CLASSNOTES
ALUMNI PROFILE
Putting the Spin on the music scene Journalism student followed his love for music to a magazine career by David Menconi Charles Aaron came to the University of Georgia to be a sportswriter, enrolling as a journalism major in 1980. But rock ’n’ roll turned out to be his real major, and it’s a big reason why he’s the music editor at Spin magazine now. “I could not have had a better education if I’d planned it,” Aaron SPECIAL (M ’85) says. “Virtually every great CHARLES AARON underground band of the ’80s played in Athens, and there were all these people who were so into music. It was a combination of a strong journalism school, student paper and music scene, and a bizarre confluence of interesting people. The life of the mind was crackling all over campus, whether I went to class or not.” The starting point in Aaron’s evolution from covering sports to music was at the 40 Watt Club during an early 1980s show by the hardcore band Bad Brains, an experience he calls “mind-blowing, the most revelatory show ever.” He wrote a 200-word review for the Red and Black student newspaper and plunged headlong into the Athens music scene with R.E.M., the B-52s and Pylon. It didn’t take long for him to decide that music was a better fit than sports. After leaving UGA in 1985, Aaron moved to New York and found work writing and editing at Adweek, Sassy and even the Fullbright & Jaworsky law firm. He also spent a decade as a freelance writer, landing pieces in Rolling Stone, Spin, the Village Voice and Vibe. After Aaron interviewed Snoop Dogg’s estranged father for a 1993 Spin feature, the rapper was so incensed that he faxed a twoword expletive in response. “It’s the typical thing,” Aaron sighs. “You think it’s a good story—and he won’t talk to Spin for two years. So many stories I thought were good, and afterward they won’t talk to us for two years. I still think that story has the best quotes I ever got. Everybody was high and lying, making fun of the weird, out-ofhis-depth white guy.” Aaron joined Spin as an editor in 1996 and moved up to music editor in 2002, coordinating, assigning and editing every issue’s music content from the cover story down to the record reviews and still writing a fair chunk of it himself. As an alternative to Rolling Stone, Spin is the perfect place for him. “My voice fits more with Spin’s babbling incoherent non-voice, the cacophony of dysfunctional personalities,” he says. “I’ve always believed in the space that Spin occupies, between the margins and the mainstream.” —David Menconi is the music critic at The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C.
42 MARCH 2010 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE
ginia McNeill-Tompkins (MS ’92) of Fort Myers, Fla., is the director of sales for Gilroy Foods and Flavors, a division of ConAgra Foods. Gerry Lee Williams (BBA ’92) of Atlanta is now with DLA Piper. Formerly he was a corporate partner with Hunton & Williams. James Albert Franklin Jr. (BBA ’93) of Atlanta joined the management team as vice president of professional services with Omnilink Systems, a LBS monitoring solutions company. Hank Hurst (BBA ’93) of Fernandina Beach, Fla., was named as one of the 2009 “40 under 40” professionals by the Jacksonville Business Journal. He is a second-generation accountant, and he has six other Tull School of Accounting graduates in his family. Robb Hays (BBA ’94) of Cumming marked 10 years as controller for Hennessy Lexus of Gwinnett. He is also the controller for Hennessy Porsche in Roswell. Deborah Nickel Hood (AB ’94), the senior series producer of This Old House, was honored for her efforts when the show won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lifestyle Program. Mike Tuggle (ABJ ’94) lives in Tokyo, Japan, with his wife Kyung Lah and works as a freelance producer. He was part of the team that won a DuPont-Columbia award for the selection of Pope Benedict XVI in 2005 and spent over a year and a half in Baghdad covering the war in one-month stints, first as a producer and then as bureau chief.
1995-1999
Kelley Richardson Hester (ABJ ’95) is the 2009 LPGA Teaching and Club Professionals Coach of the Year. Bernard Reynolds (AB ’95) and Ellen Williams Reynolds (JD ’96) were married on Feb. 7, 2009. They formed a new Atlantabased public affairs firm, True North Public Affairs Inc. Omari Hardwick (AB ’96) is an actor in Los Angeles starring in the TNT series “Dark Blue.” Julia Purcell Brown (BBA ’97) of Dewy Rose, Ga., is one of 13 business people starting a bank in Elberton and Hartwell that has received preliminary approval from the FDIC and the state of Georgia. Angie Graham Kahrmann (BBA ’97), the chief financial officer of the Bank of Eastman and Magnolia Bankshares Inc., is on the bank’s board of directors.