Show & Teal

Natural Wonders

When it comes to promoting awareness of coastal North Carolina’s natural treasures, Roger Shew ’76 leaves no stone unturned. Literally.

A senior geology and environmental science lecturer in the Departments of Earth and Ocean Sciences and Environmental Sciences, Shew installed boulder-size rock specimens from the mountains to the sea, including granite, petrified wood, limestone and a fossil pit beside DeLoach Hall to create a GeoGarden, and provided philanthropic support for its creation, as well. The standout specimens in the collection – including coquina, limestone, granite and pegmatite – represent the state’s three main geological regions: Blue Ridge, Piedmont and Coastal Plain.

Shew, a Brunswick County native, has spent years traversing the region’s wild areas, watching, learning and teaching others about southeastern North Carolina’s biodiversity. Now, thanks to a new documentary produced by UNCW’s Media Production team, audiences near and far can join this legendary naturalist on an exploration of “Shew’s Natural Treasures.”

The film, which premiered April 30 at Lumina Theater, follows Shew through unique natural areas, including Carolina Bays, old-growth cypress forests, longleaf pine wet savannas, salt marshes and barrier islands.

“The goals of the film are to provide knowledge of and appreciation for these natural treasures,” Shew said. “I hope anyone who sees the film will work to ensure that future generations will have these treasures to enjoy, too.”

Founded in 2009, Lookout Books – UNCW’s literary imprint – issues just one or two titles a year, but those titles are choice. Lookout’s latest book, Bigger Than Bravery: Black Resilience and Reclamation in a Time of Pandemic, tackles a tough topic: How the COVID-19 pandemic affected the Black community.

In a word, starkly: African-Americans died of COVID-19 and related causes at a rate 2.7 times that of their white counterparts.

The pandemic, moreover, hit along with a wave of controversial killings of Black people.

On February 23, 2020, Ahmaud Arbery was killed by white vigilantes while jogging in a mostly white suburb near Brunswick, GA. On March 13, 2020, Breonna Taylor was shot and killed in her Louisville, KY home during a late-night police raid. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer.

Those headlines, writes Valerie Boyd, who compiled contributions from 31 African-American essayists and poets for Bigger Than Bravery, compounded the pandemic’s cloud of paranoia and anxiety.

Some of the contributors are famous, such as Alice Walker (The Color Purple), who contributed two poems. Many are not well-known but deserve to be.

Common themes emerge.

Everyone had a survival tactic: For many, like Destiny O. Birdsong, it was food. She spent much time in the kitchen refining her skills. Pre-pandemic, Jason Reynolds ate most of his meals in restaurants. As he details in “Char,” he used his quarantine to re-discover his father’s passion for grilling meat.

For others, music provided a balm. In “The Quarantine Album: Liner Notes,” Deesha Philyaw builds a playlist of songs that carried her through. In “Joyride,” Karen Good Marable sings songs with her preschool-aged daughter as she drives through the deserted streets of Atlanta.

Many derived strength from their elders, even as quarantines kept them from elderly parents’ hospital bedsides. Boyd’s own prologue is a tribute to her father, who ran a Texaco station in metro Atlanta. When the gas crisis cost him his franchise in the 1970s, he regrouped and built a successful tire and wrecker business. Roger Boyd died alone in 2020, of pneumonia; only a dozen close relatives attended his graveside service.