weeks later, the Fayetteville Observer published an editorial announcing Campbell was “on the move,” citing Wiggins’ goal to make Campbell “the best college in its class” during his inauguration speech that year.
Stephenson’s excitement was forgivable — he had just helped Campbell’s new president, Norman Adrian Wiggins, launch what the
The trust program certainly provided a powerful first impression for the first president of the school whose last name wasn’t Campbell.
It was also a jump-starter. By 1976, Campbell was home to a new ROTC program and a law school — the latter would propel the school to “university” status with the graduation of its first class three years later. “Dr. Wiggins was a trust officer before he came to Campbell, and his mentor at Wake Forest was Gilbert T. Stephenson,” says Jimmy Witherspoon, director of the trust and wealth management program and a 1980 trust graduate. “The two men had the idea that a college or university somewhere needed a degree program in this field, and when Dr. Wiggins was named president, it became his first initiative. And as was typical of Dr. Wiggins, when he did something, he did it right.” Almost immediately, a complementary
Rhymes With Orange: Jimmy Witherspoon ('80) talks about the Trust Mafia and the 50th anniversary of Campbell's trust and wealth management program on the podcast. Download podcast on iTunes
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program was established in 1969 — the Southeastern Trust School at Campbell, a project of the North Carolina Bankers Association. The school is a supplement of Campbell’s program in the LundyFetterman School of Business. The program has blossomed into a welloiled machine over the past 50 years. The program graduates between 45 and 50 students annually, and thanks to the 4/1 program (which tacks on a fifth year), many of those students leave Campbell with an MBA in hand as well. Students are also eligible to sit for Certified Financial Planner certification immediately upon graduation. Witherspoon says the next 20 years will see the largest transfer of wealth in American history as the World War II generation and Baby Boomers die leaving their property and estates to the next generations. It’s no surprise, Witherspoon says, that Campbell’s trust students are in high demand these days. “Thanks to our Trust Education Foundation board, the network we’ve established with our alumni and several other factors, in a typical year, well over 95 percent of our graduates place with a wellpaying job within a month of graduation,” he says. “Assuming our students ‘play the game’ well, study hard and are willing to relocate and go where the opportunities are, they’re going to do well.”
FIGHTING CAMEL CRICKETS A micro-organism discovered in greenhouse camel crickets can degrade lignin from wood — a discovery that could help in the quest to find other organisms that break down different types of polluting waste, such as plastic. The researchers behind this find were Campbell University Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences Stephanie Matthews and North Carolina State University Applied Ecology Professor Rob Dunn, who picked camel crickets because of their uncanny ability to eat and break down just about anything. The duo's research has been featured in several national articles, including a lengthy feature in Physics World.
He says the most exciting thing about Campbell is it still has the same kind of student in the trust program that it had 50 years ago — students with a terrific work ethic, students who don’t have an entitlement mentality and students who understand the sacrifices their families are making to send them to college. “They’re learning sophisticated financial planning, tax planning, estate planning and wealth management here, but in the end, it’s very much a relationship business,” Witherspoon says. “That’s the neat part of it. There’s a family dynamic to it, too. In addition to all of that, trust planners are helping families choose a college for their children. They’re helping arrange funerals. They’re helping the finances on wedding planning. It’s really a chance to help people. If you enjoy working with people on a dayto-day basis and truly helping them, trust is a great opportunity to do that.”
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SCENE OF THE 'CRIME' Professor Marion Vandergrift of the Criminal Justice program led 16 students through a mock crime scene at an abandoned off-campus house throughout the semester this spring. Over the course of several weeks, students learned to collect evidence, performed chemical and microscopy analyses on liquids and learned about the biological processes of death and decay. The scene was set up by professors Stephanie Mathews (see camel crickets), John Bartlett of the biology department and Jordan Womick of the chemistry department. They combined their laboratory expertise with Vandergrift’s investigative experience to create a realistic scenario. Photo by Billy Liggett
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Chris Clemons ends brilliant career as NCAA's third-leading scorer of all time
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he single-greatest individual athletics career in Campbell University history ended under the bright lights of the National Invitation Tournament in Greensboro on March 19. Chris Clemons' 32-point night in an 84-69 loss to UNC-Greensboro was significant for several reasons. He became the first NCAA Division I basketball player to average 30 points in a season in over 20 years. The game itself — the first round of the NIT — was Campbell's first appearance in the tournament (the result of being the regular season Big South Conference champions). Biggest of all, Clemons ended his four-year Campbell career with 3,225 points, becoming the third all-time leading scorer in NCAA history, behind only "Pistol" Pete Maravich and Freeman Williams, who scored 3,249 points in the mid-1970s for Portland State University.
"I guess the No. 3 has a lot of meaning for me," Clemons said, pointing to the number on the front of his jersey during a press conference shortly after leaving a collegiate court for the last time. "Now that it's done, maybe I can take some time to look back on it." Maravich and Williams went on to enjoy careers in the NBA — Maravich a basketball hall of famer who spent 11 seasons as a pro,
and Williams spending four full seasons in the league before injuries cut his fith and sixth seasons short.
The NBA is the endgame for Clemons, who is projected to be a possible second-round pick in this June's draft. If chosen, he would become the first Camel drafted since Clarence Grier was taken in the 13th round (back when the draft went beyond two rounds) in 1987. If he's not chosen, he's almost a certainty to appear on a developmental NBA Summer League team. Since leaving Campbell, he’s appeared in several NBA pre-draft camps and played in a few senior all star games. The most notable was his 25-point performance in the NABC All-Star Game in Minneapolis, where he was named MVP of the West team. The only thing keeping some pro teams at bay with Clemons is his height. He's built like a football player, but stands at 5-feet, 9-inches tall. There have only been a few dozen NBA players shorter than 5-10, but the odds don't seem to bother Clemons one bit as he enters perhaps the most important summer of his life. “I think my game translates,” Clemons told the Charlotte Observer following a May workout with the Michael Jordan-owned Charlotte Hornets. “I can score with anybody.”
Did you know? Chris Clemons' breakout game came in the Big South Tournament during his sophomore year. He dropped 51 points to help Campbell knock off top-seed UNC-Asheville, becoming only the second Div. I player to hit 50 in a conference tournament game.
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CAMPBELL TIES Two of the Top 3 scorers in NCAA Division I men's basketball history have very close ties with Campbell University. Clemons, of course, played at Campbell for four years, while the nation's all-time leading scorer — the late "Pistol" Pete Maravich — spent much of his childhood, collegiate career and NBA career attending and teaching at Campbell's renowned, first-of-its-kind summer basketball school from the late 1950s through the early 80s. The son of former Campbell assistant coach Press Maravich, Pete was a crowd favorite each year in Buies Creek, where he often led demonstrations of his spectacular dribbling, passing and shooting skills. Maravich finished his collegiate career at LSU with 3,667 points, averaging 44.2 points per game during his career.
Chris Clemons and teammate Marcus Burk became the first duo to each hit 10 three-pointers in a game on Jan. 23, 2018. The two combined to score 74 of Campbell's 94 total points in a win over former conference rival Liberty.
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THREE
Speaking of three-pointers, not only is Clemons one of the leading NCAA scorers of all time, he's one of the best from beyond the arc as well. He is fifth overall for total three-pointers made in a collegiate career with 440 total.
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Clemons toyed with the idea of entering the NBA Draft after his sophomore and junior seasons, but he ultimately chose to stay at Campbell all four seasons — despite interest from other schools. He stayed, he says, out of loyalty to the program that recruited him.
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TAKE THE LONG BOARD
Bryan Sanders is a busy student. The Clayton, North Carolina native will enter his second year at Campbell University in the fall as the president of the Student Government Association, the youngest SGA president in school history. The business administration and management major finished two years of college while a high school student, and he's expected to graduate next spring with a four-year degree. He also launched his own app in 2018 that helps freelancers find leads and land jobs. | Photo by Jebb Graff MAG AZIN E .CAMPBELL.EDU
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PHOTO BY BENNETT SCARBOROUGH
A change of scenery, renewed purpose for Campbell's Connections program
M Leading with compassion
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ver the course of her four-year Campbell career, Caroline Wilson engaged with her fellow students as a mentor and Bible study leader — and she was heavily involved in community outreach programs, promoting inclusivity and providing resources to underserved communities. Wilson was the recipient of this year’s Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award, presented annually to the senior who best exemplifies ideals of compassion, intellect and conduct as evidence of a spirit of love for and helpfulness to others. “Campbell is a place where we learn not only how to read well, write well and research well, but we learn how to be people who will make useful contributions to the society we are about to enter,” Wilson said during her award acceptance speech in April. “I am so thankful that I could be part of a foundation that holds those values. It’s such a humbling experience to know that I’m part of a school that values servant leadership.”
A requirement of all students enrolled at Campbell University, Connections is a faithbased program that challenges students to think critically and encourages them to examine closer what they’ve learned in the classroom or through interactions with their peers. According to Associate Campus Minister Louisa Ward, Spiritual Life began evaluating the effectiveness of Connections in 2016, and her staff worked to recreate the course into a more integrative approach — one that takes into account the developmental stages of young adults and the changing demographics of the Campbell student body. “[Our students’] lens for viewing the world, their life and their faith has been challenged by new or different ideas,” says Ward. “Connections is situated where we can meet students in the place of discovery and exploration with content that presents the truths and framework of the Christian faith.” One recent change to the program is students now take it in consecutive semesters starting in their second semester of their freshman year and the second semester of their sophomore year — allowing them time to get used to the rigors of college during that all-important first semester before adding another requirement to their curriculum. The other big change — whether initially intended or not — has proven to be a welcome change, according to Associate Vice President for Spiritual Life and Campus Minister Faithe Beam.
campbelledu Exams are over. It's time to relax. @scootersquadsam 14 SPRING 2019
“Connections has always been Campbell’s version of a chapel experience, which you see at many other schools,” Beam says. “Meeting
PHOTO BY BILL PARISH
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ajor renovations and construction work to Turner Auditorium in the spring forced the hand of Campbell’s Spiritual Life department to move its weekly Connections programs to Butler Chapel. The move, it turned out, was a blessing — the program designed to reflect the Christian mission and purpose of the University was suddenly housed in a place of “spiritual discovery and exploration” that presents the truths and framework of the Christian faith.
in our physical chapel for the first time — that is worth celebrating. Our chapel isn’t a museum … it’s open for students. It’s a living, breathing building. Having Connections there gives our students ownership of the building. It shows them that it’s not just for Divinity or religion students. It’s a place for everyone to gather and worship.” The students have been more focused in the chapel setting, Beam says, and Connections as a whole has made more of an impact. She and Ward believe the spiritual formation of students matters and is vital to the college experience. In their first year, students begin to feel a sense of belonging and see in varied ways how their faith can be expressed in a new community away from what they have known. By Year 2, students are more likely to make space for the questioning and wrestling with matters of faith that may come to light. And in their third year, students are more settled on their career direction and more capable of dealing in the abstracts of faith and how God is at work in their world. “The focus in the fourth year is to help students prepare for life beyond Campbell,” Ward says, “and to send them into the world prepared to articulate their faith and remember their collegiate experiences and how these have shaped who they are and who they will become.” BILLY LIGGETT
THE RIGHTS OF SERVICE DOGS The North Carolina Bar Association honored Campbell Law’s Pro Bono Council’s Service Animal Project in April with its prestigious 2019 Law School Pro Bono Service Award. The Service Animal Project seeks to increase access to facilities, services and opportunities for persons with disabilities by educating the public on the crucial role of service animals and the laws which protect service animal handlers. In coordination with Disability Rights North Carolina, the project provides this education largely through community trainings for local businesses and organizations, including elementary school classrooms, the N.C. General Assembly and restaurants, including A Place at the Table in downtown Raleigh. Photo by Karl DeBlaker
HURRICANE TASK FORCE Public Health program manager Kate Thomas grew up in Ash, a small community in Brunswick County that saw incredible flooding during Hurricane Florence last fall. Thomas and Campbell’s Hurricane Task Force, headed by Associate Vice President for Spiritual Life Faithe Beam, struck up a partnership with Soldier Bay Church in Brunswick county. Soldier Bay Church became a hub for hurricane relief activity following the storm, acting as a home base for volunteers seeking ways to contribute to rebuilding efforts. In partnership with Baptists On Mission, the church focused on families that were displaced while unable to access their homes due to flooding. Eighteen Campbell students also performed repairs in Ash and surrounding rural areas, nine weeks after the storm. “I was blown away by the number of people who helped such a small community three months after the fact,” Thomas said. “It speaks volumes that they were willing to give up a weekend for complete strangers on the coast.” MAG AZIN E .CAMPBELL.EDU
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ARTS & SCIENCES
Cybersecurity to become new major in the fall The start of the Fall 2019 semester will bring with it a new undergraduate program in the College of Arts & Sciences.
Photo by Jebb Graff
Campbell’s curriculum committee recently approved a new major: a Bachelor of Science in Cybersecurity. The program will combine the information technology and security, homeland security and math components necessary for an interdisciplinary degree.
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Residential Learning Communities aim to improve retention, graduation rates
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here is no such thing as the “perfect” roommate, but the addition of Residential Learning Communities at Campbell University next fall may — at the very least — make a “great” roommate easier to find for incoming students. Residential Learning Communities, or RLCs, are groups of students who live on the same residence hall floor and have common majors, career goals or personal interests. The idea is that students will find support amongst their peers in these groups and will not only succeed academically, but build stronger social bonds as well. According to Rebekah Gardner, director of resident life and housing, the initiative is part of President J. Bradley Creed’s strategic plan to not only improve retention and graduation rates, but also build a stronger on-campus community. “Dr. Creed experienced RLCs at other institutions, and he wanted to bring this idea to Campbell,” Gardner said. “Already, we see that students who live on campus have elevated GPAs; and of the students who withdrew from Campbell last semester, only 15 were residential. It shows that when students live on campus, they’re more connected. It has a huge impact.”
Gardner said each RLC will consist of a community of 10 male and 10 female students, a community mentor, a resident advisor and a peer mentor. The 20 students will take a class together within the first semester and will be involved in various events and service projects together throughout their first year. Campbell will introduce four pilot RLCs for the 2019-2020 academic year: • GEMS (Generating Excellence in Math and Science) for first-year students.
“This program is a natural progression of our longstanding information technology and security program and homeland security program,” said College of Arts & Sciences Dean Michael Wells. “It is hard to go a single day without hearing news of a cyber threat or cyber security breach. This major will prepare students to help prevent and to respond to such cyber crime.”
• LEADS (Leadership Experience through Academic Development and Service) for first-year students. • RISE (Residents Interested in Science and Engineering) for first-year students. • Honors Program RLC, for upperclassmen admitted into the Honors Program. The key to the program’s success will be committed faculty members. Gardner said the four professors who will lead the new programs were the ones knocking on her door to get the program started at Campbell. “They’re really excited about this,” she said. “If the faculty aren’t invested and engaged, it’s not going to be successful.”
Rhymes With Orange: Rebekah Gardner, director of resident life and housing at Campbell, talks about the upcoming Residential Learning Communities. Download podcast at iTunes
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Currently, Campbell is the only college in North Carolina to offer a four-year undergraduate program in homeland security. The cybersecurity program will provide a track for students interested in technology and online crime activity to become well-rounded scholars with technical, theoretical and analytical skills.
gocamels We are proud to honor former Director of Athletics Bob Roller with the newest Cammy award highlighting tremendous excellence in support of Campbell Athletics. #Cammys8 C A M P B E L L M AG AZ I N E 17
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The teacher's teacher
Nery retires after guiding her school through decades of change
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uring her 30 years as a professor, Karen Nery has taught everything from tailoring and sewing to theory and methods courses. Now stepping down as dean of the School of Education, Nery has time to reflect on how her department has evolved since she took the position in 1998. She’s been a firsthand witness to education’s many curriculum changes from one generation to the next — as home economics became family and consumer services before it was phased out to make way for birth-tokindergarten and special education classes. “The School of Education at Campbell certainly has changed,” Nery says. “But we’ve kept our programs up to date to address emerging issues. We’ve added new licensure areas in education as we’ve seen need in the public schools. During our last accreditation visit, we were the first ones in the state to be evaluated under a new process and we were told we set the standard for the state. I’ve been very pleased with that.” Nery is most proud of how her programs have adapted to stay in good shape for accreditation. She has worked to make sure the psychology and social work programs are focused on the skills students need to go to graduate school or enter the workforce, offering more electives that will let them explore the field. Last year, the counseling program received its professional Council for Accreditation of Counseling & Related Educational Programs (CACREP) accreditation, something Nery and her staff had been working on almost since she arrived at Campbell in 1989. After receiving her bachelor's degree from Meredith College and her master's and doctorate from North Carolina State University, Nery was invited to teach an adjunct course at Campbell, her husband’s alma mater, by former dean Margaret Grisbrecht. Three years later, she took over a full-time position when Katherine King, granddaughter of J.A. Campbell, retired from teaching professional education and home economics.
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“We were just getting computers when I first came here,” says Nery, recalling a time when placing students in student teaching positions took a lot of patience and cooperation from the U.S. Postal Service. “Now, the students’ ability to do things electronically is just amazing, and teaching students to use Smartboards and other classroom technology is vital to their success. ” Under Nery’s leadership, Campbell was selected as one of four new institutions to participate in the North Carolina Teaching Fellows program in 2006. Through the
Fellows program, the School of Education welcomed cohorts of high-caliber students who agreed to teach for at least four years in a North Carolina public school upon graduation, earning scholarship money from the General Assembly. When the Fellows program ended in 2015, Nery and her staff decided to create their own scholarship program. Currently, the Campbell University Teaching Scholars Academy program is supporting its first cohort of 17 students, emphasizing the need for teachers in the rural underserved areas of
In addition to forming the Teaching Scholars Academy, Nery has made it her mission to build relationships within her department while giving students opportunities to serve. Her favorite community development initiative is an annual trip for third-year students. Working with Charleston Promise Neighborhood, a South Carolina nonprofit serving an area where families are caught in the cycle of poverty, Campbell students see the impact that educational grant money can have on children’s lives. While Nery is proud of the School of Education’s curriculum and emphasis on service learning, she says it’s the personalization students receive at Campbell that makes it a good choice. Her door is always open to students — an unusual arrangement in larger schools. She wants students to be able to stop by to ask where to go to get advising help or optimize their schedules, and her staff knows the ins and outs of course requirements so well that any one of them can talk students through what they need to complete their program. “I have a job to do, and that’s to work with our students to help them through their studies and make it as pleasant as hard work can be. That’s what makes the job fun,” says Nery. “I love seeing them later on in life and hearing that the faculty and staff in the School of Education were there for them — that we were helpful.”
THERE FOR HER Nery’s confidence in her department faculty and staff is no accident. With the exception of a few long-time adjunct professors, she has been responsible of the hire of every faculty member currently on full-time staff.
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“I think it’s the strongest faculty we’ve ever had, and that’s not because I hired them, but because they work together across disciplines.” In 2003, the School’s faculty and staff rallied around Nery when a seizure at work led to the discovery that she had a benign brain tumor. Her treatment and surgery kept her at home for three months while she slowly integrated everyday activities back into her schedule. Meanwhile, Nery’s duties as dean — representing Campbell at conventions, coordinating budget expenditures and developing schedules for the next semester of undergraduate and graduate courses — were taken up by her coworkers. “I was fortunate,” she says. “There are wonderful people who work in the School of Education and I talked with them every day. Even though I wasn’t physically here, I knew what was going on. I was fine because I knew things were running just like they should.” Only 10 years later, Nery was dealt another blow when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, just after the passing of her husband Robert. While she underwent chemotherapy treatment and had to avoid the buffet-style food in Marshbanks, her faculty and staff began having lunch with her around their conference table in Taylor Hall. The tradition that still stands, even after Nery’s recovery.
A fire at the site of the new student union caused quite a scare on April 11, before the flames and plumes of smoke — which could be seen for miles — were extinguished by firefighters representing several nearby communities. No one was injured, and an investigation indicated the cause to be a welding incident. University officials believe the fire will have a minimal effect on the final completion date for the union, which is expected to be finished and ready for use in December of this year or early January.
Since overcoming cancer, Nery has become a grandparent to four grandchildren and looks forward to spending time with them upon retiring. “I hope I can still stay connected to Campbell, because it’s been a wonderful part of my life. I’m not sure where God will lead me, but He led me here and it has been a great home.” KATE STONEBURNER
I love seeing [my students] later on in life and hearing that the faculty and staff at the School of Education were there for them — that we were helpful. — Retiring School of Education Dean Karen Nery
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STUDENT UNION SCARE
“For that hour during the day, we are just friends,” says Nery. “They took care of me — they still do.”
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North Carolina. Teaching Scholars receive up to $8,500 in scholarship awards for each academic year enrolled in the teacher licensure program, and earn academic credit for their participation in cohort activities related to service and leadership.
#CAMPBELLGIVINGDAY Thanks to the Campbell University community, #CampbellGivingDay 2019 was a BIG success. More than 1,160 alumni, students, faculty, staff and friends joined together to complete all of the challenges set forth by Annual Giving and raised more than $225,000 in one day. Campbell Giving Day is special not only because of what it accomplished, but because these gifts will impact Campbell and its students now and for years to come. C A M P B E L L M AG AZ I N E 19
AROUND CAMPUS
ALL CAPS
Nearly 1,300 Camels earned degrees during six spring commencement ceremonies in Buies Creek and Raleigh in May. More than 700 of them walked the stage at Campbell’s final and largest ceremony of the year featuring undergraduates from the College of Arts & Sciences, as well as graduates from the School of Education and the Lundy-Fetterman School of Business. Photo by Bennett Scarborough 20 SPRING 2019
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AROUND CAMPUS
Maurizo Lewis-Streit of Guyana, South America, is hoisted up outside of the Duke Energy Center in Raleigh minutes after receiving his juris doctorate from the School of Law at the spring commencement ceremony in May. Photo by Karl DeBlaker | Additional photos by Bennett Scarborough and Billy Liggett
cheese_lit Laughing because the semester nearly killed, but walking away confidently with a “look back at it” attitude BECAUSE YA GIRL IS DONE. 22 SPRING 2019
scootersquad_sam One year at community college and three years at Campbell University — Roll Humps! #Campbell19
lydia.grace.huth Campbell is more than a university to me. It’s a home, a family, a support system. If not for this place, i know i wouldn’t be the woman I am today.
campbelledu That's a wrap, #Campbell19. Congratulations on your achievements. We know you'll do great things.
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Ed & Millie Their love, their legacy and their story. BY BILLY LIGGETT
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“That’s when I first saw Ed... Or rather … that’s when Ed first saw me.” erry Wallace pulls up an old wooden side chair next to the bed and eases himself down onto it. His old friend — they’ve known each other nearly 50 years — is sitting up, supported by a bundle of pillows, an afghan covering her legs.
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“It’s gone,” Millie Wiggins yields. We’re in the bedroom of her home in Keith Hills. She’s surrounded by boxes, papers, envelopes, scrapbooks and photos. Wallace sits to her left. We’ve pulled up a few chairs at the foot of the bed.
“Oh Jerry,” she says, her voice soft. Brittle. “My mind is not as sharp as it used to be.”
Millie will turn 99 this year. She doesn’t leave the house much these days. Visits from friends aren’t as routine as they used to be. But today is special.
Wallace smiles.
Today, we’re here to talk about Ed.
“You’re going to be surprised when you talk to her,” he assures us with a wink.
“You just wait,” Wallace tells us. “That mind of hers. You’ll be amazed.”
He turns back to his friend. “And Millie. That mind … it’s still sharp. I’d say it’s matured.”
As if on cue, Millie brings us back to January 1947, the first day of school at Campbell College after Christmas
break. It’s below freezing that day, and the class is huddled around the radiator in the back of the room when she walks in. “That’s when I first saw Ed,” Millie says, referring to the tall, handsome new guy among the group keeping their hands warm. “Or rather … that’s when Ed first saw me. My friends told me later that he asked, ‘Who is that girl?’”
t’s been nearly 12 years since Norman Adrian Wiggins, Campbell University’s third president who held the office for 36 years, lost his lengthy battle with lymphoma. He was first diagnosed in 2003, news that led to his stepping down as president that same year. He died in a Winston-Salem hospital on Aug. 1, 2007, at the age of 86. “He fought it,” Wallace says, reaching for Millie’s hand. “Nobody fought harder than Dr. Wiggins did.” And he left behind shoes that Wallace says nobody could fill. Consider just Page 1 of Wiggins’ list of accomplishments. The School of Law that bears his name. The College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences (the nation’s first new pharmacy school in 40 years when it launched in 1986). One of the country’s most renowned ROTC programs. The nation’s first (and still only) four-year trust and wealth management program. Campbell’s growth from a newly minted senior college in 1967 to a full-fledged university in 1979. Campbell’s presence at North Carolina’s military bases and on the other side of the world in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The Lundy-Fetterman School of Business. The School of Education. The Divinity School. The enrollment of Campbell’s first black student during his first year in office.
down as Wiggins’ right-hand man in 2001. Wallace wanted to step out of the limelight and focus on his first love — teaching — at the Divinity School for the remainder of his career. Then President Wiggins became ill. He was in the 37th year of his presidency. Before him, Leslie Hartwell Campbell led the school for 33 years. His father, founder J.A. Campbell, was president for 47 years. Wallace, who was 68 at the time, had no plans on working into his late 90s. And he had no intentions of becoming president. But this was the wish of his mentor. And to understand Wallace’s ultimate decision to become just the fourth president of Campbell University in 116 years, we must understand the strength of the friendship that had formed over the previous 31. Wallace calls working with Wiggins one of the greatest joys of his life. “I’ll preface all of this by saying Dr. Wiggins was the best man I’ve ever known,” Wallace says. “Clean. Honorable. Trustworthy. Considerate. Loving. Generous. “He was a superb leader — in terms of the quality of a human being, the goodness of a human being and the
Not as “big,” but important nonetheless — Wiggins lifted the ban on dancing on campus in 1970, allowed students to have telephones in their dorm rooms and OK’d big name acts to perform concerts on campus. “The years of the Wiggins administration have been heady years,” wrote J. Winston Pearce in his second volume of A Big Miracle in Little Buies Creek in 1985, “a sort of intoxicating, high-voltage, exhilarating experience has gripped the time and the place.” Jerry Wallace had been at Campbell for 31 years and was provost for nearly 18 when he decided to step
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purity of a human being,” he says. “When it came time for me to be president, I’d already walked a lot of miles with a very good man.” “To know him is to love him,” adds Millie. “And he loved you, too, Jerry.” Wallace smiles. “I’m deeply indebted to Millie and Dr. Wiggins for believing I could make a difference here at Campbell.” Wallace would go on to be president for 12 years after initially promising his mentor he would give him at least five. His presidency would be marked by the addition of new schools and programs, though he credits much of it — such as the Jerry M. Wallace School of Osteopathic Medicine and the John W. Pope Jr. Convocation Center — to the vision Wiggins introduced back in the late 1960s. Photos from the Wiggins' personal album show a young couple very much in love. Many in this story were taken in the early 1950s, shortly after their marriage during their days in Winston-Salem and New York.
“He laid the groundwork for all of it,” Wallace says. “He had courage, and he elicited courage from the people around him. It took courage to open a law school. It took courage to open a pharmacy school. His example laid the groundwork for the medical school. He’s the reason all of it is here today.”
erry Wallace was the first and only candidate considered to succeed Wiggins as president in 2003. Thirty-six years earlier, Norman Wiggins was the 32nd and final candidate to be approached by the school to succeed Leslie Campbell. At the time, he was an attorney who had recently helped a search committee at Wake Forest University find the replacement for its most recent president, Harold Tribble. When Leslie Campbell announced his retirement, the committee responsible for finding his replacement was aware of Wiggins’ ties to Campbell and his involvement in the Wake Forest search. “The committee thought it could get Dr. Wiggins to help shorten their list,” says Wallace. “So he came, and during their talks, one of the men on the committee said, ‘Why, my soul, he should be on our list. Dr. Wiggins should be our president.’” “My name was last in the barrel,” Wiggins would later say. “When they came to me, [they] didn’t have anywhere else to go.” While the “last choice” story makes for compelling history, Wallace says Wiggins was the only man who could truly follow in the footsteps of what he calls “The Campbell Dynasty” — 80 years of leadership under father and son. “Everything Dr. Wiggins and Millie had done up to that point prepared them for this moment,” Wallace says. “They were perfect for Campbell.” It was in Buies Creek where the couple fell in love in 1947 — the year after Norman Wiggins returned home from World War II (he served in the Pacific, a radio operator who saw his fair share of combat). Millie recalls early in their relationship when her new boyfriend first met her parents. “The first time he came over to my house, he thumbed his way over,” she says. “He didn’t have a car, but I did back then. We did most of our courting in the car. Sitting there, talking, studying French.”
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Her story comes as a surprise to Wallace, who coming in thought he knew everything about their story. “That’s the first time I’ve heard about him hitching to your house,” he says. “And you courted in the car? You were supposed to be studying, weren’t you?”
“That’s our trailer. We added a little room to it eventually… Oh, we loved our little trailer.”
“We were!” Millie says defensively, followed by a smile. “Millie,” Wallace follows. “When you looked at Dr. Wiggins and sized him up … what did you see?” She pauses a moment to gather her thoughts. Then closes her eyes. “He was a fine person. A truly good person,” she says. “Someone I could respect and love.” Norman graduated from Campbell Junior College (Millie still had a semester to go) and both continued their education at Wake Forest, which was still located in the town of Wake Forest at the time. While students there, the two returned to Buies Creek and got married at First Baptist Church. By now, Millie has an old album spread across her lap, filled with sepia-toned photos of their wedding, their trips together and of “the trailer.” “Yeah,” she says with a smile, pointing to a their home, which was more like the kind of camper you’d see hitched to a Buick in the 1950s. “That’s our trailer. We added a little room to it eventually … and look, Jerry. There’s my garden. I had a little garden outside of the trailer. We didn’t even have a bathroom — they’d built a common bathroom we shared with three families. Oh, we loved our little trailer.” That little trailer got the couple through Norman’s law school years, and in 1952, they moved to Rocky Mount, where he went to work for Planters National Bank. Three years later, Wake Forest moved to WinstonSalem, and the university wanted Norman to come back and teach at the law school. They sent him to New York that year to earn his doctorate at Columbia
University. Millie also attended Columbia, earning her master’s degree in education. Both did so in less than a year. “There were very few doctors of law,” Wallace says. “And I’m not talking juris doctorate … this was an SJD [Doctor of Juridical Science]. He may have been the only faculty member at Wake Law at the time with a doctorate. That move took courage, and it was good experience for him.” The Wiggins spent 11 years — 11 happy years — in Winston-Salem. Millie worked full time for the university, and Norman (in addition to teaching) published Wills and Administration of Estates in North Carolina in 1965, a book now in its fourth edition that’s still used by law schools to cover fundamental rules of estate laws and local taxes. By this time, Norman Wiggins was a much-soughtafter commodity in higher education circles. He’d been approached by Furman, Richmond and, most intriguing of all, NYU. The latter didn’t sit all that well with Mrs. Wiggins.
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“We were in Boston for a conference, and while we were there, somebody cornered him about coming to NYU,” she recalls. “So on our way home, we stopped in New York and met with some people there. I think it excited Ed … he asked me later, ‘What do you think about going to New York and living there?’ “Well, I had lived in New York for a year already,” she adds. “So I told him, ‘Ed, if you want to commute, you may work in New York.’ And that ended that.” By the time Norman was part of the Campbell search committee — and eventually, the prize of the search committee — in 1967, he was ready to lead. That didn’t mean returning to Campbell was an easy decision for either him or Millie. “It was a tough time for Campbell,” Wallace says. “Enrollment was plateauing, and the school was in debt. But Dr. Wiggins believed he was called here, and that word ‘calling’ was very important to him. They believed the Lord would lead if he responded. And so Millie and Dr. Wiggins packed up from that nice place in Wake Forest and came to Buies Creek with no place to live.” They’d move three times in their first year before finding the home in Keith Hills. It’s been Millie’s home for 50 years now.
orman Wiggins and Jerry Wallace were in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1985, ready to stand before the accreditation committee of the American Pharmaceutical Association and ask for approval to launch the nation’s first new pharmacy school in 40 years. No pressure. “Here was a little school in Buies Creek — nobody in that room would even know where it was,” Wallace says. “And we were going to ask for this.” The two were staying in a quaint hotel, the Lodge Valley Inn, in downtown Charleston, and on the morning of the accreditation hearing — as the two men were leaving — Wiggins stopped Wallace and asked him to join him in prayer.
Norman and Millie Wiggins both worked at Wake Forest University before Norman accepted the role of Campbell's third president in 1967. That year marked the end of 80 years of the school being run by the Campbell family.
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“The establishment of the pharmacy school turned this University around,” Wallace says. “Dr. Wiggins knew those students would come here, because they were thirsty for [careers in this field], and there was water here. And you’ll go where the water is. It elevated our science holdings and our science faculty in ways we never imagined.”
President Wiggins presents his strategic plan for a television audience in the late 1960s. The plan called for several new programs and schools, plus new buildings to house them.
“Here we were, a lawyer and a preacher,” Wallace says through a grin. “And Dr. Wiggins drops to his knees beside his bed and begins to pray. ‘Lord,’ he said, ‘give us understanding and help us. If it’s not your will, don’t let this be done.’ “Well, I heard that and said, ‘Lord, don’t pay any attention to what he just said.’ Of course it was going to be His will.” And it was. North Carolina didn’t just need more pharmacists in the 1980s; it needed more like the one Wiggins grew up visiting in Burlington — a community pharmacist who worked just around the corner from where the young man lived and who could address a range of health needs. UNC-Chapel Hill was home to the only pharmacy degree program in the state at the time, and Wallace’s research as provost revealed a shortage of pharmacists in North Carolina, especially in rural areas. In August 1986, Campbell welcomed its first pharmacy students, 55 of them. Today, the College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences is home to one of the premier pre-pharmacy programs in the United States, a recently launched Bachelor of Science in Nursing program and seven graduate programs. The school’s success paved the way for the School of Osteopathic Medicine in 2013.
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Norman Wiggins’ legacy at Campbell University will forever live on in the programs he launched, the first being the nation’s first undergraduate, four-year trust and wealth management program in 1968. He was one of the nation’s leading authorities on trust law (he “wrote the book”); and he had contacts to make a partnership with the North Carolina Bankers Association, which led to the creation of the Southeastern Trust School. Two years later, Campbell officially launched a new ROTC program at a time when many schools were dissolving their programs because of the unpopular war in Vietnam. Campbell became the first school in the Southeast to offer a major in military science. Trust and ROTC were appetizers for Wiggins’ biggest legacy. In early 1973 — not even six years into office — Wiggins called an executive session with is Board of Trustees and Presidential Advisors to inform them of his intentions of starting a law school. Wallace — who was an adjunct sociology professor for Campbell at the time but still two years away from joining the college full-time — was serving as a pastor in Elizabethtown when he first heard the “rumors” of Wiggins’ grand plan. He was in Raleigh for a meeting of the Baptist State Convention — the gathering was located next to the building that houses the law school today — and he recalls voting to approve Campbell’s initiative (which required approval from the organization’s committee on higher education). It was a big day for Wallace, for more than one reason. “I walked across the street from my hotel and introduced myself to Dr. Wiggins that day,” Wallace
says. “And that’s where I met him. It’s also where I voted — I remember that day made a lot of other university and college presidents jealous. Dr. Wiggins made them jealous a lot of times in his career.” Not everybody was on board. The editorial board of the Raleigh News & Observer notoriously castigated the school’s existence. The state’s economy at the time was tenuous, and most private colleges were trimming their budgets (some even closing their doors). North Carolina was already home to four law schools — now was not the time for a fifth, they argued. “We know the rest of the story,” Wallace says. “And we were so proud of it. It was huge that a school like Campbell was doing this. The bottom line was that we were going to teach students to go out and serve in underserved areas. One of the joys I still have today is traveling across the state and when I go to a church, nine times out of 10 someone will come up to me and tell me they graduated from Campbell Law. And you see them doing good.” In his career at Campbell, Norman Wiggins was an advocate for private education and the primary leader for the cause in North Carolina. He lobbied legislators for state funding, he made several close friends in Raleigh and Washington, D.C., who championed the cause — many of them wanted to see Wiggins enter the political arena (something Millie says he seriously considered at one point). In the fall of 1986, Norman and Millie Wiggins traveled to D.C. to visit the White House, where they presented President Ronald Reagan with a copy of Big Miracle at Little Buies Creek to celebrate Campbell’s centennial. During his 40-year tenure as president and chancellor, Campbell University’s endowment grew from less than $1 million to nearly $100 million, and the total University assets were valued at $140 million. Enrollment on the
main campus had grown to 3,482, and total enrollment in the system was at 9,220. And by his side the entire time was Millie. The two traveled the world together — conventions in Ireland or Great Britain; the launch of a new Campbell program in Malaysia. But there was also a lot of loneliness, as Wallace points out. A lot was required of the president of Campbell University. “Millie spent a lot of time by herself,” Wallace says. “A lot of time. But she never complained. Not once. And the day I became president, the one piece of advice she gave me was, ‘Don’t stay gone for too long. Don’t stay
Above: Norman and Millie Wiggins presented a copy of "Big Miracle at Little Buies Creek" to U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1987 to mark the centennial celebration of Campbell University's founding. In recalling the meeting this year, Millie noted that you rarely saw a bigger smile from President Wiggins than the one in this photo. Top: Norman Wiggins in full regalia shortly before his inauguration ceremon in 1968.
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gone as much.’ It wasn’t easy on her. And I never forgot that advice.”
erry Wallace was a “poor cotton mill boy” from Rockingham. He says Norman Wiggins was a “poorer cotton mill boy” from Burlington. “Dr. Wiggins and I talked many, many times about our childhoods,” Wallace says. “They had a cow and a garden, and they lived close enough to town where he could walk there. I joked a lot that he was an ‘uptown mill boy,’ because I lived two miles out of town, and seldom walked there. I suppose that was the big difference.” The third and fourth presidents of Campbell University on the day of Jerry Wallace's inauguration ceremony.
Wiggins told his family early on that he wanted to attend college. The easiest way for young men with his background got into college was through sports. He excelled in numerous sports in high school, and
he was recruited to attend Campbell in 1942 to play basketball. That August, he and his friend Erwin Sykes hitchhiked their way to Buies Creek to enroll and start practice, but when they arrived, the school had no record of any recommendation from his coach and no record of any athletic scholarship being offered. But Wiggins was invited to stay by President Leslie Campbell, as all men’s teams at the time were depleted because of the start of World War II. “Go ahead and enroll,” Campbell told Wiggins. “We’ll work it out someway.” The young man worked as a janitor in Layton Hall during his first semester and helped keep the tennis courts clean that fall. From janitor to president. “There’s a story I remember from a classmate of his,” Wallace says. “The man said he knew Dr. Wiggins would be somebody special; because at the end of football and basketball practice, instead of running inside and taking a shower, Dr. Wiggins would stay behind and help the manager with the equipment and anything else that needed to be taken in. “I teach a class at the medical school on servant leadership, and I still use that example to this day. A real leader is a servant long before people look to him to lead. And Dr. Wiggins was that way as a child. He was that way in high school, that way in college and that way in life.”
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College was interrupted the following year when Wiggins joined the Marines and served in the Pacific. He clung to his faith to get him through the war — ”Dr. Wiggins had a strong faith,” Wallace says. “A simple faith and a deep-meaning faith.”
Millie recalls Psalm 97, a passage Wiggins held close to his heart and a passage that his father passed down to him. The Lord reigns, let the earth be glad; let the distant shores rejoice. Clouds and thick darkness surround him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. Fire goes before him and consumes his foes on every side. His lightning lights up the world; the earth sees and trembles. The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, before the Lord of all the earth. The heavens proclaim his righteousness, and all peoples see his glory. Millie, too, had dreams of attending college. After high school, she took business classes in Salisbury while living with a cousin. But her mother fell ill after a year, and Millie returned to Coats to help take care of her. She found a job at Fort Bragg at the start of the war, working for the quartermaster and saving every dime she earned for college. For fun, she attended USO dances with her friends. “Eventually, I had enough working at Bragg, and I tried to quit in the summer [of 1945] so I could attend school that fall, but the captain refused and said, ‘You can’t leave. The war’s not over.’” she says. “Well, in September, the war was over. So that same day, while everyone was celebrating, I walked over and handed him my resignation and said, ‘You can’t keep me any longer.’ I started at Campbell that fall.” Which leads us to the beginning. 1947. That cold January morning in a classroom at Campbell Junior College. Ed Wiggins, fresh from the war, huddled around a radiator with his new classmates before the start of class. “There were two Adrians that year,” Millie says with a smile. “Dean [A.R.] Burkot told them one had to be Ed, and one had to be Ad. When I met him, he was Ed. And he was always Ed.” “And I never called him that,” Wallace says. “My mouth would sink into the ground if I ever called him anything other than Dr. Wiggins. And if I ever do, take me to a psychiatrist.”
Millie remembers seeing the tall, handsome new guy for the first time as she entered the classroom that morning, longing to join them around the heater. “That’s when I first saw Ed,” she says. “Or rather … that’s when Ed first saw me. My friends told me later that he asked, ‘Who is that girl?’ “I walked in and went to my desk so I could put my books down,” she says. “I walked over to the radiator and told him I was Mildred Harmon, from Coats. And that was it. A year later, we were married.” You just wait. “All my life, I wanted a college education,” she adds. That mind of hers.
Norman Wiggins was known for his serious demeanor as Campbell's president, but he often let his guard down and showed a softer side with his wife, Millie.
“I wanted to do something besides working in the tobacco fields. Something besides milking cows twice a day and selling milk and butter in Coats.” You’ll be amazed. “I wanted something bigger. And that decision led me to Ed. And the rest was history.” o Editor's Note: Millie Wiggins died at the age of 98 a few months after her interview for this story. She spent the 12 years following her husband's death working hard to preserve his legacy at Campbell University — her agreeing to do a nearly two-hour interview while bed-ridden is only further proof of her determination. Our condolences go out to her many friends and family.
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Campbell students team up with peers, entrepreneurs and start-up companies in sleek downtown Raleigh co-working hub By Kate Stoneburner Photography by Jebb Graff
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“The way our buildings look is marketing, and so is our presence in this entrepreneurial hub. Being here in Raleigh says our business students are learning from the experts.”
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efore college, MaKayla Brewington could count on two hands the number of times she’d visited Raleigh.
She only lived 40 miles away. Growing up in Dunn, what Brewington did see a lot of — almost daily — was Campbell University. Her dream after high school was to “get out of town” and explore the state, living in and attending college in a big city. Staying in Harnett County was never part of her plan. Fortunately, things don’t always go as planned. Today, Brewington is an invested first-year student at Campbell who is well on her way to completing the School of Business’ 4+1 MBA program. “Campbell was always familiar to me, or at least that’s what I thought. I knew it was small, rural and friendly,” says Brewington. “But I got to know some professors on my tour and realized that this school is way more than what you see at the two roundabouts. At Campbell, I get to be more than a number.” Her decision to stay home hasn’t dashed “big city” dreams, however. Brewington makes that 40-mile trek to Raleigh every Wednesday for her marketing class at Campbell in the sleek, comfy confines of HQ Raleigh, a coworking entrepreneurial hub and accelerator in the capital city’s downtown Warehouse District. There, she and 13 other Campbell
students network with entrepreneurs, work alongside marketing companies and learn about what careers in business look like in the real world. The University’s HQ Raleigh suite provides resources for experimental education, giving students the opportunity to team up with peers, entrepreneurs and start-up companies. Students also have the chance to participate in dynamic presentations, workshops and tours. The workspace is part of the Campbell Business School’s outreach efforts to engage the Raleigh business community and its entrepreneurial network. Scott Kelly is the impetus behind Campbell’s HQ Raleigh program and the professor whose enthusiasm sold students on the weekly 45-minute drive from Buies Creek to Raleigh for a three-hour long block class. In a small Campbell-orange office on HQ’s first floor, Kelly personifies the marketing principles he teaches his students by serving as the face of Campbell Business to Raleigh entrepreneurs. “When we give a tour of the Buies Creek campus, we’re marketing,” Kelly says. “The way our buildings look is marketing, and so is our presence in this entrepreneurial hub. Being here in Raleigh says our business students are learning from the experts.” Campbell’s rented space at HQ is a small one for now, but it is open to all Campbell C A M P B E L L M AG AZ I N E 39
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students and staff who find themselves with a project in Raleigh. In fact, plans are in the works to launch more HQ-based classes so that students who make the trip travel for more than a single class. A weekly “Raleigh day” would allow students to study marketing with marketers, government and civics with legislators or religion with the city’s many faith communities. “Campbell students have the best of both worlds,” says Kelly. “They can spend time on campus in a safe environment where they can develop purpose, grow skills and make mistakes. Then they can plug into the Raleigh business community through our partnership with HQ Raleigh and gain realworld experience.”
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ypically, Campbell’s handson learning initiatives take students to rural areas as part of the university’s mission to serve the underserved. Although his class takes students out of Buies Creek, Kelly is a proponent of bringing what the students learn in Raleigh back to those areas that need innovators the most.
that the class tours. The students start the afternoon in HQ Raleigh’s conference room to review the text, but they always end up in a new location, thinking through real-world prompts given to them by the local business and then presenting their marketing plans to whatever “client” Kelly has introduced. So far this spring, students have carried out mock marketing plans for a variety of companies in Raleigh, touring a chocolate factory and a denim manufacturer to examine best practices for locally-owned businesses and working with marketing and sales companies like Nine Mile and RevGen to see how social media strategy can target segmented audiences. The class recently collaborated with Tom Jacobs, an alumnus and founder of Activent Marketing, to try their hand at event marketing. After sampling a brand new product (protein chips) from one of Jacobs’ clients, the students broke off into groups in Raleigh’s Union Station and brainstormed ways to introduce the product at a Spartan Race to be reviewed by Jacobs. “Raleigh is such a hub of creativity and inspiration,” says Jacobs. “It’s great that
The students start the afternoon in HQ Raleigh’s conference room to review the text, but they always end up in a new location, thinking through real-world prompts given to them by the local businesses.
“We would love to see all departments feel welcome to utilize this space in the capital city,” Kelly says. “But we can hold true to our roots. We are a rural school and we are about disadvantaged rural communities. We need to be clear that we are here to learn with the potential to take our experiences back to areas in Harnett county and beyond.” Kelly’s marketing class takes a bit of Buies Creek to Raleigh each week, listening to country music over the conference room speakers before class. It’s not uncommon to find students sitting at the counter of HQ’s espresso bar or chatting with other workers on Wednesday afternoons. They are encouraged to arrive early and hang around after class to network, and many take advantage of the opportunity. Between the drive, the networking buffer and the class itself, students easily commit five hours of their day to one course — not even considering homework. When it comes to making the class worth the time, Kelly has found that all it takes is good atmosphere, practical application of material and never letting students stay still. Each week, he assigns a chapter of reading and introduces a relevant local business
C A M P B E L L M AG AZ I N E 41
Campbell student might come to HQ Raleigh for the aesthetic at first, but they stay for the job opportunities.
the students can get an inside look at how that translates into real-world business and entrepreneurship.”
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he inside look into businesses is many students’ favorite part of the HQ experience. For some students though, the atmosphere alone makes HQ worth the drive. While co-working spaces are easy to find for free — the public library and local Starbucks come to mind — Kelly’s students insist that there’s something different about HQ Raleigh. “You can talk and network with people going after their ideas.” “There’s an industrial spirit that’s almost tangible. And you get so much exposure.” “Getting to see real companies is the highlight of my week. When I call my parents, I tell
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them about the businesses we’ve been to.” Bryan Sanders summed up the atmosphere with a comparison to the value of retail stores. “Retail is going online. So why are Apple stores still doing okay?” he says. “It’s not just because people like to hold a phone in their hand to make sure it feels like a good fit. The atmosphere of Apple stores is so open and their customer service is so key. The same can be said of HQ Raleigh. It’s all about the atmosphere.” They might come for the aesthetic, but students are staying for the job opportunities. Campbell alum Jacob Bartlett leveraged a full-time position at Lithios, an app development company with offices right above the Campbell HQ space. Current senior Daphanie Doane’s classes at HQ Raleigh ended up landing her a position with the co-working company itself. As community coordinator, she acts as an event organizer
and host for the warehouse location, all while maintaining her full-time student status and living in Buies Creek. Doane takes online classes, usually working from HQ, and stays active on campus with a variety of student organizations. Kelly encouraged Doane to apply, but also warned her that she’d have to take a semester off to work the full-time gig. Instead of taking a semester off, she also decided to take her classes online, at night and at HQ to work around the time crunch. Now, Doane is the go-to for putting in work orders, organizing events and planning community outreaches. “I live in [off-campus apartments] in Buies Creek and commute here every day, and it is worth it,” says Doane. “It’s not just a job that’s paying off school for me — it’s more about the experience and figuring out if business outreach is what I want to do. I know that if I don’t want to work for HQ after graduation, I have options with the connections I make here.” Brewington, too, says that the drive is always worth it. She and her peers often carpool to save on gas, but even when she drives alone, she takes pride in the fact that she can navigate downtown Raleigh without her GPS. Her classes in the business school have her considering various ways that she can turn her love of volunteering into a career. The oldest of five, Brewington is looking into careers in the nonprofit sector serving children.
Experience the Campbell tradition in downtown Raleigh Campbell University’s Adult & Online Education Research Triangle Park (RTP) Campus transitioned to join the Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law and LundyFetterman School of Business in downtown Raleigh during the fall of 2017. The three academic divisions now make up the University’s Raleigh Campus at 225 Hillsborough St. The Raleigh Campus offers a variety of opportunities for adults to pursue or continue their education.
“I usually hang out around here until rush hour is over and I love being connected to Raleigh through this class,” says Brewington. “It’s more hands-on than an on-campus lecture. We can explore a lot of private companies here. It’s a harder sell to get experts in entrepreneurship to drive out to us in Buies Creek.”
Adult & Online Education
At the end of the day, making connections for his students is what sustains Kelly’s belief in the power of Campbell HQ Raleigh.
Lundy-Fetterman School of Business
“When a Campbell student graduates, how many ‘touches’ with the real world did they experience? Beyond reading books, how many times did they have a real-world engagement that provided a clear vision of what their field is like? Not every program at a liberal arts school has a built in rotation process like medical programs do, but with the help of this space, I believe our faculty can provide those experiences for students of all majors.”
Offering convenient accelerated courses, adults can earn a respected undergraduate degree with the support and flexibility to meet the demands of a busy lifestyle. The campus offers nearly two dozen associate and bachelor degree programs including popular options such as business administration, criminal justice, clinical research, healthcare management, homeland security, information technology security and psychology.
The Business School supports working adults through the MBA for Professionals and Master of Trust and Wealth Management programs. Classes meet one night per week for eight weeks, allowing students to complete the programs in as little as 12 months.
Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law Experience a legal learning laboratory at Campbell Law School. Seasoned faculty offer unique perspectives and expert instruction just steps away from the state Capitol, the Supreme Court of North Carolina and variety of federal and district courts. The law school’s FLEX program allows students to earn a life-changing degree at their own pace.
Learn more at campbell.edu/raleigh
C A M P B E L L M AG AZ I N E 43
Photo by Karl DeBlaker 44 SPRING 2019
A strong defense
Tatiana Terry closes out her Law School career with an international counseling title; a bright career in advocacy ahead of her BY BILLY LIGGETT
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obody expected Tatiana Terry and Katie Webb to win it all. Not even Tatiana Terry and Katie Webb.
One of 24 law school teams at the Brown Mosten International Client Consultation Competition in Dublin, Ireland, in April, the duo faced an enormous uphill climb trying to become just the seventh U.S. team to take the title in the last 33 years. To begin, theirs was the final national competition to earn a spot — they learned they were heading to Dublin just a week before showtime. Neither Terry nor Webb had passports — both had to drive five hours north to Washington, D.C., for a new one. Neither had much of a chance to train. Neither had much experience in criminal law (the focus in Dublin this year). Webb had never traveled abroad. Terry was worried the competition would lead to one absence too many in her third-year law classes. Again, nobody expected much. “We felt we were going to lose, honestly,” says Terry. “Even when we got there and couldn’t understand these very strong Irish accents — and they couldn’t understand our Southern accents — it was just another barrier. There would have been no shame in losing.” They didn’t lose. The two 3Ls (third-year law students) became the first team from North Carolina to take home the international title, besting The Netherlands and New Zealand in the semifinals and India in the championship round. The Brown Mosten International judges the law students on
their ability to navigate the attorney-client relationship, pre-trial. They’re scored on their ability to interview, counsel and support their client through a “hypothetical legal issue” and called on to built a rapport, clearly communicate their goals with their client and consider applicable laws and options that might be available to them. Coached by professors Melissa Essary and Jon Powell (with assistance from professor Bobbi Joy Boyd), Terry and Webb did all of this despite very little preparation (and very little sleep) in the days leading up to the cross-the-globe trip. They did all of this despite coming in as a No. 5 seed and facing the No. 1 seed, The Netherlands, in the opening round … despite also having to face a New Zealand team that had beaten them in a prior competition. And in the finals against India, Terry and Webb were thrown for a loop. Their “client” was a man who entered the room wearing a hat and sunglasses and who spoke in hushed tones and warned them that Interpol (the International Criminal Police Organization) was looking for him and that he needed immunity. He was the farthest thing from any client they’d worked with back in North Carolina. “In international competitions, they hire real actors — not just law students or volunteers — real actors,” Terry says. “This guy tells us we’re lucky to see him … that he’s about to make our legal careers. That he’s bigger than (famed whistleblower) Eric Snowden. We’re just two country girls from North Carolina — we had to look up what Interpol was.”
After the initial shock, Terry’s and Webb’s instincts (and training) kicked in. Their client tried to take personal phone calls during their meeting, but the duo was assertive and mindful that they needed to control the room. “We were just trying to be real lawyers,” Terry says. “This is why we’re here.” The win was huge not only for Terry and Webb, but for the law school as a whole as well. It marked the icing on the cake of what’s been a hugely successful year when it comes to competitions — both national and international. On April 14, a team of Campbell student advocates won the American Association of Justice Student Trial Advocacy competition in Philadelphia. A month prior, Terry was part of the team that won the Constance Baker Motley National Trial Competition hosted by the National Black Law Students Association in Little Rock, Arkansas. It marked Campbell’s first national championship at that competition. Over the past six years, Campbell Law student advocates have amassed eight national championships, five national runners-up, nine national semifinalists, seven regional championships and 17 national individual best advocate awards. Terry gives all the credit for her success to her coaches and advisors — Melissa Essary, Dan Tilly and Jacob Morse, who ended his stellar student advocate career at Campbell in 2017 after becoming the first Camel to win the Top Gun National C A M P B E L L M AG AZ I N E 45
Tatiana Terry and Katie Webb, coached by law professors Jon Powell and Melissa Essary, became the first Campbell students to win the Brown Mosten International Client Consultation Competition. Photos by Karl DeBlaker.
“There were so many defeats, that I’ll admit early on, I thought about quitting,” she admits. “But my coaches were telling me, ‘You’re literally on the brink of tremendous success. If you quit now, all that hard work will have been in vain. It you quit right now, you’ll give up everything you’ve dreamed of.”
Destined To Lead Mock Trial Competition in Texas (an event he’s coaching for Campbell this year). “I’m internally motivated, but I still need someone to push me,” Terry says. “Our coaches saw I had raw talent, and they’ve pushed me to get where I am today. They expected more from me, and they were constantly telling me I could do better. But they also knew when to let me marinate in my own thoughts. They knew how to find the little things — like maybe the way I shook my head during a competition — and offer advice to change it. “When they started coaching me as a 2L, 46 SPRING 2019
they believed I could be one of the very best attorneys in North Carolina. They pushed me to do that and believe in myself. I’ll always credit them and my teammates … they got the rawest version of me and allowed me to blossom.” Terry says she needed that extra push, at least in the beginning. As a second-year student, she competed in several advocacy programs and lost. Her first venture into the Top 5 was in a competition where only the Top 4 advanced. She was a No. 1 seed at a competition in Texas and was knocked out by a No. 6 seed.
That dream has been with Tatiana Terry more than half of her life. As a 10 (and a half ) year old, this opinionated, vocal young woman was told she’d make a great lawyer, so she immediately became a volunteer juror in Durham County’s teen court program — a real court where juvenile offenders can have misdemeanors wiped off their record through their participation. As a juror, Terry found herself judging the teen lawyers more than the offenders. “I’d listen to the two people trying the case, and I’d say to myself, ‘No! You’re missing the point,” she says. “I was the smallest kid there
with the highest-pitched voice, but in that jury room, I was the loudest. Eventually, I became the foreperson.” She climbed the teen court ranks and became an attorney. Her first trial was a misdemeanor larceny, and she could only describe her feeling during her closing argument as “electric.” From that moment on, she tried cases continuously from late elementary school through high school. “I didn’t choose to be a lawyer,” she says. “It chose me. I believe God predetermines our purpose, and he puts on on Earth to do a certain thing. This is the thing He wants me to do. I’m a fighter for others. If you need someone who will fight for you, stay up all night to go over your situation when your case seems unwinnable or impossible, I’ll fight until I win.” She credits her determination to her mother, who led by example. Terry remembers accompanying her mom and sitting in her night time social work classes at North Carolina Central. Her personality, of course, meant she took part in the classes, too, often raising her hand to ask her mother’s professors a question or make a point. “She was the first in our family to go to college, and she told me very early on I was going to go to college, too,” Terry says. “It wasn’t an option. Nobody in our family has gone on to earn a master’s degree or a doctorate, so my motivation today isn’t just for me, but for everyone in my family and for every underrepresented black woman out there who wants to attend law school.” In 2016, Terry was chosen as a student speaker for North Carolina State’s commencement ceremony. When it came time to choose a law school, she narrowed her final two choices to Campbell and Wake Forest. Campbell won out, she says, because of the reputation of its advocacy program. Terry graduated with her juris doctorate on May 13, earning the Robert A. Jenkins Award — given to the student whose work in various competitions or other areas “best represents Campbell Law to the community, the profession and to the public.” But her career at Campbell isn’t over, yet. She’s set to compete in the Top Gun National Mock Trial Competition at Baylor University in June.
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Dominant in competitions Winning the national championship at the American Association of Justice Student Trial Advocacy Competition (pictured above) marked a historical moment in the life of Campbell Law School. The April 14 victory marked the school’s third national title this spring. It followed March wins at the Constance Baker Motley National Trial Competition hosted by the National Black Law Students Association and the National and International ABA Client Counseling Championship — all firsts for Campbell Law. Over the past six years Campbell Law student advocates have amassed eight national championships, five national runners-up, nine national semifinalists, seven regional championships, and 17 national individual best advocate awards. The unprecedented winning streak arrives during Campbell Law’s 10/40 celebration, marking the 40th anniversary of its first graduating class and 10th anniversary of its move to downtown Raleigh. It's no surprise that preLaw Magazine once again ranked Campbell Law among its Top Law Schools for Trial Advocacy in its Spring 2019 issue. In addition to the world championship and three national titles, Campbell Law advocates also brought home the following awards this spring semester: • The team of second-year students beat out a team from Wake Forest School of Law to win the AAJ regional competition. The same team that would eventually go on to win the national title was coached by 2017 law graduate Jacob Morse, former Top Gun champion.
• A Campbell Law team won the award for having the second best briefs in the entire competition (out of 18 teams) at the Philip C. Jessup International Law Pacific Regional Moot Court Competition Feb. 28 – March 2 in Portland, Oregon. • The NBLSA mock trial competition started with 102 teams across six regions. In February, the team bested every single team they faced dominating the Southern Regional in Memphis, Tennessee. • Two Campbell Law teams took the first two spots at the American Bar Association Client Counseling Competition Region 4 on Feb.15-17 at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. • Each Campbell Law team in the National Trial Regional Competition Region V Mock Trial, held in Columbia, South Carolina, had one member win the Outstanding Advocate award. • Campbell Law advocates were named quarterfinalists at the South Texas Mock Trial Challenge and Michaela Weber won a coveted outstanding advocate award, out of more than 100 advocates in the competition held March 27-30 in Houston, Texas. • Campbell Law students participated in the fifth Estrella Mock Trial Competition (ETAC) held April 6-7 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The team advanced to the final round where they came in second.
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ALUMNI NOTES
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UPDATE YOUR INFO
JEREMIAH McLAMB ('06)
Faith in Film
Alumnus and his Orange Owned film production company taking on bigger faith-based projects
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he ink on his degree from Campbell University barely dry, the 2006 graduate decided to turn his passion for filmmaking into a business. JerFilm Productions started small — weddings and commercials in the beginning. Nearly 13 years later, Jeremiah McLamb’s business has grown, allowing him to travel the world shooting documentaries and pursuing his dream of directing feature-length films. “God has been so good,” says McLamb, whose second feature, “Restoration,” was completed in 2016 and released recently on streaming services and to retail stores across the country. “I’ve had so many incredible mentors and people in my life who’ve helped me get to this point. I always knew I wanted to work for myself — I’ve always had that vision and that desire.”
McLamb credits his experience at Campbell for giving him the courage to start a business so soon out of the gate following graduation. A native of Fayetteville, McLamb got into filmmaking in high school — mostly shooting weddings at $100 a pop or writing and creating short films. At Campbell, he flourished, interning for a Raleigh-based film studio through the help of a professor. “I was planning to get my master’s degree in film after Campbell, but during my senior year, I had such great internships and great professors — I felt like I was ready to do this. I had worked on real sets with real professionals. I had networked and learned enough to believe I was ready to start getting paid as I learned, instead of the other way around. I didn’t have a clue about starting a business, but I was confident — or naive — enough to not be scared to make the leap.”
“Orange Owned” seeks to recognize the entrepreneurial spirit of Campbell University’s alumni and support their efforts. If you are a Campbell alumna/us and business owner, we invite you to take advantage of this opportunity to share your success with the Campbell community. For more information about the Orange Owned program visit alumni.campbell.edu/orange-owned
JerFilm was one of the first businesses to join Campbell University’s Orange Owned initiative, a new program from the Office of Alumni Engagement intended to identify, connect with and recognize Campbell alumni who’ve started their own business. Assistant Vice President of Alumni Engagement Sarah Swain, says Orange Owned — which consisted of nearly 90 businesses a month after its launch — not only celebrates alumni success, but provides the Campbell community with an online searchable database for those who want to patronize and support alumni-owned businesses. “We wanted an opportunity to not only connect with our entrepreneurial alumni, but also find their passions,” Swain says. “It may be a law practice or a jewelry design company. Or in Jeremiah’s case, filmmaking. If I’m looking for a filmmaker
MAGAZINE.CAMPBELL.EDU
or videographer in North Carolina, I might want to find a Campbell grad, because we’ll have that connection — that shared Campbell experience.”
In the past, the typical approach to filmmaking success meant heading to the West Coast and finding a big break in Hollywood. This isn’t the case anymore — North Carolina is home to a strong and still growing movie industry, and Atlanta is churning out more movies and TV shows than anyone (the industry had a $9.5 billion economic impact on the state of Georgia in 2018 alone). “The current generation of filmmakers can work anywhere and have incredible tools at their CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
The Campbell University Alumni Association wants to keep you up-to-date on Campbell news, events and alumni programming. But information changes quickly — and we need your help! If your email address, mailing address or name has changed, please visit alumni.campbell.edu/ update to submit your current information. ��������������������������
1940s ALDEEN ROBERTS (‘49) met his
wife, Anne Bell, at Campbell in the fall of 1947, and they were married in September of 1949. This September, they will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary, surrounded by their two daughters, two sons-in-law, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
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1970s SUSAN LAWRENCE (’79) was one of
three recipients honored as Distinguished Alumni by Campbell University in November. Lawrence is a leader in defense information technology and communications systems through her work with Accenture Federal Services. As a managing director in its national security practice, she develops advanced technology systems to deter, deflect and defeat today’s evolving threats. KAY BISSETTE (’79) was honored as one of two recipients of the North Carolina Genealogical Society’s 2018 “Award for Outstanding Contribution to NCGS by a Member.” As a volunteer for the N.C. Genealogical Society Journal, Bissette was commended for her abstracts and transcriptions of various records to the quality content benefitting Journal readers in 2016 and 2017 and in future editions. C A M P B E L L M AG AZ I N E 49
ALUMNI NOTES 1980s JUDGE ANN MARIE CALABRIA (’83 LAW) retired
from the North Carolina Court of Appeals on Dec. 31 after serving for 15 years and was awarded the Order of the Long Leaf Pine by Gov. Roy Cooper. Calabria practiced law in Fayetteville and Cary and served as a district court judge in Wake County prior to her election to the Court of Appeals. She was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania and earned her bachelor’s degree from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 1977. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper recently appointed TIMOTHY SMITH (’83 LAW) to sit on the bench for Judicial District 4 of Sampson, Duplin, Jones and Onslow counties. Smith, a Kenansville-based attorney, has been a partner at Smith & Blizzard, P.A. since 2000. He began practicing law in the 1980s, before starting his own practice in 1995. Next, he became partners with Melissa B. Stevens to establish the law firm, which specializes in criminal defense and personal injury. He previously served as the chair of the Duplin County Board of Commissioners and the East Carolina Counsel. TONY FLOYD (’88 LAW) was
named the 22nd president of Mars Hill University on Nov. 9. Floyd earned his bachelor of science degree from the University of South Carolina, and his juris doctor from Campbell Law. Following a 23-year career in private law practice, he joined Coker College in 2012 as vice president of administration and legal counsel and was named executive vice president in 2015. While at Coker, he also served as coordinator of the political science major and coordinator of the pre-law specialization.
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JEREMIAH MCLAMB (’06) directed and co-wrote Restoration, a feature film that was bought and distributed by
Inspired Family Entertainment recently. His next film will begin production in early 2020. Photos courtesy of JerFilm
fingertips to make incredible work,” McLamb says. “Staying in one place is no longer an excuse.”
not everything he does has to have a “faith-based” theme, it’s prevalent in much of his work.
That doesn’t mean starting from scratch in his early 20s and carving out his own niche locally hasn’t been a struggle over the past 13 years. McLamb learned from the beginning that running a business means 20 percent doing what you love to do and 80 percent … well, running a business.
“My faith is the core of who I am,” McLamb says. “It’s the foundation of everything I’ve built this business on. JerFilm is a ministry, too, and the stories I want to tell aren’t necessarily ‘Bible stories,’ but they carry the truth of what I believe. That’s my goal, and that’s what is in my heart.”
“If you’re going to be a successful business, it doesn’t matter how good you are at what you do,” he says. “If you’re not good a the actual business part, you’re going to fail.”
McLamb directed and co-wrote and co-produced his second feature-length film in 2016, Restoration, about a young wrestler and her coach — she needs the mentor to get her to the state championship, and he needs someone and something to believe in. McLamb called the film “a journey,” that took nearly three years from concept to final edit.
McLamb credits his wife, Amy, with helping him grown in that area. He also learned along the way that he didn’t have to “do it all” when it came to filmmaking to be successful. “You have to learn to let go,” he says. “I used to feel like I had to shoot everything, edit everything and create and pitch every concept. You reach a point where you can’t do it all. But when you find likeminded creatives to work with who understand the JerFilm brand, it’s gold. God has blessed us, and I’ve been blessed to find the right people along the way.” McLamb’s documentary work has taken him around the world, filming documentaries and promotional videos for missions, churches and faith-based organizations in Haiti and Thailand. Faith plays a big part in the “JerFilm Brand.” While
“It’s about a man who’s hit rock bottom — has no hope and no faith — and God puts someone in his life that pushes him in another direction,” McLamb says. The film got a distributor through Inspired Family Entertainment and this year found its way on the shelves of several big box stores (WalMart, Target and Best Buy) and can be found on several streaming services like Amazon Prime. His next feature film will begin production in early 2020, McLamb says. Like Restoration, the movie will deal with true-life, “incredible stuff.” BILLY LIGGETT
Rhymes With Orange: Jeremiah McLamb shares his Orange Owned success story, talks about the last 13 years in the film industry and the future of JerFilm on our podcast. Download podcast at iTunes
1990s
CHRISTY NIGHTINGALE THOMAS ('98) completed
JUDGE JACK MOODY JR. (’90 LAW) was elected to the
Robeson County District Court bench in November. He began his career in law at Huggins & Rogers in Lumberton and was an assistant public defender in Robeson County for 24 years. GENE LEWIS (’94) was
MELEAH STARNES (’17) was married on July 21, 2018 to JOSEPH HUFFMAN (’17, ’18 M.ED). They now reside in Middlesboro, Kentucky, where Meleah is
currently completing a master's degree in veterinary biomedical science at Lincoln Memorial University.
DALTON (’15) and LACEY DILLON (’15) tied the knot on April 22, 2018. They now reside in Kernersville, where Dalton runs his family business, Dillon Tree Service, and Lacey works for Right By You Mortgage. Every year, they look forward to homecoming, where Dalton is reunited with football teammates and Lacey with sorority sisters and friends. Campbell holds a special place in their hearts and will always be home. MAGAZINE.CAMPBELL.EDU
one of three recipients honored as Distinguished Alumni by Campbell University in November. Lewis has a career spanning over 24 years in the trust and wealth management industry with First Citizens Bank and Trust Company. He currently serves as the managing director of trust and fiduciary services for First Citizens, overseeing all fiduciary activities within their 18-state footprint. He currently serves on the LundyFetterman School of Business’ Advisory Council and is an active member of the Trust Education Foundation’s Executive Committee, where he previously held the title of chairman. DANIEL ORTIZ (’95) was
appointed by Gov. Roy Cooper to another term on the North Carolina State Board of Registered Environmental Health Special Examiners. The Autryville resident has served the Mecklenburg County Department of Public Health as the environmental health director for over 20 years. TRACY PHILBECK (’98) was elected chairman of the Gaston County Board of Commissioners for a third time in December. Just a month before, he won his third re-election campaign for the Dallas Township seat on the board. He is president and CEO of Treescape Inc., a Gastonia-based landscaping company that does business in the Charlotte and Gastonia areas.
her MA degree in school counseling from Regent University in August. She is now employed as the school counselor at Camden Middle School in Camden, North Carolina. SCOTT BULLARD (’99), a senior college administrator who has served as a professor and an interim president in Alabama, was named the 11th president of Pfeiffer University in April. Bullard, 42, was senior vice president and dean at Judson College in Marion, Ala. In March, he completed a 16-month term as its interim president. Judson is the nation’s fiftholdest women’s college. It hired Bullard in 2008 to teach religion and serve as co-campus chaplain. He went on to chair the Humanities Division and to lead Judson’s religion department before he was named dean in 2012 and senior vice president in 2015.
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2000s BOBBI HARRIS (’00, ’03 MBA)
was a featured speaker and expert at the African Utility Week conference in Cape Town, South Africa in April. The three-day trade exhibition and conference gathered experts from across some of the largest companies and organizations specialising in power, energy and water. Harris is the vice president of Africa Utilities Technology Council. She is a smart water and smart city industry expert with more than 15 years of experience. She has focused on environmental issues and sustainability technologies to address water and energy challenges including smart water infrastructure, smart grid, clean-tech and green building initiatives. Harris is also the founder and CEO of Smart Water, Smart City, LLC and a leader in market analysis, strategic intelligence and technology assessments. C A M P B E L L M AG AZ I N E 51
ALUMNI NOTES
Rhymes With Orange: Amanda Burke (left) and Rebecca Lindhout recently appeared on the Rhymes With Orange podcast to talk about Camp Change and their plans to expand the curriculum for young people who want to learn more about money. Download podcast at iTunes
AMANDA BURKE ('16) | REBECCA LINDHOUT ('06)
Dollars and Sense
Alumni team uses Bible and economic know-how to teach young children about the value of a hard-earned buck
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ebecca Lindhout had grown tired of blind bag toys — small, collectible toys often wrapped in a foil package so the child can’t see which character he or she is getting. Her 6-year-old daughter, on the other hand, couldn’t get enough of them, a victim of condition called the blind bag bug. Not that Lindhout doesn't enjoy buying gifts for her kids. But she found that the joy in these particular toys was short-lived — the excitement ended almost immediately after the reveal. The toys would often go untouched afterward, and the $4 or $5 investments (sometimes, her daughter used her own money) were seeing very little returns. “They’re a waste of money, to be honest. Impulse buys. And enough is never enough,” says Lindhout, the minister of education 52 SPRING 2019
and children at Antioch Baptist Church in Lillington and a 2002 graduate of Campbell University. “But my child was addicted, and I was talking to parents at the time who had similar problems with their children. You want to say to them, ‘Every now and then, can you not want sometime?’ but then you realize everything around them is an advertisement. They are inundated with consumerism.” She found an ally in Amanda Burke. A 2016 graduate of Campbell’s Trust and Wealth Management program, Burke was set to teach a Financial Peace University class at Antioch when Lindhout approached her about a similar class, only geared toward elementary- and early middle school-aged children. A class where they could not only learn the value of a buck, but hear what Scripture has to say about
financial responsibility and rejecting sinful ideas like greed and envy. The two formed a partnership, and from it was born Camp Change — a five-day course launched in 2017 to teach the basics of finance to children ages 6 to 12. The curriculum shows children what it is like to earn and spend money and encourages them to use their financial resources to glorify God. Already, the camp has doubled in size — from 30 students in the first class to more than 60 in the most recent — and Burke and Lindhout’s work is earning some outside attention (they’re in the process of publishing their curriculum and a children’s book on the subject). “A lot of parents don’t know spiritually how to address finances,” Lindhout says. “And it’s something nearly all of us struggle with, no
matter what your financial situation is. Amanda and I dug deep to create this curriculum — we poured our hearts into it. In the end though, it’s just information that we’d want our own kids to know.” The course was originally called Money Camp, but after some thoughtful consideration, the word “change” found its way onto the marquee. “The idea is to change the heart and change behaviors. Then there’s the play on words,” says Burke, an accredited financial counselor whose children were 12, 3 and newly born when she co-launched Camp Change. “I grew up in a home with a single father, and meeting financial obligations was a struggle in our home. Seeing that absence of money early on led me to be more financially aware. My daughter is 13 now, and having been through the camp, she has learned to appreciate what she has more.” For Year 2, the camp’s theme was “Following the Ten,” a lesson in planning, earning and eventually giving back (the “Ten” is for a 10-percent tithe). Lindhout and Burke implemented hands-on interactive experiences like games, skits and field trips. Woodworking, culinary arts, photography, gardening and other fun group activities made Camp Change seem much more like a true summer camp than a course in financial responsibility. Fittingly, the cost to attend the camp is a steal — $20 a week. The duo receives additional support from the Antioch Women’s Missionary Union and North Carolina Baptist Men nonprofit groups. Service is a big part of the camp’s mission, as students have assisted in the N.C. Baptist Men’s annual Appalachian Backpack Ministry and took a group field trip to the Baptist State Convention’s office in Cary to see how missions and ministry funds from state churches are used on a larger scale. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, according to Burke. Not only are the children learning, but the parents are, as well.
“We like to encourage the parents to participate and engage, and the mom of one little girl came to me one day and said, ‘Amanda, I don’t feel comfortable about this,’” Burke says. “She didn’t feel right talking to her daughter about the family budget, so I told her she didn’t need to use real numbers, but we wanted the kids to get an idea of what it takes to run a household. “It turns out, this exercise made her take a closer look at her own finances, which led to to wanting financial counseling down the road,” she adds. “This opens doors and gets parents thinking, too. And maybe that parent will change their lifestyle for the better.” The camp “instructors” and their own families are also learning along the way. Lindhout’s household operates on an “earned allowance” system, and her children have begun asking if some purchases are “good use of my money.” Both her and Burke’s children also tithe at church using their own money — a recent camp tour of the Baptist State Convention showed the students what the church does with those offerings. “When the children realized they were helping missions or providing dental care for children whose parents couldn’t afford it, they were all about it,” Lindhout says. Burke says she’s impressed by not only the attentiveness of the students, but of their thoughtful questions as well. One question, in particular, gave her pause. “A student asked me, ‘If God loves us all, why do some of us have a lot of money, and some of us have no money?’ and I was like a deer in the headlights at first,” Burke says. “But I researched this; I read the Bible and I prayed. And I answered this question the best way I knew how, and in the most thoughtful way I could.” To learn more about Camp Change, visit antiochweb.org/camp-change. BILLY LIGGETT
The Camp Change curriculum has been transformed into children's books, illustrated by Amanda Dockery.
MAGAZINE.CAMPBELL.EDU
LYNN RAY (’00), formerly
a lieutenant colonel assigned to the Pentagon, was promoted to full colonel on April 4. She joined a select group of soldiers who have risen to the rank in the regular active-duty Army, where women make up only 11 percent of all colonels, and African American women just 2 percent. CHRIS PELUSO (’02) announced
the publication of his first novel for young adults: Heroes Next Door: Hornet 24, a story about a Vietnam veteran’s stories and his relationship with his young next door neighbors. Heroes Next Door is published by Elm Hill Publishing, 2018. MATT ANDERSON (’03 MBA), was
promoted to senior vice president and Lake Norman market president of BB&T. JAMIE COX (’03) was
named principal at West Lee Middle School in Sanford on Jan. 15.
MATTHEW A. CORDELL (’04 BBA, MBA) was certified as
a one of the first privacy law specialists in the United States by the International Association of Privacy Professionals and the American Bar Association as part of the inaugural class of only 27 lawyers across the nation. He is a certified privacy professional, a certified information privacy manager and the current chair of the North Carolina State Bar Privacy and Information Security Specialization Committee.
JOHN KALE (’04) accepted a new position as adjunct professor of worship arts and director of praise bands at Catawba College.
C A M P B E L L M AG AZ I N E 53
ALUMNI NOTES K. PAIGE D. BROWN (’06 PHARMD) was
selected as the new assistant dean of Interprofessional Education (IPE) at Campbell University. In this role, she will work to equip Campbell students to function effectively as members of interprofessional rural healthcare teams. “I am honored to lead Campbell alongside my fellow colleagues on this journey to developing a prestigious IPE program that will have an impact on the healthcare landscape in North Carolina thus improving the care of patients for generations to come,” Brown said. KIMBERLY MILLER (’07 LAW) was
one of three recipients honored as Distinguished Alumni by Campbell University in November. Miller is a trial lawyer at the law firm of Owens & Miller in Raleigh, representing plaintiffs in the litigation of injury claims, including auto torts, commercial vehicle collisions, wrongful death and premises liability. Miller maintains an “AV” rating by Martindale Hubbell and was selected for the 2017 and 2018 Super Lawyers lists in Super Lawyers Magazine. She is the editor of the NCAJ North Carolina Complaints Manual and is active in the local Wake County Bar, NCAJ and Campbell Law. KATHRYN BALOGUN (’08)
was named women’s soccer head coach at the University of Texas-El Paso in December. Balogun put up record-setting seasons as the head coach at Texas Southern University over the last five years, posting a 31-13-6 overall record. She was a four-year starter at Campbell and a three-time captain, earning second-team Atlantic Sun honors. She was a member of title teams and played in the NCAA Championships in 2005. 54 SPRING 2019
KRISTEN ADAMCZUK ('07)
Thiessen's Throws bring comfort, warmth to new families who need it most
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or a new parent with a child who has to spend the night in the hospital, the wait can be agonizing, and nights spent on hospital cots and waiting room chairs are far from cozy. Kristen ('07) and Tristan Adamczuk, residents of Charlotte and parents to Koden and Thiessen, decided to bring a little bit of comfort to families in this situation with Thiessen’s Throws, a nonprofit dedicated to collecting plush blankets and donating them to families staying in Levine Children’s Hospital in Charlotte. The Adamczuks know the experience of being anxious parents in the hospital with only an itchy blanket firsthand, as last year their daughter Thiessen underwent a heart procedure at 7 weeks old to fix a congenital heart valve disorder known as pulmonary valve stenosis. “During our wait in the waiting room and overnight stay, we learned about other families who stay in the hospital for months,” Kristen said. “As stressful as our situation was, we knew there were others whose countless days residing in the hospital went beyond what we could even imagine.” While in the hospital, a family member brought Kristen and Tristan a plush blanket large enough for them to share, and Kristen was touched by the thoughtful gift. “We spent time cuddled up waiting and trying to sleep when we could and realized that the small gesture of a plush blanket really was
comforting during an uncomfortable time,” she said. In the months following her operation, Thiessen is now thriving. Now, the Adamczuk family is on a mission to aid the hospital stay of families in similar situations — for the parents, caregivers or for the children themselves. The Adamczuks launched Thiessen’s Throws with a four-week blanket drive over the 2018 holiday season. Their goal was to collect 24 blankets, enough for each room on the eighth floor of the hospital where Thiessen stayed to receive a blanket before Christmas. They nearly tripled the goal, donating 68 blankets instead. “The only challenge we had was fitting them all into our car,” Kristen said. “We would love to make it an ongoing collection and donate throughout the year, not just at Christmas time. We hope that will make things easier.” Along with providing physical comfort to the families who received the blankets, the Adamczuks also hope to provide emotional support. Each blanket has a tag with the Bible verse Philippians 4:7, which reads, “The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” The Adamczuks plan to continue Thiessen’s Throws into the future, hopefully with help from the Campbell community To donate a blanket or to learn more about the program, email Kristen at thiessensthrows@gmail.com. RACHEL DAVIS
COURTNEY JENNINGS (’16) graduated from Nova Southeastern University in Jacksonville, Florida, on Aug. 17, 2018, with a Master of Science in physician assistant studies. She married Cody Powell on Nov. 3, at Hayes Barton United Methodist Church in Raleigh. Several of Courtney’s bridesmaids were her sisters from the Campbell University chapter of Sigma Alpha Omega sorority. Courtney is employed at Horizon Family Medicine in Clayton as a certified physician assistant. She and Cody live in Clayton.
TAYLOR MICHELLE SCOTT (‘16, '19 PHARMD) and JACOB RALPH WELLS (‘16,’18 PHARMD) were married on July 18, 2018, in Butler Chapel. Taylor REBEKAH SMITH ALSOP ('02) was married to Dustin Alsop in
Charlotte, North Carolina, on May 25, 2018.
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earned her PharmD degree in May, and Jacob is currently a first-year doctor of osteopathic medicine student, both attending Campbell.
C A M P B E L L M AG AZ I N E 55
ALUMNI NOTES
Gladys the Camel made her official debut at a women's basketball game in January after a 25-year hiatus. Photo by Bennett Scarborough
ALUMNI ENGAGEMENT
The return of Gladys
After a brief run as Gaylord’s counterpart in the 90s, Campbell's mascot returns to represent athletes’ ‘ambition, perserverance and strength’
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fter a 25-year hiatus, Gladys is back. The counterpart to Campbell University’s camel mascot Gaylord, Gladys will be seen both on and off the court (or sidelines) representing the ambition, perseverance and strength of female student-athletes. Emerging at halftime of a women’s basketball game back in January, Gladys showed off an updated suit complete with a Fighting Camels dress and an orange bow. She and Gaylord met at centercourt with a handshake that delighted the crowd, and they spent the remainder of the afternoon on the concourse taking photos with their fans. The idea for Gladys’ return had been tossed around for years before Ricky Ray, associate athletic director of external affairs and Tammi Fries, annual giving director, decided that bringing back Gladys in 2019 just made sense. The demand for Gaylord appearances has 56 SPRING 2019
been difficult to meet with only a few student actors able to represent him, especially since the towering mascot’s suit requires actors who stand at least 5 feet 11 inches tall. This new-andimproved Gladys is about a camel head shorter than Gaylord, which not only makes her less intimidating to younger fans, but allows more students the opportunity to portray her. “Logistically, Gladys will help us bring Campbell spirit to so many more events,” says Fries, who spearheaded the campaign that raised the funds for the new suit. “We also recognize that 53 percent of our students are female. Bringing back representation of those students and of our female athletic teams made sense.” Also important to note — Gaylord and Gladys are colleagues. They’re friends. They’re on the same team. They aren’t, however, “dating” or married. “We really want Gladys to be her own character and we do not want to assume [a
relationship] between her and Gaylord,” Fries says. “For now at least, she’ll be just another spirited representation of Campbell.” Camaraderie on the court between two mascots was already evident at their first performance. Underneath the Gladys mask, a Campbell student and first-time mascot performer was excited to see her character develop alongside Gaylord’s well-established personality. “I’m excited to engage with the crowd and work on making the character more feminine than Gaylord while representing our men’s and our women’s teams,” says the new Gladys, who also shot down the idea of a “love connection” that the mascots seemed to share in the 90s. “Gladys and Gaylord definitely aren’t dating or anything, but I don’t think they’re ultracompetitive with each other, either. I’d say the dynamic right now is ‘just friends.’”
Fries’ #BringBackGladys campaign in 2018 raised $10,000 in a few short weeks, and the design for Gladys’ new look quickly followed. A typical custom mascot costume today costs between $3,500 and $12,000. The Gladys fund paid for the design and creation of Gladys' new costume, scholarships for students who perform as Gladys and Gaylord and a few enhancements to Gaylord's current costume, which was showing signs of wear. Gladys has now made several appearances at campus events, amping up the crowd at sporting events and even trying her hand at driving a golf cart on Campbell Giving Day. The response to her new suit has been overwhelmingly positive, but after looking at pictures of past Gladys and Gaylord costumes, it’s hard to imagine that anyone would prefer the angry eyebrows and shabby fur of her old look. While her costume history was not firmly recorded, Ray and Fries hypothesize that the garb of Gladys’ heydey was very makeshift. When an old Gaylord suit showed signs of strain, staff would dress it up a bit to cover the wear and tear and turn it into Gladys. Eventually, either the suit fell apart irreparably or became so “well-loved” that no one was willing to put it on anymore — and that was the end of Gladys. The last time Gladys and Gaylord were seen together was in 1993 when Campbell alumni Craig and Angela Lloyd portrayed the dromedary duo. The real-life couple met when Craig, dressed as Gaylord, picked Angela out of a soccer game crowd to play life-size tictac-toe with him on the field. He had no idea he and his halftime volunteer would end up husband and wife. Once they began dating, Craig convinced Angela to play the Gladys to his Gaylord, ushering in a golden age
of camel shenanigans on the court. Their stunts with a giant bubble maker, a referee jersey and pink tutu ensemble and a dummy dressed as a Duke Blue Devil earned them several technical fouls and the undying devotion of delighted fans. The pair hung up their camel heads in 1993 upon Craig’s graduation, and with the combination of her deteriorating suit and no one to portray her, Gladys disappeared from the limelight. The young woman currently behind the Gladys mask said during her debut in January that the rewards of being Gladys still outweigh the challenges. “The costume isn’t too uncomfortable, maybe a six on a one-to-ten scale,” said the student actress. “The suit isn’t bad, it’s the head that takes the most getting used to. All I can see are people’s torsos. But I’m not naturally extroverted at all, and being Gladys gives me a chance to have fun and be over the top without anyone knowing it’s me.” So far, this particular Gladys has only told her roommate and two close friends. “I want to keep it on the down-low so that fans can think of the character, not about me,” she said. Keeping their identities a secret might be the greatest challenge of all for school mascots. To keep up the charade, Ray and the athletics team have strict travel policies in place and never loan the suit to anyone other than an official student actor. “One of our Gaylords went through an entire school year without his roommate, who was a cheerleader, finding out who he was,” says Ray. “The mystique of not knowing who Gaylord and Gladys are is great, it’s part of the fun.” KATE STONEBURNER
TOMEKA O’NEAL (’08) was
promoted to senior enlisted advisor for the Defense Commissary Agency. O’Neal, a business administration graduate, is now the top noncommissioned officer for the Defense Commissary Agency at Fort Lee, Virginia. DeCA operates nearly 240 grocery stores across the world on military installations.
Airman 1st Class AMBER M. HONORATO (’09) graduated
from basic military training at Joint Base San AntonioLackland in Texas. An honor graduate, she is the daughter of John T. and Traci L. Allen. JUSTIN TILGHMAN (‘09)
was recently named associate dean of public safety at Lenoir Community College. MATTHEW DAVIS (’09)
was listed in the Hickory Record’s Top 10 Under 40 list in November. Davis is an optometrist at Newton Vision Center, Mountain View Eye Center and Maiden Eye Clinic in Hickory. He serves on the Catawba County Board of Health as co-chair. He is also a member of the American Optometric Society and the N.C. Optometric Society. ��������������������������
2010s JOSHUA OWENS (’11, ’14) and Lindsay Owens welcomed their first child, Quinn Rosalie Owens, on Sept. 4. She was born weighing 9 pounds, 1 ounce, and was 22.25 inches long. PATRICK NEWMAN (’12 LAW) received
ANGELA ('94) AND CRAIG ('93) LLOYD portrayed Gaylord and Gladys in the 1990s (the two met when Craig
approached Angela as Gaylord at a game, and the rest was history). The two returned to Campbell this year to help celebrate Gladys' return at a women's basketball game in January. Photo by Bennett Scarborough MAGAZINE.CAMPBELL.EDU
the Small Business of the Year award from the State Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Services in December. Born without arms and confined to a wheelchair since he was 2, Newman was sworn in as an attorney in Morehead City. C A M P B E L L M AG AZ I N E 57
MATT SERGEY (’12) signed
with the High Point Rockers — an Atlantic League professional baseball team that will begin its inaugural season in May — becoming the first player signed by the new club. Sergvey, a right-handed pitcher, had a 7-0 record for Campbell in 2012, earning first-team All Big South honors. Sergvey pitched for the Sugar Land Skeeters in 2018, helping the team to an Atlantic League title. SAMANTHA LEE WAGNER (’13)
married Ramey Jason Leviner of Rockingham on March 31, 2018. MICHAEL HEDGEPETH (’13 LAW)
was promoted to special counsel in Hedrick Gardner Kincheloe & Garofalo Law Firm’s Charlotte office. While a law student, Hedgepeth interned for the North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Paul Newby and for Rep. David Lewis in the General Assembly.
AMBER MEARES (’14) was
selected as Teacher of the Year for North Whiteville Academy for the 2018-2019 school year. Meares was also previously honored as WWAY's Teacher of the Week.
ADTHEA “A.J.” COLLINS (’14 TRUST) returned to her
hometown of Hamlet to start her own private law practice. The first in her family to graduate from college — her father worked in cotton mills and her mother is disabled — Collins worked in mergers and acquisitions in Raleigh for three and a half years where she was involved in negotiating billion-dollar deals between large banks. In moving to Hamlet, Collins will be dealing with much smaller fortunes — but she says being close to family and the opportunity to serve the local community made the transition worth it. “I developed a fascination with wealth; how to build it and best use it,” Collins said.
58 SPRING 2019
FOUNDERS WEEK 2019
From Day 1, Cornelia Pearson Campbell was instrumental in the survival of the academy
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n issue of the Pine Burr Yearbook from 1963 describes the survival of Campbell University, once Buies Creek Academy, as “a Cinderella story … the marvelous transformation of a one-room schoolhouse to academy that withstood the attacks that closed dozens of schools of similar rating throughout the state.” J.A. Campbell, the young Baptist minister turned school founder and principal, had a vision for a school in rural North Carolina, and began the arduous process of convincing families to move to Buies Creek so they could work the land and he could teach their children. But he wasn’t alone in ensuring its success. Cornelia Pearson, his future wife, was as hard working as he was, and instrumental in helping the school prosper for years after her husband’s death. On the first day of classes, Jan. 5, 1887, an 18-year-old Cornelia, the daughter of a local family, entered the schoolhouse doors as a student and was immediately put to work as a teacher. “It was fitting and proper that she be with the young schoolmaster on the first day of school,” J. Winston Pearce wrote in his book, Big Miracle at Little Buies Creek. “It is also significant that she shared in the responsibilities of the school on that first day. She was asked to take charge of the youngest of the children. From that day until the day he died, she would be by [J.A. Campbell’s] side. Together they would pray, plan, direct, teach, and administer.” The Creek Pebbles newspaper gave a concise description of her career path, saying, “By 1890 the prospectus was announcing, ‘Miss Cornelia Pearson, who has been successful as a teacher, will assist in the school.’ In the following year, it announced her as ‘assistant principal and business manager.’ In November of 1890, Miss Cornelia became Mrs. J.A. Campbell.” Cornelia Campbell spent the next few decades of her life by her husband’s side, helping him run the school and supporting him through the uncertainty of the early Buies Creek Academy days. “With a calm and reserved disposition she met the crises of the early years, as they piled up one after the other,” said the 1963 edition of the Pine Burr. Through a fire that nearly destroyed the school, to financial insecurities, to a lack of food to feed the students, Cornelia was by her husband’s side without reservation. Money was a source of stress to Campbell in the early days of the institution, but Cornelia was determined to do her part to relieve her husband’s worries.
Cornelia Pearson Campbell lived 29 years after her husband's death in 1934. She passed away on Feb. 19, 1963, at the age of 98.
“When income was barely sufficient to meet the demands of the school, she labored daily behind the scenes, working night and day to provide vegetables and fruits from the farm for the meals served in the dining-room,” the Pine Burr continues. When students had nowhere to live on campus, Miss Cornelia, or “Miss Neelie,” as her neighbors affectionately called her, opened her home for them to stay with the Campbell family. Cornelia Campbell moved into a house across the street from Campbell’s main campus after her husband’s death in 1934. The house is now home to Campbell’s Office of Alumni Engagement and Office of Annual Giving, and formerly housed the Home Economics department, honors students, and undergraduate admissions. Without her hard work beside her husband in the early days of the university, it is difficult to know whether those offices would even exist today. Cornelia passed away at age 98 on Feb. 19, 1963. After the funeral one of her neighbors was heard to remark, “People are saying a lot of nice things about Miss Neelie, and this is one time that they aren’t exaggerating.” RACHEL DAVIS
HEIDI SHALLOW (‘09) was married on Sept. 8, in Australia, then returned to Campbell to celebrate with her friends from her time on the swim team.
DAVID (’02) and AMANDA HESSELMEYER (’02) welcomed their second child,
Arizona Floyd Hesselmeyer, into the world on June 23, 2018, joining his big sister, Reagan.
OLIVIA GREGORY KEEL (’14) and her husband David Keel welcomed their son Avery James Keel to the world July 2, 2018. He is the sweetest and happiest baby, and the couple says they're extremely thankful.
SHARE YOUR BIG NEWS
BRIDGET WAY (’15) and Tyler Way welcomed a baby girl, Audrey, on Nov.
Weddings, engagements, new bundles of joy or a reconnection with old Campbell friends ... send us your photos (good quality, high resolution images, please) to be included in our next publication. Email us at alumni@campbell.edu.
6. Audrey joins her big brother, Colton, who was born during Bridget’s last semester at Campbell.
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C A M P B E L L M AG AZ I N E 59
Photo by Bennett Scarborough
ALUMNI NOTES
Homecoming 2019 | Save the Date Save the date and join fellow Campbell University alumni at Homecoming 2019 on Oct. 19. The Office of Alumni Engagement’s fourth annual Alumni Village will be set up at the main stadium gates prior to the Homecoming football game. Join them for music, food trucks, reunion celebrations and more. There is no registration necessary. The alumni classes of 1979, 1994, 2009 and the Golden Club are invited to celebrate 40, 25, 10 and 50 years at the reunion celebration located inside Alumni Village. Stay up to date with the 2019 Homecoming schedule of events at alumni.campbell.edu/homecoming
Beaufort Mayor RHETT NEWTON ('77) spoke to Campbell University administrators, faculty and students in the spring about his town's recovery efforts following Hurricane Florence in 2018. Newton is also a doctoral student at Duke University and is an expert in field drone usage to survey and map coastal areas to study vegetation and animal life, as well as other environmental conditions, such as the impact of severe weather like hurricanes. Photo by Billy Liggett 60 SPRING 2019
LAUREN HIGGINS (’18) graduated from Campbell in May with a Bachelor of Science in Clinical Research degree. She joined Copernicus Group IRB as an operations analyst after graduation. She enjoys the high-volume, fast-paced environment at CGIRB, where the protection of human research subjects is a main priority.
BLAINE RHYNE (’14) and Emily
Rhyne are excited to welcome their son, Ryker Allen Rhyne, born September 8, 2018.
BRITTANY SURACE (’14) married
fellow alumnus Edward (Joe) Streckfus (’14) in June 2017.
INDIA HECKSTALL (’15) published
Jesus Christ and John the Baptist portrayed in the 1900 performance of the Oberammergau Passion Play.
PRESIDENTIAL TOUR | GERMANY 2020
Campbell Passport Program heading to Germany in 2020 for decennial Passion Play
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very 10 years, the German village of Oberammergau transforms into a dramatic Biblical landscape as more than 2,000 village citizens take up the roles of actors, stagehands and musicians to reenact the Passion of the Christ. The play, entirely outdoors and entirely in German, portrays the last week of Christ’s life, beginning with His ride into Jerusalem at the beginning of the week, to His resurrection a week later. Throughout the 16 acts, including the Last Supper, Christ standing before Pontius Pilate, and a dramatic resurrection scene, viewers are treated to a thorough rendition of the events. In between each act, actors come on stage and reenact famous Old Testament scenes with elaborate backdrops to help tell stories, such as Adam and Eve, Joseph and his coat of many colors and Queen Esther. While the play is based around the ultimate joyful resurrection of Jesus Christ, its earliest roots are in darkness and despair. The play began in 1634, in the height of the Black Plague that was ravaging Europe. The citizens of Oberammergau quarantined themselves in their village — no one came in and no one went out. Unfortunately, one young man, desperate to return to his village after traveling, sneaked back into town and brought the plague with him, killing 84 residents in three weeks.
The town council, searching for any way to stop the destruction, made a vow with God. They would perform a play about Christ’s life and the Passion for as long as the town existed if God would halt the plague’s destruction. The deaths stopped, and Oberammergau put on their first elaborate production in 1634, directly over the graves of citizens taken by the Black Death. Next year will be the 42nd time that the Passion Play is performed in Oberammergau. The play has only been canceled twice in four centuries; once for a ban on passion plays by the Roman Catholic church in 1770 and once for Nazi occupation in 1940.
COURTNEY CARAWAN (’15) earned
a Master of Science in Sport Management along with a Graduate Certificate in Project Management from Western Carolina University in December. She is currently working as a Recreation Specialist in Dare County. MEGAN AVERY (’16) recently
accepted a new position as associate director of housing operations and student engagement at Alderson Broaddus University, located in Philippi, West Virginia.
The Campbell Passport program, hosted by the Campbell Alumni Association, will travel to Germany, Sept. 30 through Oct. 8, 2020, and have reserved seats for alumni and friends to experience this unique opportunity. The rich history of the town and the German landscape provide an inviting space to continue learning and growing alongside other friends of the university. While in Germany, travelers can also expect to enjoy guided tours of the country’s most famous landmarks, including St. Peter's Cathedral, Ettal Monastery, and Neuschwanstein Castle as well as time to explore the country at their leisure. RACHEL DAVIS
Want to go? Do not miss your opportunity to experience Germany with Campbell University alumni and friends: alumni.campbell.edu/alumni-travel.
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her first op-ed in EdSurge in August, titled, “As the Higher Ed Opportunity Act Turns 10, Here’s How the Landscape Has Changed.” This was a huge step in her career as she continues to advocate for access to affordable and equitable higher education for all students.
santos_sfit This marks one year since I graduated cum laude as a first-generation Hispanic graduate. It has been a great year since graduating and I am developing, learning and growing. I can't wait to know what is next in my journey. #camelforlife C A M P B E L L M AG AZ I N E 61
ALUMNI NOTES THOMAS E. LAMM (’16 LAW) joined
the Ricci Law Firm, P.A., in Greenville. At Campbell, Lamm served as both the symposium editor for the Campbell Law Review and president of the Delta Theta Phi law fraternity. A former financial analyst in corporate finance, Lamm had the opportunity to work as an intern in corporate law, workers compensation and Social Security disability. MADDISON JENKINS (’17) married SHAD LOUDERMILK (’16) on Aug. 11, 2018. They
were married at Dennis Vineyards in Albemarle, surrounded by many former Campbell classmates.
DOROTHEA STEWART GILBERT ('46)
Charter member of the Wiggins Society shares her passion for Campbell, community
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stablished in 2002, the Wiggins Society was originally named in honor of Norman Adrian Wiggins, commemorating both his service as the third president of Campbell University and his 1964 publication of Wills and Administration of Estates in North Carolina for use by lawyers. The Wiggins Society currently serves as Campbell's official planned giving membership organization. Dorothea Stewart Gilbert is one of the charter members of the Wiggins Society. She has had a long relationship with Campbell as a student and a member of both faculty and staff. She has also been a longterm supporter. Gilbert recently shared some of her experiences in each of these roles.
RODRIGO ALMEIDA (’18 M.ED)
was named assistant coach for the tennis team at the University of Texas-El Paso. For the past two years, while working to earn his master’s degree, Almeida served as an assistant coach for both the men’s and women’s tennis programs at Campbell. Almeida helped the men’s team post a combined record of 37-11 in dual matches last spring as Campbell took home the 2018 Big South Conference title. MEREDITH MCSWAIN LONG (’18) and Logan Long were
married on April 14, 2018. TAYLOR STEWART FIEBELKORN (’18) married Josiah
Fiebelkorn on Oct. 7, 2018.
WHY SHE GIVES TO CAMPBELL THROUGH THE WIGGINS SOCIETY
When she was born, Gilbert’s parents established an insurance policy for the purpose of sending her to college at Campbell. There was never a question throughout her life that she would attend anywhere other than Campbell. The institution has been part of her life for as long as she can remember. She was a member of the class of 1946 and taught high school English at the former Buies Creek High School and at Garner Senior High for 12 years. She began teaching at Campbell in 1960, after being hired by Leslie Campbell and continued teaching for 32 years. She also served as curator for the Lundy-Fetterman Museum for an additional 17 years before her second retirement in 2019. “Because Campbell is my family and has given so much to me, I choose to give back,” she said. After much consideration and prayer, it seemed the best thing to do was to give her legacy gift to Campbell. In addition to helping current students, she is honoring her ancestor. WHAT SHE ENJOYS MOST ABOUT THE CAMPBELL COMMUNITY
“After two retirements, I am enjoying staying in the community to continue being part of the university family, the new students, and the staff members,” Gilberts said.
campbelledu That last-ever Friday feeling. @throughthelinzphoto 62 SPRING 2019
She does miss the contact with those she worked with on campus. Wherever she goes, Gilbert continues to see students in the community who were in her English classes. She continues to remember them, as she used classroom seating charts.
Dorothea Stewart Gilbert attended Campbell Junior College during World War II and vividly remembers a campus void of young men and the military training all students had to endure during the war.
“It is good to see former students happy and doing well. That has fulfilled my goals in an important way.” Gilbert also appreciates Campbell's nurturing environment. While on the faculty, her father struggled with Alzheimer’s Disease for 12 years. The college administration supported her during her father’s time of difficulty. MEMORIES OF WIGGINS THAT DEMONSTRATED HIS PASSION FOR CAMPBELL AND THE COMMUNITY
“I observed his total commitment to Campbell, his country (he served in the Marines), his wife Millie, and the Buies Creek Baptist Church (now Buies Creek First Baptist),” Gilbert said. She described him as a “super” man and a “super” person. He could talk with anyone on any level. She recalled being on a pastor search committee at the church over 40 years ago and reaching out to Wiggins for assistance. In spite of his busy schedule, he patiently listened and offered advice when requested. Gilbert said she has experienced the strong growth of the school and credits Wiggins for putting Campbell University on the international map in many ways. PETER DONLON
FRIENDS WE WILL MISS STANLEY McQUADE (1929-2019)
WILLIS BROWN (1929-2019)
From physician to professor, McQuade became 'heart of Campbell Law School'
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illis Donald Brown, former associate dean of advancement for the Campbell University Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law, died on May 10 at New Hanover Regional Medical Center
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eloved law professor Dr. J. Stanley McQuade died in January after an extended illness. McQuade, who retired in 2015, was an institutional icon who taught generations of Campbell University lawyers.
He was 89. Brown joined Campbell University in 1989 and served the law school for six years until 1995, according to his obituary.
He was 89. “Dr. McQuade was truly a giant in the Campbell circles,” said Britt J. Davis, vice president of Institutional Advancement. “He was absolutely beloved by so many in the law school community, as well as the broader university community. He was a fixture in Keith Hills for decades. He was a true Renaissance man, a lawyer, a physician, and a preacher. He was an amazing fellow.” A native of Northern Ireland, McQuade was born in 1929 in Bangor. He earned his law degree with top honors from The Queens University of Belfast in 1950. He received BD, BA, PhD and MD degrees from the same university, as well as a master’s degree in theology from Union Theological Seminary. He became a certified anesthesiologist, practicing in Western North Carolina before coming to Campbell University in 1978 to join the then fledgling law school. In his early years of teaching law, McQuade continued to serve formally as an anesthesiologist at a local hospital and informally served as the primary care doctor for faculty and staff, their children and students. An author of nine books and numerous journal articles, McQuade in his BePress biography said he found all of his background studies and experience helpful to his teaching at Campbell. He was a pioneer in online legal education, an early
adopter of computer-assisted learning and in developing distance-learning programs. One of his specialties was teaching lawyers how to read medical records. He conducted seminars on that topic throughout the United States, Great Britain and Ireland. He taught courses in legal philosophy, legal history, torts, products liability and medical records. “Stanley was probably the only faculty member in the history of the law school who was universally loved,” Professor Emeritus Richard Lord wrote. “Every student he taught considered him the epitome of a truly good human being, and no one ever said a disparaging word about him as a person, something that is unheard of among students, (and especially among law students). For many folks associated with Campbell, Stanley was the heart of the law school.”
“Willis Brown was a good and loyal friend to many, but especially to many of us on the School of Law faculty,” Campbell Law Professor Jim McLaughlin told the Harnett County Daily Record. “He always had a kind word for folks. Willis had a good sense of humor and was a great storyteller. He made us laugh often. Obviously, he is missed by many of us.” In 1994, he was elected to the House of Representatives for Lee, Harnett and Sampson counties. Brown served in the General Assembly of North Carolina from 1994 until 1996. He earned an associate of arts from Campbell College, a bachelor of arts from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and a doctor of jurisprudence from UNC School of Law. Following law school, he joined the U.S. Army and graduated from JAG School at the University of Virginia. He served three years in the U.S. Army JAG as a lieutenant before moving to Fayetteville where he served as senior partner in a law firm for 24 years.
ROD HIPWELL (1969-2019)
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oo cool for this world, Rodney Hipwell, died April 10 after a two-year knock-down drag-out brawl with cancer. He was 49. Born July 5, 1969 in Anaheim, California, Hipwell spent his early life in Southern California before relocating to North Carolina in 2008. He earned his undergraduate degree from California State University, Fullerton and a Masters in Health Education from East Carolina University. For the past decade, he worked at Campbell University, where he served in many roles, most recently as senior MAGAZINE.CAMPBELL.EDU
admissions counselor for the College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences. Hipwell had an uncanny ability to connect with people from different backgrounds. From bicycle shops to the Angels baseball stadium, from Red Hot Chili Peppers concerts to worship services at Memorial Baptist Church in Buies Creek, he found common ground and created community. He saw the potential in everyone and encouraged so many to pursue their dreams.
Hipwell was an unapologetic jokester, a giver of nicknames — that once bestowed could never be shaken — an accomplished, self-taught bass guitar player, an avid fan and collector of Angels baseball bobble heads, "best buddy" to everyone's kids, and could ride a mountain bike like he was born with wheels. He never let cancer dim those passions and pursued them with gusto until his last days on earth. Donations are being accepted to the Rod Hipwell Memorial IPE Endowed Scholarship at Campbell University and the Duke Cancer Institute. C A M P B E L L M AG AZ I N E 63
FROM THE VAULT
2002: U.S. Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas was the commencement speaker for Campbell University's 115th Spring Commencement ceremony (which was held in front of D. Rich for years before the construction of the convocation center). His message to the graduates: Power through the inevitable setbacks of life. "I wish I could assure you all a happy and productive life," he said. "But I can't. Each of you has a chance, but like the rest of us, you must endure the setbacks."
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C A M P B E L L M AG AZ I N E 65
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It was rare to see President Norman Adrian Wiggins in anything but a suit and tie during his nearly 40-year tenure at Campbell University. That’s why photos like this — taken outside of the small trailer he and Millie owned shortly after college — are a rare joy for those who knew his lighter side. Photo courtesy of the Wiggins estate.
