Above the Rim
& All Over the Map Burrell Montz Reconnects with North Carolina Roots and Reaches Around the Globe
“But I’m not dead!” In Williamston, North Carolina, Burrell Montz stood at the grave of her maternal great-grandfather and saw her own given name as her antecedent’s family name. The pastor of Williamston’s Memorial Baptist Church (1915-1920) and an acting president of Chowan College (now University in Murfreesboro, North Carolina), William Burrell is one personal map-point for Harriot College’s new chair of the Department of Geography.
Burrell Montz, a vibrant woman with world connections, recalls that she made only a lackluster start in her undergraduate career. She preferred to shoot baskets at the gym of Mary Washington College (now the University of Mary Washington) rather than engage seriously with academics. There, a fellow basket-shooter was a “cool” geography professor whose class she took when she – a visual learner – fell in love with the visuals-dominated discipline. A second course with the “blue blazer conservative” geography professor confirmed the abiding geography fascination that would inform and shape her career. Montz’s particular “region” of geography focuses on the social and political aspects of natural disasters and hazards. Her interest is personal as well as professional: her master’s thesis at Oklahoma State University dealt with residential relocation in northeastern Pennsylvania – where her family lived. Following June 1972’s Hurricane Agnes, homes there sustained major damage, and investigating relocation, with its social and policy aspects was, indeed, very close to home.
Headstone of William Burrell, Burrell Montz’s namesake, at Woodlawn Cemetary near Williamston Memorial Baptist Church, Williamston, NC
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With her science background and her strong social science interests, Montz has continued to look at the interrelationship of weather “events,” property values (perceived and actual), and hazard area information disclosure. Her researches took her as a Fulbright Research Scholar to the University of Waikato (Hamilton, New Zealand) where she worked in the Center for Environmental and Resource Studies;