East Fall 2009

fall 2009

East

ŠiStockphoto.com/Charles Taylor

The Magazine of East Carolina University

Feeling good about giving back

viewfinder

Whether it reminds you of an MC Escher drawing or a scene from Hitchcock’s Vertigo, the Science and Technology Building staircase provided the setting for this striking image.

fall 2009

East The Magazine of East Carolina University

F E AT U R E S

12

12

FEELING GOOD ABOUT GIVING BACK

By Marion Blackburn Alums and friends who give money to ECU say they’re motivated by the satisfaction of knowing they’re opening doors for a new generation.

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GHOST STORIES REFUSE TO DIE

By Spaine Stephens The tales you heard as a student of specters roaming campus live on today. Some of the old dorms and classroom buildings have heard a century’s worth of things that go bump in the night.

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life’s back nine

By Steve Tuttle Like many Southern writers, Jim Dodson made his reputation Up North with four bestseller books.

But he is spending the second half of his career back home because “that’s where I’m meant to be.”

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FOURTH AND GOLD?

By Bethany Bradsher After three straight bowl games, the Pirates tackle a 12-game schedule that could seal ECU’s reputation as a perennial football power.

D E PA R T M E N T S

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FROM OUR READERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 THE ECU REPORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

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FALL ARTS CALENDAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 FROM THE CLASSROOM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 PIRATE NATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 CLASS NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 UPON THE PAST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

fall 2009

from the editor

East The Magazine of East Carolina University

Thanks for your help

At this time a year ago, East Carolina was recording its best-ever year in fund raising, with about $37 million in new private giving to the university.

With the onset of the worst recession in decades, few expected ECU would be able to match that level of philanthropy this year, but it did. Total new dollars flowing into ECU’s three foundations reached $38 million at the end of the fiscal year on June 30, a new record. The worst of times, it seems, brings out the best in many people.

I was impressed by that accomplishment and wanted to know why it happened. I wondered why so many alumni and friends, even as their stocks tanked and their 401Ks sank, still managed to send a check to their alma mater. I asked writer Marion Blackburn to nose around and find out why.

Her report, which begins on page 12, offers a surprisingly simple answer.

It just makes people feel good when they see their money going to help a current student. Many of today’s donors struggled to pay for college themselves. They know from experience that a scholarship, even a small one, can mean the difference between staying in school—and being able to afford all the textbooks plus three squares a day—or going home.

Unlike Carolina with its Morehead-Cain scholarships and N.C. State with its Park scholarships, ECU doesn’t have a prestigious, well-endowed scholarship program bearing the name of a wealthy alumnus. It mostly relies on hundreds of smaller donors to fund its two largest scholarship programs, the East Carolina Scholars and the Access Scholarships. But philanthropy is more personal here; if you support an Access Scholarship, which you can do for only $20,000, you get to meet the student who, but for your help, probably wouldn’t be here, and hear them say thanks in very personal terms. This year there will be 77 Access scholars, and all of them have taken the opportunity to thank the people who made their scholarships possible.

The state budget crisis is placing an even greater burden on ECU’s fund raising. Reduced state appropriations, which had provided just 36 percent of the university’s budget, are being concentrated on the classroom, so there’s no state money for any academic extras. Philanthropy must make up the difference. Even before the recession it was estimated ECU would need one billion dollars in funding above its state budget in the next 15–20 years to attain the university’s goals.

That’s a lot of money, but no one here is afraid of the challenge. Not when ECU has friends and alumni like you.

Thank you.

Volume 8, Number 1 East is published four times a year by East Carolina University Division of University Advancement 2200 South Charles Blvd.

Greenville, NC 27858

h EDITOR Steve Tuttle ’09 252-328-2068 / tuttles@ecu.edu

ART DIRECTOR/DESIGNER Brent Burch PHOTOGRAPHER Forrest Croce COPY EDITOR Jimmy Rostar ’94 CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Marion Blackburn, Doug Boyd, Bethany Bradsher, Jimmy Rostar, Steve Row, Spaine Stephens CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Jay Clark, Rob Goldberg, Cliff Hollis, Mike Litwin, Glenn Sides CLASS NOTES EDITOR Leanne Elizabeth Smith ’04 ’06 ecuclassnotes@ecu.edu

ADMINISTRATION Michelle Sloan

h Assistant Vice Chancellor for University Marketing Clint Bailey

East Carolina University is a constituent institution of The University of North Carolina. It is a public doctoral/ research intensive university offering baccalaureate, master’s, specialist and doctoral degrees in the liberal arts, sciences and professional fields, including medicine. Dedicated to the achievement of excellence, responsible stewardship of the public trust and academic freedom, ECU values the contributions of a diverse community, supports shared governance and guarantees equality of opportunity. © 2009 by East Carolina University

Printed by Progress Printing with nonstate funds U.P. 09-502

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from our readers The missing summer issue suMMer 2009

We sent an e-mail to about 22,000 alumni and friends in mid-May alerting them that, because of the state budget crisis, the summer issue of East would not be printed. The e-mail directed readers to the magazine’s web site, where they could read the new issue and even download a copy. Because of technical snags, the e-mail did not reach everyone, but several who did see the note took the time to respond with their comments:

East The Magazine of easT Carolina UniversiTy

The New Hands of Medicine

How disappointing that the only communication tool the university has with its alumni can’t be sent out because of the state budget crisis.

—Tom Zielinski ’81, Dallas, Texas

In the future, save the money for other university needs because most of us can go online and read to stay informed. It’s a nice, well done publication but the magazine usually hits the recycle bin the next day after I receive it, which is a terrible waste. Use e-mails like this one to alert us that new articles, etc. have been posted and save the mailing cost.

—Gary Rabon ’76, Raleigh

I haven’t finished reading the East in pdf format yet. It is beautiful, as always, but there is some satisfaction lost by not holding the magazine in my hands. Thank you for your hard work and a wonderful job! ­­—Donna W. Roberson ’91, Robersonville I think this is a great protocol for all future editions of East. It’s a beautiful, glossy, highcolor product in hard-copy, but traditional printing is just too costly for individuals, for institutions and organizations, for corporations, for communities—and for the planet. If recipients find something they’d like to print out (at home or at any public library) then it’s a personal choice. Go ahead and embrace the abyss—print is dead.

Nevertheless, the concept of “university” [as] the repository of all knowledge expands infinitely out to cyber space.

—Stephanie Scarborough Ashworth ’73, Fuquay-Varina

Read East online at www.ecu.edu/east

Thanks for the great job that you all do in producing a beautiful magazine, which is such a grand tribute to ECU! —Anne McCutcheon ’69, Kinston

I appreciate the magazine and the effort y’all are putting forth. I see a lot of alumni/ university magazines over the last handful of years and am very happy with what you’ve done at ECU. —Patrick O’Neil ’89, Chehalis, Wash.

I’m absolutely OK with this. I actually prefer to read this type of stuff online versus on paper.

—Christian K. Robinson ’02, Winterville Isn’t it unrealistic to expect state funds to pay for the magazine’s publication?

Isn’t the magazine something that should be financially supported by dues and/or other grants/gifts, maybe even appropriate commercial advertising?

—Robert Blake ’66, Sarasota, Fla.

You have a great publication that has been well received and will be missed by many who just are never going to be able to condition themselves to read a magazine off their computer screen.

—Terry Holland, ECU director of athletics Sportsmanlike conduct

Thanks for including the photo of Jerry McGee ’65 and me from the BCS National Championship Game in the summer issue.

It was a blessing and real privilege to have had that opportunity and the feedback from our work at the game has been very positive.

As in any game you work, you hope the post game discussions are about plays from the game and not about the officiating and that was the case for the Orange Bowl.

—Darrell Harrison ’74 ’79, Greenville

How do I subscribe?

Send a check to the ECU Foundation.

How much is up to you, but we suggest a minimum of $25. Your generosity is appreciated. n 252-328-9550 n www.ecu.edu/devt n give2ecu@ecu.edu Join the Alumni Association and receive a subscription as well as other benefits and services. Minimum dues are $35. n 1-800-ECU-GRAD n www.piratealumni.com n alumni@PirateAlumni.com Join the Pirate Club and get the magazine as well as other benefits appreciated by sports fans. Minimum dues are $75. n 252-328-4540 n www.ecupirateclub.com n contact@ecupirateclub.com Contact us n 252-328-2068 n easteditor@ecu.edu n www.ecu.edu/east

Customer Service To start or stop a subscription, or to let us know about a change of address, please contact Lisa Gurkin, gurkinl@ecu.edu or 252-328-9561 Send letters to the editor to easteditor@ecu.edu or 1206 Charles Blvd.

Building 198 East Carolina University Greenville, N.C. 27858 Send class notes to ecuclassnotes@ecu.edu or use the form on page 50

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the ecU Report UNC system closer to mandating all students have health insurance An ECU student who isn’t covered under a parent’s health insurance plan can buy a $50,000 policy through the statewide university system that costs $1,294 a year.

A similar student at UNC Greensboro can buy $100,000 worth of coverage for just $780. ECU students pay 40 percent more for half as much coverage because health insurance is optional here whereas it’s a requirement at UNCG. It’s numbers like that that convinced the UNC Board of Governors to proceed with a plan to require students at all 16 campuses to have health insurance, either through a parent or through the UNC system, beginning next fall semester.

Eleven UNC campuses already have adopted the so-called “hard waiver” health insurance requirement. East Carolina, Appalachian State, N.C. State, UNC Chapel Hill and UNC Wilmington are slated to join them next fall. With such a large pool, the state universities will be able to offer students a health insurance plan with a $100,000 maximum basic benefit for as little as $549 a year, according to a report to the Board of Governors.

It’s estimated that 16 percent of the 216,000 UNC system students do not have health insurance of any kind. Officials say uninsured students often fail to get proper health care or seek free care from the campus infirmary—a service that many campuses say they simply can’t afford any longer.

Some observers worry that requiring all students to have health insurance will further drive up the cost of college. Officials said, however, that campus financial aid offices will add student health insurance to the total cost of attendance used to compute financial aid packages.

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David Brody to head trustees David S. Brody of Kinston, managing partner of Brody Associates and co-owner of Brody Brothers Dry Goods and Eastern Carolina Coca-Cola, was expected to become chair of the ECU Board of Trustees at its July meeting. He has served on the board for the past six years, the last two as vice chair under Bob Greczyn ’73 of Durham, and as a member of the board’s executive committee. Brody, 58, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania but he is not the first non-alumnus to chair the board; the last such chair was newspaper publisher Ashley Futrell of Washington in 1982.

Brody’s family is one of the largest benefactors of East Carolina, having given more than $22 million. Brody is president of the family’s philanthropic arm, the Brody Brothers Foundation. See story on page 20.

last year as chair of the Board of Visitors.

Also joining the board in July was Ken Chalk ’68 ’71 (left) of Winston-Salem, a retired BB&T executive, who was appointed by Gov. Beverly Perdue, and Brad Congleton (right), the newly elected president of the Student Government Association. Congleton, of Wendell, is a sports management major who served as SGA vice president last year.

Chalk is a former chair of the ECU Foundation board.

The Board of Governors reappointed trustees Joel Butler ’98 of Greenville and Mark Tipton ’73 of Raleigh. Butler, chair of the board’s Audit Committee, is chief external affairs officer at University Health Systems of Eastern Carolina and president of the UHS and Pitt Memorial Hospital foundations. Tipton, a member of the board’s Facilities and Resources Committee, is CEO of Whistler Investment Group.

Gov. Perdue appointed Robert V. Lucas ’74, an attorney in Selma, to a second term.

Lucas, a former SGA president, chairs the board’s University Affairs Committee.

Trustee Bruce Austin ’80 of Manteo did not seek reappoinment.

Four new trustees took office at the July meeting. Appointed by the UNC Board of Governors were Danny Scott ’84 (left), a marketing executive with Monsanto in St. Louis, and Steve Jones ’91 (right), an executive formerly with RBC Bank in Raleigh. Scott joined Monsanto this year after serving as vice president for diversity for Anheuser-Busch Companies. Jones served

Scott and Jones will fill the seats vacated

by Robert O. Hill Jr. and Margaret Ward ’61. Greczyn, who has two years left on his second term, continues on the board.

Each UNC campus is governed by a board composed of 13 members, with four appointed by the governor and eight by the Board of Governors. The SGA president at each campus automatically serves as a trustee.

Nathan (left) and friend

Three questions for…

Nathan Lean ’07, the recipient of a U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship, one of the most prestigious language scholarships in the world, spent his summer studying Arabic in Tunisia, which borders the Mediterranean in North Africa. The Goldsboro native, who spent the summer of 2006 in Morocco through a Global Understanding Scholarship from ECU, is studying both Modern Standard Arabic and the Tunisian dialect at the Centre d’Etudes Maghrébines. We caught up with him by e-mail from his “study spot,” a quaint little village overlooking the Mediterranean. At the time he was planning a weekend camping trip out in the Sahara desert.

What’s the hardest part of Arabic to learn?

What’s the most interesting thing you’ve seen or done?

How do you suppose this experience will change your life?

[It’s] being able to construct meaningful thoughts using the vocabulary and grammatical structures I have learned. It’s like having a thousand bullets and the struggle is to figure out how to get them into the gun. This program, however, has prided itself in placing students in real-life situations where you must think on your feet as you interact with native speakers.

I was walking in Sidi Bou Said near the capital city of Tunis when I stumbled into an art shop. I introduced myself to the owner, a pleasant middle-aged woman who showed me around and offered me tea, only to learn later that evening that she was the daughter of [Tunisia’s] revered former president, Habib Bourguiba.

[It will give me] the foundation of language skills necessary to interact in a meaningful manner with Arabic speakers. I hope to concentrate my academic and professional careers in the North Africa region, so the opportunity to live in Tunisia for two months and build relationships through language is valuable. I hope that this experience [will] allow me to understand the Arab world better.

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the ecu report The site on the Pee Dee River in Marion County is near Florence. The cannons are from the CSS Pee Dee, a 150-foot Maconclass gunboat launched at Mars Bluff in January 1865. However, the Pee Dee was abandoned and set ablaze three months later when commanders feared it would be taken

by Sherman’s advancing army.

News Briefs Required freshman read: A nonfiction work chronicling one man’s mission to change the world one school at a time was picked as the summer reading selection for first-year students. All freshmen were asked to read Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin before arriving on campus. The book has sold more than 2 million copies and has been on the New York Times bestseller list for two years.

Bank boosts business course: RBC Bank created a $500,000 endowment in the College of Business to make it more affordable for students to take a popular course designed to introduce business strategies. Going forward, all students taking the course will receive free subscriptions to Business Week magazine, which will become the course textbook.

About 800 students take the course each year.

Construction ahead: All 15 residence halls on campus are being upgraded this summer.

Many are getting new electronic door locks and others are being fitted with exterior wheelchair ramps. Two halls, Jones and Aycock, are being fitted with sprinklers. The air conditioning is being upgraded at Cotten

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Orientation, billing go paperless

Residence Hall. Scott Hall on College Hill is undergoing a full renovation and is closed until next fall. The renovation includes a four-story addition with 17 four-room suites. When it reopens, Scott will be the largest dorm on campus with the capacity of 613 students.

Confederate cannons recovered: ECU archaeologists, working with colleagues from the University of South Carolina, retrieved two large cannons from a sunken Confederate gunboat and discovered the once-hidden location of the Mars Bluff Naval Yard.

East Carolina usually hands armloads of printed materials to incoming freshmen during summer orientation sessions— pamphlets, brochures, catalogues and similar informational pieces. But there was hardly a single piece of paper handed out during this summer’s orientations; instead, the university handed out 5,000 computer flash drives each capable of holding 2 gigabytes of information.

Karen Smith, associate director of the First Year Center, said the switch to flash drives will save money and paper. She added that it also should please incoming students who are accustomed to the technology.

“The cool thing about the flash drive is that it will be linked to [various ECU] web sites. As the web site changes, the information available on the flash drive will change,”

t i me l i ne

YEARS AGO

First students arrive The auditorium was still under construction, so the first class of students—104 women and 19 men— sat in borrowed church pews under kerosene lamps to hear President Robert Wright welcome them to campus on Oct. 5, 1909. They gathered again a month later for Wright’s formal inauguration and heard him say: “Standing here as I do upon the threshold of a new institution, established by our State to meet a growing need of our civilization, it is not strange if I see visions and dream dreams.”

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YEARS AGO A prudish new president President Leon Meadows, succeeding the collegial and muchloved Robert Wright, gets off to a rocky start with students in the fall of 1934 when he decrees that students sit in alphabetical order at the twice-weekly chapel services so that absences can be easily spotted. Students who miss four chapel services will be expelled. In an editorial decrying the mandate, the Teco Echo asks, “Can These Drastic Measures Be Moderated?”

Meadows clashes with students again in 1940 when he insists that the majorettes wear long trousers instead of short skirts. Both times he eventually backs down.

Smith said. “In that way, hopefully, this is something the students can hold on to and use for their full four years here.”

New student orientation began June 15 and was to continue through July 21 with eight sessions for new first-year students, two sessions for transfer students and two summer school sessions. More than 4,000 incoming freshmen and transfer students had signed up for orientation.

Most of the information given to parents at orientation still will be on paper, but that, too, may change, Smith said. “This year is a transition year. We’ll see how it works, and we’ll be asking parents at orientation how they would have liked to have received information, either on a flash drive or in handouts. In the future, we might make it an option for parents to get a flash drive.”

East Carolina also shifted to electronic billing for student tuition and fees, a move designed to save money and to give students easier access to more information about their accounts. Previously, the university mailed bills to its more than 27,000 students. Officials say converting to electronic billing will save an estimated $50,000 a year.

—ECU News Bureau

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Now you can deck out your computer in purple and gold by downloading the new ECU screensaver. Besides the beautiful images from around campus, the screensaver contains RSS feeds from Pirate Sports, ECU News, ECU Features, and the Events Calendar. The screensaver is free and available for both Mac and PC. Go to www.ecu.edu/screensaver to download.

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YEARS AGO College Hill rises With little available land remaining on the Main Campus and enrollment surging past 5,000, East Carolina expands west across 10th Street to erect a 410-bed men’s dormitory on what will become known as College Hill.

When it opens in the fall of 1959, the five-story dorm— complete with a cafeteria and recreation facilities—is named for Dr. Paul Jones, a Farmville dentist and state legislator. A year later, Aycock Residence Hall opens on College Hill.

YEARS AGO Football fumbles

Coming off 7–4 and 8–3 seasons, the football team opens the 1984 campaign with high hopes that are immediately dashed by a 48-17 thrashing at the hands of Florida State.

The Pirates finish the year at 2-9, their worst record in 15 years. Coach Ed Emory (at left) is forced out but his successors also struggle. Seven years of bad luck and losing records finally end with the miraculous 1991 season when the team goes 11–1, culminating with the come-frombehind, last-minute victory over N.C. State in the Peach Bowl.

Images courtesy University Archives

Rob Goldberg, ECU Media Relations

the ecu report

Pitcher named athlete of the year

His father thanked those who came to the memorial vigil, describing his son as “…the

Cliff Hollis

wins

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Nearly 200 students, faculty and supporters came together in July to remember rising senior Landon Blackley and Andrew Kirby, a downtown restaurant manager, who were shot and killed while standing outside The Other Place, a nightclub on Fifth Street.

Police said Blackley, 21, and Kirby, 29, were innocent bystanders, victims of a drive-by shooting alledgedly committed by James Earl Richardson, 32, who has been charged with two counts of murder and was in jail under a $5 million bond.

The marchers walked from the nightclub along Fifth Street to the cupola in the center of the campus, where they were joined by 15 members of the Blackley family, including Laura Dean ’82 and Lennie Blackley ’78, Landon’s parents. The family lives in Bullock, which is in Granville County.

Redshirt sophomore pitcher Toni Paisley was named the Conference USA Female Athleteof-the-Year, the first time that an East Carolina athlete in any sport has won the award. Paisley shares the annual recognition with Tulane volleyball player Sara Radosevic.

This is the first time the conference selected co-female athletes-of-the-year.

A native of Lakewood, Calif., she will return for her junior year already ranked among ECU’s career leaders in pitching appearances, wins, strikeouts and shutouts. Nationally, she finished this season ranked seventh in wins, 11th in ERA, 16th in strikeouts, 26th in saves and 30th in shutouts (9).

She showed talent early on. As a freshman, she struck out 15 batters in an away game against UNC Wilmington. She was first or second in every conference pitching statistic that year. Injuries ended her sophomore season after just seven games. In those games she posted a 4–1 record and a 1.96 earned run average and struck out 30.

She will return for her junior season in 2010 ranked among the ECU career leaders in pitching appearances, wins, strikeouts and shutouts.

30 innings pitched 270.2 earned run average 1.22 opponents’ batting average .177 batters struck out 297 batters struck out looking 92

The Pirate Nation grieves most courageous person I know. “Our family will survive this with all of your prayers and help, and this really warms our heart,” he said. “It’s been a blessing in our life, and we love East Carolina.”

“Let’s make a commitment to make something good out of this tragedy,” Chancellor Steve Ballard said in his remarks.

Responding to the incident, Greenville police announced a plan to close the downtown bar area just off campus to vehicular traffic.

Barricades will block streets going into the area Wednesdays through Saturdays from 10 p.m. until 3 a.m. Police also increased foot patrols in the downtown area.

Annual statistical reports prepared by the campus police, which are required by law, show a decline in the number of most criminal offenses. There have been no murders or negligent homicides on campus in at least three years, the reports indicate.

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N I V E R S I T Y

Forrest Croce

P HO T OGRA P HY

Marianna Walker, associate professor of communication sciences and disorders in the College of Allied Health Sciences, was elected chair of the ECU faculty for the 2009–2010 academic year. This is the first time a faculty member from the College of Allied Health Sciences has held this position. Walker is the Barbara W. Bremer Distinguished Professor in Language Learning and Literacy Disorders, the first endowed professor in the College of Allied Health Sciences.

Pediatrics professor Tom Irons, director of ECU’s generalist physician program and associate vice chancellor for regional health services, was the featured speaker at spring graduation exercises at the Brody School of Medicine. It was the third time he has been the graduation speaker in his 28 years on the faculty, more than any other convocation speaker. Medicine faces may challenges, he said, but “whatever the problems, it’s still the best job in the world.”

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HOLLIS

Phyllis N. Horns ’69 was named vice chancellor for health sciences after serving more than two years in an interim role.

Horns has been a faculty member since 1990, when she returned to her alma mater to become dean of nursing. She also served as interim dean of the Brody School of Medicine at ECU from 2006–2008 and as interim vice chancellor for health sciences from 2001–2002.

for Residency Education. Delbridge chairs the Department of Emergency Medicine.

Derek Alderman, associate professor in the Department of Geography, was selected as the ECU recipient of the annual UNC Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching. Alderman, who has authored a book and more than 40 journal articles, is a nationally known expert on the politics of naming streets and other public places after Martin Luther King Jr. The honor comes with a commemorative bronze medal and a $7,500 cash prize. Six faculty members were selected for the 2009 Board of Governors Distinguished Professor for Teaching Awards: Michael Harris, Jeannie Golden, Mark Richardson, John Howard, Sue Steinweg and Linda Mooney. Each recipient received $1,000 from the UNC system.

Teresa Parent, a nurse in the thoracic oncology clinic at the Leo W. Jenkins Cancer Center, is the 2009 Brody School of Medicine nurse of the year. She works with patients newly diagnosed with lung cancer to help them understand their disease and treatment plans.

Theodore Delbridge was named the first Distinguished Professor in Emergency Medicine at the Brody School of Medicine and Charles Hodson, a reproductive physiologist in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, was named the first Dr. Darnell Jones Endowed Professor

Marching Pirates Band Director Christopher Knighten resigned to become director of the University of Arkansas Athletic Bands. Knighten, an Arkansas native, had led the Marching Pirates since 1993. The Razorback Marching Band was formed in 1874 and is one of the oldest collegiate bands in the nation.

Assistant Athletics Director for Medical Services Mike Hanley was named the National Athletic Trainers’ Association 2009 College/University Head Athletic Trainer of the Year for Division I. Hanley, who is in his 19th overall season on the ECU Sports Medicine staff, also earned the state-level award in 2005.

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W i tches a nd sp i es a nd br i des , o h my !

Composer Gian Carlo Menotti’s operatic look at totalitarian government and playwright Arthur Miller’s look at witch-hunting in 17th century Massachusetts highlight the fall arts calendar. The ECU Opera Theatre will present four performances of Menotti’s The Consul Oct. 22–25 at A.J. Fletcher Recital Hall. Set in an unnamed European police state, the hero struggles to take his wife, baby and mother out of the country.

The opera was Menotti’s first and earned the 1950 Pulitzer Prize in music and the 1950 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for best musical.

The Consul

The ECU Theatre’s first production of the year will be The Crucible by Arthur Miller, which on the surface is a drama about

witchcraft in Puritan Massachusetts in the late 17th century. The play, to be presented Oct. 1–6, also is seen as Miller’s dramatic interpretation of the anti-Communism hysteria that gripped the United States during the early days of the Cold War. The second production of the fall, on Nov. 19–24, will be Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, a stage adaptation of one of the most popular MGM movie musicals of the 1950s. Based on the book by Lawrence Kasha and David Landay about finding brides for woodsmen in the 1850s Oregon wilderness, the energetic production features music by Gene de Paul and Joel Hirschhorn and lyrics by Johnny Mercer, Al Kasha and Hirschhorn.

A v etts ’ m a j o r - l a be l debut ‘ g o rge o us ’ They’ve toured with the Dave Matthews Band. They’ve headlined shows from the Carolinas to California. They’ve been spotlighted by national media including Rolling Stone, National Public Radio, and American Songwriter. This year has seen a steady stream of milestones for the Avett Brothers, the genre-defying band cofounded

by Scott Avett ’99 ’00. All that recognition came ahead of what many music critics already are hailing as one of the band’s biggest career-defining moments: the fall release of their major-label debut, I and Love and You. In addition to Scott Avett, who earned degrees in communication and art at East Carolina, the band includes brother Seth, who graduated from UNC Charlotte but visited Greenville often during his brother’s ECU days. Bassist Bob Crawford and cellist Joe Kwon round out the lineup.

Scott and Seth share the band’s songwriting duties and play a host of instruments including banjo, guitar, drums and keyboards.

Both visual artists as well, the brothers create artwork for their album packaging, too; the new CD’s cover art, for instance, is an oil-oncanvas work by Scott.

On the new CD, the band worked with celebrated producer Rick Rubin, and the album will be on Rubin’s American Recordings label, a subsidiary of Columbia Records.

If a summer-released EP featuring three songs from the new album is any indication

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of the whole package, I and Love and You will prove to be the Avett Brothers’ most musically satisfying and artistically complex project to date.

The three songs now available on iTunes (including the gorgeous piano-driven title track) are more evidence of the Avetts’ superb skills as singer-songwriters.

Thoughts abound on the examined life—the celebration of emotion, the charm of love, the heartbreak of loss. Musically, the band’s sound is expanding beautifully with more multifaceted arrangements. The harmonies, banjo, acoustic guitar, and stand-up bass that anchor their previous work are still there, but the sound is now made fuller with piano, strings, drums, and electric guitar and bass.

During an interview with East for its spring 2009 cover story, Scott Avett said that while the majority of creative decisions for the new album were left to band itself, working with Rubin yielded new insight into the craft of making music. “We give [Rubin] his respect as a working artist, and he returns it to us,” Avett said then. “The more we’ve grown, the more serious we’ve become as musicians and the more serious we’ve gotten as songwriters.

The songs aren’t as light as they once were, and he gravitated toward that. He gravitated toward the bigger, serious-topic songs.”

I and Love and You was scheduled for release on Sept. 29. Visit www.theavettbrothers.com for details.

—Jimmy Rostar

The Avett Brothers’ major-label debut, I and Love and You, is set for a Sept. 29 release.

The album cover features Julianne in Vain, an oil-on-canvas painting by Scott Avett ’99 ’00.

2009 Fall Arts Calendar C h a mber mus i c The Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival begins its 10th season Sept. 10 at 7 p.m. and Sept. 11 at 8 p.m. in Fletcher Recital Hall.

Festival music director Ara Gregorian will explore piano quartets by Mozart, Turina and Brahms with guest performers Adam Neiman, piano; Hagai Shaham, violin; and Amit Peled, cello. The second program of the season Oct. 29 and 30 will present string quartets by Shostakovich, Ravel and Schubert (the famous Death and the Maiden quartet). Guest performers will be Steven Copes and Soovin Kim, violins, and Raman Ramakrishnan, cello. Gregorian will play viola during both programs. A special invitationonly donors’ program celebrating the series’ 10th anniversary is planned Sept. 27 at 3 p.m. at Fletcher, with a reception following.

Gregorian is adding a Master Teachers Residency this season supplementing master classes with special Next Generation concerts that will feature guest artists and ECU faculty members performing with current and former ECU students. In the fall, cellist Michael Kamen, director of chamber music at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, will be in residence Nov. 5–8, and the Next Generation concert is scheduled Nov. 8 at 3 p.m.

P er f o rm i ng a rts The S. Rudolph Alexander Performing Arts Series will open its new season Sept.

17 with the Otero Dance Company in a program outlining the development of tango and salsa dance styles. Also in the fall will be the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s production of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) on Nov. 4 and a recital by the silver medal winner in the Van Cliburn piano competition on Nov. 17. Guitarist Angelo Favis, specialist in music

of the Philippines, will perform in concert Oct. 10 at Fletcher Recital Hall. Favis earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and his doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music. He serves as associate professor of guitar at Illinois State University and also is known as part of the Linden Duo, which he formed with Kimberly McCoul Risinger in 1996.

F o r the f a m i ly The ECU Family Fare series will begin Oct. 23 at 7 p.m. in Wright Auditorium with a Kennedy Center Theater for Young Audiences production of Chasing George Washington—A White House Adventure.

Three middle school students on a field trip at the White House accidentally knock George Washington out of a portrait and into real life, and they have quite an adventure meeting famous White House residents from history as they try to get the president back into his portrait. The School of Theatre and Dance’s Storybook Theatre series will begin Nov. 13 at 7 p.m. in Wright Auditorium with All Aboard South America—Mighty Mysteries, Wonders and Mayhem, an original play written by ECU faculty member Patch Clark, with music by faculty member Linda Hugh. Octubafest, the School of Music’s annual celebration of the tuba and euphonium, occurs Oct. 2 and Oct. 3 at 8 p.m. and Oct. 4 and 5 at 7 p.m., all at Fletcher Recital Hall.

F a cu lty per f o rm a nces Tenor Perry Smith and soprano Louise Toppin will be joined by guest artists Mark Walters, baritone, and Martha Boger, soprano, Aug. 31 at 7 p.m. in Fletcher Recital Hall. Baritone John Kramar will be accompanied by pianist Eric Stellrecht in music by Duparc, Rorem, Barber, Duke and

Poulenc Sept. 15 at 7 p.m. in Fletcher Recital Hall. Christine Gustafson, flute, and Keiko Sekino, piano, will perform Oct. 8 at 8 p.m. in Fletcher Recital Hall.

S tudent ensemb l es The ECU Symphony Orchestra will begin the fall semester with a concert Sept. 20 at 3 p.m. in Wright Auditorium that will consist of Brahms’ Symphony No. 2 and Nielsen’s clarinet concerto, with faculty member Christopher Grymes as the soloist.

The orchestra’s second concert will be Oct. 25 at 3 p.m. in Wright Auditorium, with a program consisting of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, Liszt’s second piano concerto and Sibelius’ Romance in C. Faculty member Henry Doskey will be piano soloist. The orchestra also will present the world premier of a Symphony of Spirituals by faculty member Mark Taggart Dec. 2 at 8 p.m. in Wright Auditorium, with faculty member and soprano Louise Toppin as soloist. Among other student ensemble performances: ECU Band concert Oct. 1, 8 p.m., Wright Auditorium; ECU Chamber Singers, Oct. 3, 3 p.m. at a location to be set; ECU Percussion Ensemble Oct. 7, 8 p.m., Fletcher Recital Hall; ECU Percussion Players, Nov 18, 8 p.m., Fletcher Recital Hall; and Symphonic Band and Wind ensembles, Dec. 1, 8 p.m., Wright Auditorium.

F i ne a rts The Wellington B. Gray Gallery will play host to the 10th North Carolina Sculpture Consortium Sept. 1–25, with a keynote address planned Sept. 24 and a symposium scheduled Sept. 25. The annual exhibition of works by the School of Art and Design faculty is scheduled Oct. 16–Nov. 21, and the annual year-end holiday exhibition and sale is planned Dec. 2–5. ­—Steve Row

11

Feeling good about giving back

Alums and friends who give money to ECU say they’re motivated by knowing they’re opening doors for a new generation

Sophomore Jacob Davis benefits from a scholarship funded by Kay ’76 and Kendall Chalk ’68 ’71.

12

Cliff Hollis

By Marion Blackburn

P

hilip Gibbs thought outside the box when he decided to give money to his alma mater. Watching his daughter play basketball convinced him he could support athletics and academics, so he endowed a women’s basketball scholarship. Ken and Kay Chalk signed on to sponsor a prestigious East Carolina Scholars Award to make sure the university could attract the best and brightest students to campus. A dream of sparking new dementia research at the medical school inspired Dr. Harriet Wooten to give. She created a fund benefiting investigators researching neurodegenerative diseases as a tribute to her late husband, who died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease.

From athletics to zoology, programs across campus are benefiting from gifts like these at a time when ECU needs them the most. Alumni and friends are funding programs like the premier East Carolina Scholars Award and the new Access Scholars program, which provides scholarships to hard-working students for whom college tuition would present a financial hardship. The EC Scholarship is worth $10,000 a year for four years and it provides a one-time $5,000 stipend to study abroad. Donors are making sure professors have leadership support, researchers have funding for studies, and sports programs have scholarships for top athletes.

13

Their gifts often bear personal touches, reflecting their values or memories of loved ones, and allow them to share the fruit of successes made possible by an ECU education, they say.

“I’ve been very fortunate and blessed with a successful construction business,” says Philip Gibbs ’81, formerly of Greenville and now a part owner Hamel Builders in Maryland.

“When I was thinking about how I could give back, I really liked the idea of a scholar athlete. I have daughters, and felt a women’s sport would be appropriate.”

The spirit of giving has taken the spotlight recently during the Second Century Campaign, which had its public launch in 2008 with a goal of raising $200 million to support students, faculty and programs in every aspect of campus life—on main campus, at the medical center, in athletics and beyond. The campaign already has reached the $145 million mark, not bad considering the nation’s current economic downturn. Despite the overall gloom, Pirates are making ECU a priority.

“We may actually have benefited,” says Michael Dowdy, vice chancellor of university advancement. “People may have postponed

giving to another entity so they could support ECU.” Two recent generous gifts are a good sign that’s true. The late Geraldine Mayo Beveridge ’39, a former Carteret County teacher, left a $1.5 million bequest to be used as scholarships for high school graduates in her area. Vincent K. and Linda E. McMahon, graduates in 1969 and cofounders of World Wrestling Entertainment, made a $1.332 million gift through their McMahon Family Foundation. Their gift will be matched with state funds to create two endowed professorships and a needbased scholarship fund.

home. From the university’s earliest supporters, many of whose names are found on the campus buildings, collections or other structures that bear their names, to modern patrons like the Brody Brothers Foundation (see accompanying story), they have made sure the university continued to grow. Like all UNC campuses, ECU receives state funding but that money only accounts for about 36 percent of the university’s needs. The rest comes primarily from students’ tuition and fees, grants and contracts, clinical revenue and from private philanthropy.

The Second Century goal is really just a starting point, Dowdy says. It’s estimated the university will need one billion dollars in funding above its state budget in the next 15–20 years to attain the benchmarks set out in its strategic plan. That plan includes building and instruction at ECU, the state’s fastest growing university, and expanded classroom learning, technology, leadership, health and medical innovations, arts and culture, and support for the regional economy.

This campaign marks the first large-scale fund-raiser since Shared Visions, which raised about $54 million during the 1990s. It’s at the center of a modern wave of philanthropy from a growing sea of donors whose strong ties to ECU are often matched with ideals they’d like to set in motion. Contributing to ECU is important—and personal.

Giving has a long tradition at ECU supported by powerful loyalty to the university and its eastern North Carolina

Personal gifts, personal values

H o w we c o mp a re University

Total endowments in all foundations at ECU are valued at about $75 million, down from a high of about $95 million last summer, before the economic downturn. But there is some good news: total giving to the ECU Foundation is up about 15 percent from last year, and giving to all foundations has remained about the same. Total giving last year was about $37 million and the Division of University Advancement reports it is on track to meet or exceed that this year despite the economy.

2008 Endowment 2007 Endowment

% change

UNC Chapel Hill

$ 2.36 billion

$ 2.16 billion

9.4

University of Louisville

$ 794 million

$ 797 million

-0.4

N.C. State

$ 545 million

$ 535 million

1.8

Virginia Tech

$ 528 million

$ 525 million

0.6

Virginia Commonwealth $ 330 million

$ 329 million

0.4

Ohio University

$ 312 million

$ 243 million

28.4

UNC Greensboro

$ 184 million

$ 184 million

0.1

UNC Charlotte

$ 148 million

$ 147 million

0.4

East Carolina

$ 95 million

$ 90 million

5.1

UNC Wilmington

$ 55 million

$ 51 million

8.4

Source: National Association of College and University Business Officers

Kay ’76 and Kendall Chalk ’68 ’71 are long-time university supporters who also volunteer as leaders. Ken Chalk, a retired senior executive vice president at BB&T, formerly served as chair of the ECU Foundation and recently was appointed to the ECU Board of Trustees. Kay Chalk chairs the Women’s Roundtable, a university organization recognizing women’s contributions to the university and encouraging their ongoing commitment.

The Women’s Roundtable hopes to create a culture of giving among its members.

The Chalks were among the earliest supporters of the East Carolina Scholars Award, Kay Chalk remembers. “We heard (former Chancellor) Richard Eakin talk about the program when it was first getting started, and he made an appeal,” she says.

“He said that if we were going to compete with Carolina, we needed these scholarships.

We told him we’d endow one. When you’ve been given so much, there comes a time when you want to give something back.”

B y the numbers The Council for Aid to Education, in cooperation with the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), publishes an annual report disclosing fund-raising results for hundreds of U.S. public and private colleges and universities.

Below are East Carolina’s numbers from the 2008 report.

Nationally, alumni giving represents 27.5 percent of all money flowing into college and university foundations.

Gifts from nonalumni individuals make up another 19.4 percent. Gifts from foundations amounted to 28.8 percent of all giving, according to the report.

Number of alumni: 115,071

East Carolina Scholars are the university’s flagship merit scholarship program, attracting multitalented standouts with full tuition, some living expenses, summer research and study abroad. The university has about 60 EC Scholars, which are funded by combinations of individual gifts and endowments. There are service and leadership requirements attached to the scholarships, as well as a senior project.

Alumni solicited: 110,972 Alumni donors: 10,694 Percent of alumni donating: 9.3 percent Alumni gifts: $ 8,482,000 Foundation gifts: $ 6,114,000 Corporation gifts: $ 4,889,000 Other organizations: $ 6,429,000 Nonalumni (friends) $ 3,929,000 Parents: $ 69,000

The Chalks’ scholarship bears the name of Kay Chalk’s late father, Elmer Haskell, a hard-working retail manager for many years.

The award goes to a student in the College of Business. The current Haskell scholar is sophomore Jacob Davis of Wilson, where the Chalks lived for many years.

Total: $ 29,912,000 Market value of endowment: $ 95,041,000

Another award program attracting a lot of support is the Access Scholarship. This program began in 2007 to provide tuition for students with strong academic records who also had financial need. These hybrid scholarships serve hard-working students who might otherwise fall through the cracks when it comes to financial support.

This year, the university hosted 62 Access scholars. These awards are supported by a donor’s $5,000 gift each year. So far, 77 Access Scholars are set for the next academic year, which will include the current students, plus 15 more. Three of the Access Scholarship have been endowed and will exist in perpetuity.

©iStockphoto.com/Charles Taylor

Having an EC Scholars award is “the biggest honor you can get,” Davis says. “I was so glad to have people like the Chalks who were willing to give money for this program.”

15

Foundations for giving The university has three societies to recognize financial giving. The Order of the Cupola, with about 200 members, recognizes those with the highest levels of giving, with combined gifts of $100,000 and more. The Leo W. Jenkins Society, with about 100 members, recognizes those who have made a planned gift. A planned gift includes any kind of contribution that is made after a person’s death, and includes bequests in wills, life insurance policies, real estate or other bequest. The Chancellors’ Society recognizes annual gifts of $1,000 or more.

“We would like for all true Pirates to end up in one of these societies,” says William Clark, ’69 ’73, president of the ECU Foundation.

“Not everybody is able to give in a lifetime at the $100,000 mark, but everybody is able to leave something behind. When you’re thinking about leaving something for those you love, we hope you’ll include East Carolina.”

To accommodate these levels of giving, the university has strengthened the systems and staff overseeing contributions of all kinds. Its endowment investments are held by three foundations: the ECU Foundation (supporting academic programs); the ECU Medical & Health Sciences Foundation (for the School of Medicine, Colleges of Nursing and Allied Health Sciences, School of Dentistry and Laupus Health Sciences Library), and the ECU Educational Foundation (Pirate Club for athletics). In addition, the ECU Alumni Association helps graduates stay in touch through special events, programs and newsletters. The foundations are each managed by volunteerled boards of directors, many of whom have significant financial and investment experience. They work in concert with a professional investment advising firm that is employed by them. Staff members serve as liaisons between the university, the boards, the funds and their donors.

Academics and athletics come together in the ECU Educational Foundation, better known as the Pirate Club. In its 48 years, 16

the club has been the driver behind many projects to build or renovate several facilities on campus. It’s also the primary sponsor of athletic scholarships and academic support for team members.

Last year, the Pirate Club raised $5.4 million in unrestricted giving, a record for the club, and $8.9 million in total giving. Membership reached 13,531, another record. This giving funded scholarships for roughly 450 student athletes, as well as capital improvements and other athletic-related needs. The scholarships include Gibbs’ women’s basketball endow­ment, as well as a golf endowment and others.

Mark Wharton ’93, executive director of the Pirate Club, says athletics and academics go hand in hand at ECU. “We’re the front porch of the university,” he says. “ When you can see Pirate sports on national TV, you can’t put a price tag on the exposure and the publicity. It builds a lot of excitement among people from all over the country. The bigger our program, the more exposure the total university gets, and from there, people realize how great our university is, and people want to be a part of it.”

Wharton hopes the Second Century Campaign raises funds needed for planned expansions of the football stadium, as well as for creating Olympic sports facilities, including a softball field. “ We have a sophisticated investment approach and we are very conservative,” says Carol M. Mabe, ’71, chair of the ECU Foundation Board of Directors and member of the Board of Trustees. She retired after a career that included serving as an executive for the Russell Corporation and Russell Athletic in Atlanta. When the endowment began showing signs of the down economy, she says, “we began talking to donors, to explain where we were. A lot of times they would write a personal check, to do whatever it would take to keep scholarships going.

That’s the true spirit of philanthropy.”

Clark says this kind of partnership comes from bringing together people who have strong skills and personal commitment.

“Philanthropy is more than just raising money,” Clark says. “It means becoming involved with the university. We are helping people convert their passion for ECU into action. That can mean giving money, but it also means inviting people to give their time to be involved on campus, to join the Pirate Club and the Alumni Association, and to be an advocate for ECU.” Old friends are making new gifts, too. The Alumni Association, under the leadership of Paul J. Clifford, has intensified its outreach to alumni and they’ve responded.

The association currently has about 5,900 members, but there is a goal to increase that number to as high as 10,000. There is renewed emphasis on giving as part of greater overall engagement.

“ECU alumni are the most loyal in the country,” Clifford says. “Other schools enjoy loyalty for their athletics or other marquee programs but at ECU our alumni are passionate about all aspects of our university, from athletics to the arts to our world-class medical school. When it comes to making gifts, that loyalty generates tremendous support for scholarships and program development.”

Funding for research is also receiving new emphasis. The John and Harriet Wooten Laboratory for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases Research is a grant-producing fund to support basic sciences research at the medical school through the Medical & Health Sciences Foundation, led by president Carole Novick.

The Wooten family already funds two awards, the Henry Husted Wooten Keyboard Scholarship, honoring the Wooten’s late son, and a music therapy fellowship.

Funding medical research serves a deeply important cause for Dr. Harriet Wooten that also commemorates her husband’s accomplishments.

Dr. John Wooten was the first orthopedic surgeon east of I-95 when he opened his practice in 1954. A vivacious, intelligent man, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s several years before his death in 2004, at 80.

Funding from the Wooten Lab may help researchers attract more funding.

“That’s what John would have liked,” Harriet Wooten says. Indeed, her husband took part in the early stages of planning the gift. “He knew he wanted to do this,” she says. “This is something that will last.”

The activities of the Wooten Lab are coordinated by an advisory board that includes Bob Lust, chair, Dr. Lamont Wooten, son of Drs. John and Harriet Wooten who is also a physician, and Qun Lu, along with other scientists. Lu is an associate professor in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology. “The Wooten gift is the first private contribution to ECU devoted to studying the basic, molecular and cell biology mechanisms of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases,” he says.

“Understanding these diseases will allow the discovery of drugs to fight against Alzheimer’s, which increases each year even while we see a decrease in heart disease. I am extremely impressed by the Wooten family’s passion and commitment.”

Lamont Wooten shares a sense of satisfaction from his family’s gift to the

When alumni reconnect with ECU, we can share our treasure.

—Sabrina Bengel

chairman, east carolina alumni association board

medical school. Since the Wooten Lab has no walls, it will enable researchers to work with others at the university and beyond.

“Knowing that one person could make a difference gave us a lot of confidence to do it,” Lamont Wooten says.

“Even with a small lab, one person can come up with a great discovery.”

Sabrina Bengel, who attended ECU in the 1970s and is now completing her degree online, serves as chair of the alumni association board. She and her husband own New Bern Tours, and she operates several other businesses in that historic city.

She believes alumni can share their talent, time or other “treasure.”

“All of us have treasures to give, and they are different,” Bengel says.

“They can be financial when people have become successful in their careers and understand the responsibility of stewardship. But we also have other treasures, such as mentoring students or serving the university in a volunteer capacity. It could be hiring Pirates. When alumni reconnect with ECU, we can share our treasure.”

East

17

David Brody

18

In their footsteps

Uncle J.S. “Sammy” Brody used to say giving was a selfish thing.

The more he gave, the better he felt.

As a young man setting out in the world, these words made a powerful impression on David S. Brody. He knew his uncle meant business; whenever he concluded a successful deal, he gave to one of his many causes.

By the 1960s, ECU became one of those causes when Sammy Brody, along with brothers Leo and Morris, met with thenChancellor Leo W. Jenkins to hear more about the daring idea of opening a medical school here. They liked the idea so much they gave $200,000 toward it.

“He was an unusual person, the most generous person I knew,” David Brody said during an interview in his Kinston office. “His thought was, ‘Don’t make small gifts. If you’re going to do something, make a difference.’

I’ve adopted his philosophy of making a difference. Even a small gift, combined with other gifts, can make a difference.”

By 1977, the medical school was operating and in 1979, the Brodys made a $1.5 million gift that, when matched with state funds, built the school. It was dedicated as the Brody Medical Sciences Building in 1982.

Today, David Brody is carrying on the tradition of giving. He is co-president, along with his cousin Hyman, of the Brody Brothers Foundation, a philanthropic fund that has been a powerful agent of change at ECU. While the fund has provided broad funding for research at the medical school, the Brodys themselves continue to serve as loyal advocates for the university and region they adopted as their own. David graduated from the University of Pennsylvania.

In addition to managing the family foundation, David Brody has served for six years on the university’s Board of Trustees, often working on committees related to health care. He was vice chair of the trustees the past two years, and this summer 20

he was set to become chairman. Hyman and David are members of the Medical & Health Sciences Foundation’s investment committee, while Stacy Brody, Hyman’s wife, is a member of that foundation’s Board of Directors.

One of their most memorable gifts came in 1999, when the Brody family announced an $8 million gift to the medical school.

It provided research funding into illnesses prevalent in eastern North Carolina, including diabetes, heart disease, obesity and high blood pressure. In tribute to their gift, the medical school was renamed the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University.

It was a capstone act that followed other exceptional gifts. In 1983, another gift funded the Brody Medical Scholarship, a prestigious award aimed at attracting the best and brightest to the medical school by providing full tuition and living expenses.

The Brody scholarship enables them to graduate without the burden of debt that saddles many young doctors, allowing them to practice in rural areas where salaries are typically lower than in metropolitan areas.

It also encourages them to pursue careers in family medicine and primary care.

The Brody story began in South Carolina, where the 10 Brody brothers and their sister grew up. David Brody’s father, Reuben, opened The Capital clothing store, where he often worked nights and weekends to build a loyal client base. Several of the brothers opened Brody’s Department Store in Sumter and, in 1928, Leo Brody opened Brody’s in Kinston, which expanded to Greenville in the 1930s. Hyman Brody’s father, Morris,

arrived in Greenville after World War II to serve as the managing partner of the Greenville store. He and his wife, Lorraine, continue to live in Greenville.

Under the direction of David Brody and Hyman Brody, the stores expanded to several locations in eastern North Carolina, and became very successful. In 1998 they were sold to Proffitt’s.

When Reuben Brody passed away, Sammy, a successful businessman with Atlantic Bottling Co. and Atlantic Telecasting, became a compelling mentor to David. He warmly recalls the many conversations that opened with his uncle’s trademark greeting, “What’s up, Sport?”

“He never talked about himself,” David Brody remembers. “And when he walked into a room, you knew it. He had an aura about him.” At his funeral in 1994, “many people came up to me and said, ‘He gave me my start,’” David says.

A genuine sense of caring for one another is at the heart of the Brody family’s giving. The 11 children were each charged with looking out for the next younger sibling—as well as another sibling. “Their devotion to each other was legendary,” David says.

He cherishes the lessons of philanthropy learned from Uncle Sammy, whose rule of thumb for gifts went like this: If you can write a check without thinking about it, then you’re not giving enough money.

“He was the genesis of the foundation,” David Brody says. “It was his philosophy, and he led by example.”

—Marion Blackburn

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Ghost stories never die

By spaine stephens

photography by jay clark and mike litwin

Gretchen Brockmann saw the light was on, again, in the attic of Jarvis Hall. It was not long after the 1998 renovation of the stately old dorm when Brockmann, then the residence hall coordinator, began seeing a light shining in the attic even after she knew she had turned it off and asked maintenance workers to padlock the attic door. “I would turn it off in the afternoon and again that night it would be on, though maintenance claimed they didn’t access it,” says Brockmann, now assistant director of Campus Living. “Very odd.”

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Tales of unexplained occurrences in East Carolina’s historic halls saturate campus life.

Recollections like Brockmann’s abound, and older, more widely circulated ghost stories at ECU have withstood years of whispered repeatings and survived the tweaks that campus legends endure as they are passed on. These ghostly tales have helped preserve some of the history and tradition at a university with a storied past.

There’s the Cotten Hall ghost, which is purported to be a wandering suicide victim returning to the scene. Students and staff have reported seeing the specter of a Confederate soldier near the Mall and west campus, a part of which supposedly covers the graveyard where he was laid to rest. A shadowy apparition in Christenbury gym is said to swing from the rafters, the result of another suicide. McGinnis Theatre, according to some who frequent it, is plagued with mysterious bumps in the night.

Ghost or no ghost, the eerie tales told at ECU offer the campus community an example of how, as the backdrop for a century of history and the scene of countless pivotal moments in the lives of so many students, the past meets the present every day.

Most college campuses have ghost stories, and East Carolina is no exception. Why? For one thing, ECU is in a region that has seen its share of historic events: wars, natural disasters, civil unrest. There’s also a simpler answer: People, especially students, like to be scared.

“High school and college are the perfect ages to enjoy and perpetuate ‘wonder’ tales,” says Mason Winfield, author, researcher and nationally known paranormal historian.

“Most college kids are away from home for the first time and spreading tradition to new contacts. No wonder a few ghost stories would do the rounds at colleges.”

The residence halls near the Mall seem to be particularly fertile fodder for the tales.

Cotten and Fleming are the most mentioned when it comes to these accounts.

“In Fleming Hall, students say it has ghosts but that the ghost typically does not wander

the hallways like the Cotten ghost. Rather, the ghost moves things around in students’ rooms,” Brockmann says. “Students also say they hear odd noises that are not necessarily attributed to the building or pipes and such.

It is a rattling of drawer handles and the like.”

Not far away, McGinnis Theatre has a “mischief ghost” that rattles chains, opens doors that were once firmly closed and says “hello” to those who find themselves alone there at night, says Jeff Woodruff, managing director of most of the theater’s shows.

“Every theater is haunted to some degree, or so the legends go,” Woodruff says.

Students have reported seeing gray figures and hearing unexplained noises while alone in McGinnis. A light is left on in the theater at night for safety, and, some say, so spirits watching from the shadows can see who’s there. One story tells of a girl preparing for a starring role in a show who stayed late one night to record the piano music for her musical number. Afterwards, when she replayed the recording, a ghostly voice was singing the lyrics to her accompaniment. She later heard that another actress, years earlier, had tragically died during her stint in the same role of the same show.

“A theater is one type of community or site that gathers ‘wonder’ tradition; a college is another,” Winfield says. “When you have a theater at a college, you have a double, maybe even a triple whammy.”

Other campus buildings are equally plagued with rumors. Howard House, home to the ECU News Bureau, is said to be haunted by a noisy ghost, and visitors to Ward Guest House have vacated its rooms in favor of a hotel in the middle of the night.

Sorority and fraternity houses are home to legends of suicides, untimely deaths and disgruntled spirits. Flanagan Building and even Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium are said to be the sites of suicides and other violent events, with the spirits of the dead restlessly roaming the grounds.

Most of the stories have been passed down by students looking for fun—much like the

Pactolus Light story and tales of deaths on Halloween—but the lore also is studied in academic settings.

English professor James Kirkland teaches a folklore class during which he asks which stories his students have heard and where the tales originated.

“The details of the stories change depending on popular culture, when they’re passed on through the oral process,” Kirkland says.

“The core of these stories always stays the same. There’s a sort of intrigue with these things. With the supernatural, if there’s something you can’t explain in rational terms, then you fill the gap with what you do understand.”

ECU’s stories seem to follow the same pattern as those on other college campuses: suicide from unrequited love, buildings erected atop graveyards, ghosts of those who died tragic and untimely deaths. Others, including accounts of seeing the apparitions of children in residence halls, come from unknown beginnings. The stories also normally take place in attics, basements, empty residence halls or other locations where people often find themselves alone.

No matter the setting, the stories help give people a sense of East Carolina’s history and help them understand where they fit into that timeline. The ghost of the Confederate soldier connects the campus to a time rich in historical meaning. The idea of living and studying in buildings that may be built over graveyards makes students wonder about lives gone by. “There’s a sort of intrigue with these things,” Kirkland says.

Even as ECU’s popular ghost stories change over time, they still lend themselves to preservation of campus tradition. Whether or not there’s any truth to them and no matter where they originated, the tales, and perhaps the spirits they recall, live on. East

Editor’s note: Did you experience something spooky on campus? Tell us what you saw or heard in an e-mail to easteditor@ecu.edu.

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Life’s Back Nine Like many Southern writers before him, Jim Dodson left home to find fame and fortune Up North. But during a low point in his life he felt the tug of his roots and gave up a national audience to start a second career writing for the newspaper in Southern Pines. “To go through an open door sometimes, especially at midlife, is not easy. But I knew I wanted to come back. I knew something good would come of this.”

27

By Steve Tuttle

The author of four best-seller books, including one that became a made-for-TV movie about his life, turns sideways to scoot between desks in the cramped offices of PineStraw magazine, and then steps out onto the shady sidewalks of Southern Pines.

He’s headed for lunch at the diner around the corner and is explaining to a visitor why he gave up a comfortable and financially rewarding perch in the publishing spotlight to work for the local paper.

It was one of those offers you just can’t refuse, says Jim Dodson ’75. It came when he was in town to cover the 2005 U.S. Open golf tournament in Pinehurst; he was approached by David Woronoff, the publisher of The Pilot, and offered a job as the paper’s writer in residence. Dodson had just published his sixth book—a wellreceived biography of storied golfer Ben Hogan—and had worked for nearly 20 years as an award-winning columnist for Golf Magazine, whose circulation in the millions makes it a bible of the industry. The Pilot, recognized as one of the best small papers in the country, comes out three times a week and has a circulation around 15,000.

“He said ‘I can’t pay you what those people will but I can promise you all the North Carolina barbecue you can eat and all the sweet tea you can drink.’ What he didn’t know was that was just the deal I was looking for. I agreed to do it on a lark. I thought I would stay here two weeks and four years later, here I am.”

He’s had ample opportunities to dine on swine during some recent media tours for his eighth book, A Son of the Game, published in the spring, in which he chronicles his passage into this new stage of his life and his changing love of golf. The book is set in Pinehurst and Southern Pines amid the famous golf courses and handsome old inns and restaurants of the golfing mecca. It’s selling quite well despite its critical look at 28

Photography by glenn sides

the game of golf, at least that version of it hawked by the PGA on television.

The monthly arts and culture magazine he edits, PineStraw, also is doing well. In the year since he took the job, it’s expanded to 100 pages and won the N.C. Press Association award for best periodical.

Understandably, Dodson feels like he’s just turned to the back nine holes of his life, and birdied the 10th. There’s talk of expanding the circulation into Raleigh and Greensboro, Dodson’s hometown.

Understandably, Dodson feels like he’s had lots of risk and reward in the first nine holes of his life. But now he’s turned to the back nine, and birdied the 10th.

Yankee charm Abruptly moving home to North Carolina after 22 years in Maine wasn’t the first time Dodson had heard a different drummer and marched off in an unexpected direction. Just two years out of East Carolina, he became a feature writer for the Atlanta Journal’s Sunday magazine and during seven years there collected two major journalism awards. The one prize he valued most came when The Washington Post called with a job offer. That was his dad’s paper before moving up into in newspaper management at other papers, lastly and notably at the Greensboro Daily News.

Weighing the offers, Dodson thought of some advice his dad had given him. “I had told him I was honored with the writing awards I had won in Atlanta and the recognition that would come from working for The Washington Post, where he had worked, but I said I have come to hate most of the things I write about.

He said, ‘Well, then get a job where you can write about something you love.’”

So he passed on the Post and took the job at Yankee magazine, where he would be free to pursue his muse. He wrote only about things that interested him; among his early

stories was a profile of one of the best women amateur golfers of the 1940s and ’50s, Glenna Collett Vare, who then was in her 80s and living in obscure retirement. The inspiring story caused a minor stir. Dodson had had a love-hate relationship with golf since high school, and the story about Vare clearly demonstrated that he had a flair for writing about the sport and the people who played it. After the story ran in Yankee, it was reprinted by, among others, Golf Magazine. A job offered followed, and his byline became a fixture on the masthead of the sport’s biggest magazine. He settled into a comfortable life in a rustic home he built in Maine, married and began raising two kids.

During the 1980s and most of the ’90s, Dodson became known as one of the best golf writers around. He won the William Allen White Award for Public Affairs Journalism from the University of Kansas, plus more than a dozen awards from the Golf Writers of America and other industry organizations. He was invited to become a member of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, the birthplace of golf.

He wrote about things other than golf for Gentlemen’s Quarterly, The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Travel and Leisure, Town and Country, Reader’s Digest, Geo, Outside Magazine, and other national publications.

In 1995, when he learned that his father had cancer, the two decided to finally take the golfing trip they always had promised themselves. They played the famous courses in Scotland and England, and the Continent.

When they came home his father learned his cancer had spread. In the final months of his life, Dodson became his father’s caregiver.

The result of all that intense love and loss was Dodson’s first book, Final Rounds. which was published in 1997. It attracted favorable reviews, made several best-seller lists, and has sold more than 300,000 copies in six languages.

University Archives

In this picture of the Fountainhead staff from the 1975 Buccaneer, Jim Dodson is sitting on top of the Coke machine. Other budding writers in the photo include Tom Tozer ’76 (seated second from left), now deputy managing editor of the Charlotte Observer, and John Evans ’76 (seated at far right), sports editor of the Easton, Md., paper. Tozer recalls that everyone is laughing in the photo because his dog, Copy, had just jumped up on the table and knocked over the drinks.

Spouting off at the Fountainhead Jim Dodson’s best college memories are his two years working for the student newspaper, the Fountainhead. “I was the features editor during the Halloween riot in ’73 and then during the streaking craze that swept campus the next spring. I remember we ran a picture in the paper of [a campus police officer] who apparently had confiscated a case of beer from somebody, and he was walking by with this beer and he sort of had his tongue hanging out, and behind him you could see this girl’s naked bottom. The next day I got a call from Leo Jenkins and he was not very happy, not happy at all.”

Dodson wrote a weekly column, called Off the Cuff, that captured the laid-back attitude of the times, often spicing his prose with literary references. In one, he welcomed the arrival of spring after a long winter during which thermostats were lowered due

to the Arab oil embargo. He wrote that he knew spring had come because a friend told him she saw her hit town. “She told me that she had just stepped out of the [Rathskeller bar] at about 11:30 at night and was trying to find her way to the curb to sit down when she glanced up Fifth Street to the bus station, and there was Spring…stepping down from a Trailways Pleasure Cruiser…wearing flowing robes.

“To many, spring is a time when feelings and emotions are at long last released from the soul enchambered by the shroud of winter. Mirth and frivolity prevail, and a sort of madness descends upon us all. Indeed, even old Emily Dickinson had to concede that ‘a little madness in the Spring is wholesome even for the king.’ And since we no longer have Emily Dickinson, nor a king, that leaves us with madness.”

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Going south

2009

A Son of the Game 292 pages, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill 2006

Beautiful Madness 304 pages, Penguin Group 2004

Ben Hogan: An American Life 544 pages, Bantam Books 2003

The Road to Somewhere 304 pages, Penguin Group 2001

The Dewsweepers 320 pages, Penguin Group Arnold Palmer: a Golfer’s Life 420 pages, Random House 1998

Faithful Travelers 304 pages, Bantam Books (became the TV movie Dodson’s Journey) 1997

Final Rounds 257 pages, Bantam Books

After publication of Final Rounds, Dodson’s marriage ended and he had to decide how to tell his kids, particularly 11-year-old Maggie. He did that during a fly-fishing trip with her across America that started in the Adirondacks and ended at Yellowstone National Park. On the way Dodson discovered a great deal about fishing and about the special relationship that exists only between a father and daughter. That experience became Faithful Travelers, which, like Final Rounds, made the Times best-seller list. The book also became a made-for-TV movie on CBS called Dodson’s Journey, which still turns up occasionally on cable.

On the last night of his book tour for Faithful Travelers, Dodson got a phone call that forever sealed his reputation as an elite golf writer. Arnold Palmer phoned to ask him to write his biography. Dodson spent extended periods with Palmer and his wife and had unfettered access to Palmer’s personal life.

The result was Arnold Palmer: A Golfer’s Life, which came out in 2001. It also made the Times’ best-seller list.

Other books soon followed, including The Dewsweepers in 2001, which told of a year Dodson spent playing with an eclectic group of men who always were the first to tee off each morning at their club. It’s about friendship as much as golf.

His fly-fishing trip with daughter Maggie had been so rewarding to both that he replicated the experience with his son, Jack.

Dodson, who had hit 50 and was sensing opportunities slipping away, dropped everything to take his 10-year-old son on a golfing vacation across Europe, hitting all the high and low spots and encountering problems that only brought them closer.

The experience resulted in his 2005 book, The Road to Somewhere. His biography of Ben Hogan, one of the least-understood icons of golf, also came out that year.

As Dodson was finishing the Hogan book in the summer of 2004, which took much longer than anticipated, his life became

30

a swirl of complexities, marked by nearconstant travel and the pain of being separated from his children. About that time he had to make another painful trip, to visit an old friend who was dying—Harvey Ward, the man whom Byron Nelson called the “best player in the world” while he was winning back-to-back U.S. Amateur championships in 1956–57. Dodson thought there was a marvelous story in Ward’s storybook career went up in smoke when he was embroiled in a controversy over his amateur status. Exiled from the game, Ward, who had played golf at Carolina, eventually settled in Pinehurst and became a preeminent golf instructor. Dodson wanted to write a book about Ward but kept putting it off until it was nearly too late.

By 2005, Dodson had published six books in eight years, buried his father and mother and confronted divorce and its painful aftermath. Plus, Golf magazine had a new owner who was chopping expenses by chopping writers from the staff. He was bone tired and feeling low when he blew into Pinehurst that spring to cover the men’s open and to spend as much time as he could with Ward. That’s when he got an offer he just couldn’t refuse.

Life among the links At first, Dodson’s job as writer in residence for The Pilot—he’s believed to be the only person with such a title at any newspaper in America—was to write a Sunday column.

He wrote about people and places he came across—“anything that passed under my nose.” One day it would be about an old lady in Carthage who saves animals hit by cars.

Another time it would focus on a Korean journalist Dodson meets who tells him that reading Final Rounds changed his life.

In 2008, though, Dodson’s role at the paper expanded when he became editor of PineStraw, a monthly magazine The Pilot had started a year or so before. Dodson attracted other talented people to the magazine and filled its pages with good writing about the people and culture of the Sandhills.

“I believe this state needs a popular magazine that has a literary quality but still has a sense of mirth and fun,” Dodson declares.

He is quick to point out that two other ECU alumni have contributed to PineStraw’s success. Andie Stuart Rose ’82 is the magazine’s founder and creative director.

Robyn James ’76, who owns The Wine Cellar and Tasting Room in Southern Pines, writes a regular wine column.

Learning the writing craft

Don Sweeting ’85, executive vice president of golf and club operations for Pinehurst Resorts, is among the many locals who have warmly welcomed Dodson to the region’s close-knit golfing community. “He exudes the history, the tradition and the honor of golf. As you would expect from a high-quality writer, he is a serious person, but he’s also a fun person to be around, which you would expect from an East Carolina graduate.”

The son of a newspaper man, Jim Dodson grew up in Greensboro and gained his first recognition as a writer while still a student at Grimsely High School. Described by friends as thoughtful and reflective from an early age, he considered Episcopal seminary but enrolled instead at East Carolina. He gravitated toward the English department and the student newspaper, where he was a staff writer, features editor and columnist.

Woronoff, who owns The Pilot along with Frank Daniels Jr., Frank Daniels III and others associated with the Raleigh News & Observer before its sale to the McClatchy chain, says the paper’s reputation (the Daniels bought it from Sam Ragan, a former state poet laureate) probably contributed to Dodson’s decision to come there. “We have a saying here that we are always small town but never small time,” says Woronoff, who grew up in Greenville.

Dodson transferred to Chapel Hill his junior year but stayed there just two semesters before returning to East Carolina and the student paper. Why? “It just felt like home.

There was an intimacy at East Carolina that I just loved. It was the smartest decision I ever made.”

More on the web Watch video clips of our interview with author Jim Dodson at our web site, www.ecu.edu/east

With publication of his latest book, A Son of the Game, Dodson has had to travel frequently for book tours and media interviews. “I get so many requests to give speeches and make appearances, and I’ve adopted a policy that if it’s something in North Carolina, where I can go speak and still get back to lay my head on my own pillow at night, then I don’t charge anything. Out of state, that’s another matter.”

He wouldn’t take anything for his years in Greenville. “[The reaction I got] when I turned down the job at the The Washington Post to write for Yankee magazine was just like the people who said to me that if you go to East Carolina instead of Chapel Hill, your life will be over. They said if you want to be a journalist, Carolina is where it’s at.

And I love Carolina. But it wasn’t where I was intended to go. East Carolina was where I learned the classics, learned writing, had fantastic professors, had the opportunity to work at the student paper.”

Dodson now is married to Wendy Dodson, who works at Sandhills Community College as an assistant to the president and secretary to the board of trustees. He frequently is asked to emcee local events and to speak at various functions, such as a big Father’s Day event in Southern Pines that he says was a blast. Life is settling into comfortable rhythms.

After graduating in the fall of ’75, he went to work for the Greensboro Daily News, where he had interned for two summers during college. This promising start to his career was shattered within a year when his girlfriend, while working at a country club in Hickory, was murdered by a robber. Dodson took a leave of absence from the paper for three months and wandered around Europe,

grieving and healing. When he returned he got a call from the Atlanta paper offering a job.

He took it and threw himself into his work.

During seven years in Atlanta he perfected his writing skills and rebuilt his personal life.

From the deep emotion that comes from death experienced at close hand, and the years of writing under deadline came the skill and insight that would animate his writing career. Dodson’s greatest gift, according to Woronoff, “is this great ability to write with great sentiment but he avoids being sentimental. He has an uncanny ability to find the most extraordinary stories in the most ordinary of people.”

Dodson Dodson, who was honored by ECU as an alumni of the year in 2002, says he’s surprised by “the intensity of the reactions to [Final Rounds because] I thought this book might lack a big gut hit. It’s all about coming home. What it does have is hitting 50 and finding the ground shifting under your feet.”

He sees his children as often as he can and relishes a phone call he gets during lunch from Jack, who is doing a summer internship at a newspaper. Jack is about to go out on an interview, and dad delights in passing along a few tips.

“My spirituality has deepened,” Dodson says later. “I apply that sacredness to my writing.

I had a father who said there are no mistakes in life. There are no time limits here. And what he said is true.

“I have been lucky to have several opportunities where I have taken the road less traveled. I think it’s because I tried not to think too much about what I should do and instead of what I love to do. My dad said to try writing about something you love. That was very good advice.”

East 31

from the classroom

His rising tide of alarm 32

Geologist Stan Riggs, an expert on the impact of development on coastal shorelines, knows it’s fruitless to ‘fight a war against the ocean.’

By Doug Boyd

Even in his Graham Hall office, Stan Riggs, dressed in jeans and an outdoorsy shirt, with windblown hair and gray-blue eyes, looks like he ought to be outside. And outside is where he does his best work.

Now, outside means not only working along eastern North Carolina shorelines but also speaking at seminars and workshops across the state, educating citizens and decisionmakers about coastal geology and North Carolina’s dynamic barrier islands.

Many people “still want to fight a war against the ocean,” says Riggs, who retired from classroom teaching in 2000 but has continued with ECU as a distinguished research professor, running a large research program and working with graduate students. “If we continue down the nolimits-to-growth-and-development path that we’re on right now, we’re giving the coastal systems a death sentence.”

That path includes oceanfront and inlet development along with the push to harden

shorelines with seawalls and groins—even condominiums—to hold back the Atlantic and stabilize the beach.

Instead, Riggs urges his audiences to understand how sand moves along beaches and how human efforts to modify this natural process cause unintended consequences. He shows them where the ocean wants the islands to be, what shape it wants them to be and how the ocean will accomplish that. He also shows them what the ocean does to structures that get in its way.

“Once you understand how the coastal system works, we can adapt to that and build with these dynamics,” he says.

Riggs has spoken at about 100 events in the past year. “It’s very different interacting with the public than a college classroom, but it’s very exciting,” he says, because the audience generally recognizes the seriousness of the conflict when they see roads and portions of oceanfront or inlet developments disappear as the shoreline erodes. They want to learn

about the coast and how they can adapt to the changes and live in a sustainable way.

“The new vision for North Carolina’s coastal system must be based upon adaptation to a rising sea level and increased impact of storm events. This vision is very different from our past vision and approach to coastal development,” Riggs says.

Riggs has been studying the North Carolina coast since 1967, when he arrived at ECU to help start the geology program. He grew up in Wisconsin, investigating the geology of Green Bay and Lake Michigan. He graduated from Beloit College in Wisconsin, got his master’s degree at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and received a doctorate from the University of Montana.

During his career, Riggs has participated in more than 73 multiyear grants and contracts totaling more than $7 million, plus equipment and ship time, which is time spent aboard ship studying and mapping the seafloor. He’s published 120 peer33

from the classroom reviewed publications, 175 abstracts and 75 other reports. He’s been a major advisor or committee member on 89 master’s theses and 10 doctoral dissertations.

In 1983, Riggs received the O. Max Gardner Award, the top recognition given to faculty members within the University of North Carolina system. Riggs, believed to be the youngest recipient of the award at the time, was honored for his work on coastal and marine systems and economic minerals including phosphates and their impact on world agriculture. In 1994, Riggs was ECU’s first distinguished professor in the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Scott Snyder, a retired ECU paleon­ tologist, worked with Riggs, studying the fossils found during Riggs’ field research.

“It was always fun and exciting to be dealing with Stan,” Snyder said. “He attracts a lot of students, and they all speak highly of him.

They’re attracted by his high energy and enthusiasm.”

One such student was his final doctoral student, Peter Parham, who completed his studies in coastal resource management under Riggs this spring. Parham met the geologist in 1986 when Parham was an undergraduate at Beloit College, where Riggs delivered a rousing lecture.

“It was so powerful to me, I decided to come here for my master’s,” Parham says.

Riggs now is in the 10th and final year of a $14 million U.S. Geological Survey project in which he studied the origins and evolution of the northeastern North Carolina coastal system. That project has involved 20 senior researchers from six universities and agencies

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and more than 50 graduate students.

Even after his research and teaching career at ECU and the findings of the USGS project, Riggs says researchers are a long way from fully understanding how the coastal system works.

“We’ve just scratched the surface,” he says. “It’s a very complex system, and we aren’t going to quit learning for a long, long time to come.”

To learn more, Riggs spends a lot of time in the field. He shares that knowledge with schoolteachers through workshops such as Earth View and Sea View, projects funded by the National Science Foundation and the North Carolina Sea Grant Program, respectively. He also participates in many of the teacher workshops sponsored by the N.C. Center for the Advancement of Teaching at Ocracoke. He takes teachers to the beaches during storms, through maritime forests and salt marshes and into estuaries.

He shows them roads that once went somewhere but now dead-end in the surf.

“You can talk about it all day, but when you see how the ocean works and what a storm does to a barrier island, the teachers will never forget that,” Riggs says. “That paints an image on their minds that doesn’t go away.”

Riggs shows teachers how land, air and sea are all connected through the hydrologic cycle: how water travels from mountain streams through Piedmont rivers to the coastal estuaries and into the ocean and back again to the mountains via storms.

“If you can convince a teacher…that multiplies your impact by orders of magnitude,” he says.

The same goes for the lectures and

workshops he gives for the public, where attendees are often municipal managers and policymakers. For example, the night before he was interviewed for this story, he had spoken in Chapel Hill at a panel discussion organized by the Audubon Society, Coastal Federation, Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, Southern Environmental Law Center and the Nature Conservancy.

D.R. Bryan, a former student, Chapel Hill developer and Nature Conservancy board member, calls Riggs a “great ambassador for East Carolina.” A student in Riggs’ entry-level geology class in about 1972, Bryan was in the audience during that Chapel Hill meeting.

“I’d say he was one of the two or three professors who had the biggest impact on me,” Bryan said. He has recalled what he learned at ECU during mountain trips, when building developments in the Triassic Basin near Chapel Hill and when taking his children to the same Greenville stream where he performed lab work as a student to look for seashells and shark teeth from long ago.

Riggs is just as energetic and persuasive now as he was 37 years ago teaching about plate tectonics, Bryan says. “Enthusiasm and intellectual vigor are the two things that come to mind that didn’t change at all.”

Those qualities come across in full force.

Riggs says some in his audiences who aren’t former students wish they had been. “‘I wish I would’ve learned of this when I was younger. I would’ve been a geologist,’” Riggs says they tell him. “This earth we live on is incredible. But as a society, we don’t appreciate that much.”

B OO K S

B Y

FA C U L T Y

A diet rich in calories Most so-called experts will tell you that to really lose weight you have to eliminate the carbs. But a new diet book by an ECU professor of anatomy and cell biology contends that simply eating fewer carbohydrates isn’t the secret to slimming down.

“Years ago, the idea of how you got fat was you ate too much sugar or fat,” says Ronald W. Dudek. As a result, he says, federal dietary guidelines advanced in the 1970s promoted carbohydrates and pilloried fat.

“That’s when obesity skyrocketed,” Dudek says ruefully.

His scientific approach to weight control is based on how the body processes carbohydrates. Carbohydrates trigger insulin production, which causes fat to be stored in body tissue. Consuming fewer carbs reduces insulin, but eliminating carbohydrates from one’s diet won’t work, he says. “I’m not trying to make carbohydrates the bad guy,” Dudek said. “You have to get control of them, and the control is 40 to 60 grams a day.”

That’s a couple of ounces of potatoes, a handful of nuts, half an orange or a couple of slices of pizza, he said. However, he added, the main source of carbohydrates for many people is refined sugars in soft drinks.

Reducing carbohydrates while varying the amount each day is the key, he said.

“What your body likes is fluctuation,” Dudek said. “We have a 20-gram day of carbs. Then we go up to 40 grams, 60 grams.

Your body likes this.”

Cliff Hollis

His eight-week diet plan provides people with plenty of calories—one woman who sent him an e-mail after starting it said she had rarely eaten so much for breakfast—and a variety that keeps the body’s metabolism happy.

The diet is heavy on omelets, fish, steak, vegetables, salads with carbohydrate-free dressing and no-carb protein shakes. When hungry between meals, Dudek recommends meat or cheese snacks.

“It turns out to be very balanced,” Dudek said.

“After eight weeks, you have a sustainable meal plan where your metabolism won’t make it fail.”

Dudek, 59 and a regular exerciser, lost 22 pounds after eight weeks on the diet.

The book is Dudek’s first consumer publication.

He has also written 12 medical textbooks.

—Doug Boyd The Dudek Diet Plan Outskirts Press 156 pages, $24.95 35

Fourth and gold?

After three straight bowl games, the Pirates tackle a 12-game schedule that could seal ECU’s reputation as a perennial football power 36

37

2 0 0 9

By Bethany Bradsher A sense of destiny is in the air—and at the ticket office—as East Carolina opens the season aiming for a fourth straight bowl bid and back-to-back conference championships.

If the Pirates win the games they should and pick off a couple in their familiar role as an underdog (remember last year’s Virginia Tech game?), this season could mark the moment when ECU gets the phrase “perennial football power” permanently attached to its name.

Or not. It wouldn’t take many bad breaks for the Pirates to fall to Appalachian; just ask Michigan. Road games against an improved North Carolina team and always-tough West Virginia follow, meaning East Carolina could open conference play 0-3 wondering where its mojo went. Either way, the stands will be full of happy tailgaters. Season tickets were nearing a sell-out three months before the Sept. 5 opener against the Mountaineers, and officials announced that any single-game tickets, if available, would be offered first to Pirate Club members. Attendance is expected to shatter last season’s stadium-record 42,016 average. Ten of the 12 games this season will be televised, five nationally.

A core of returning starters on offense and defense will be led by senior quarterback Patrick Pinkney, who learned in January that he would be granted another year of eligibility after missing the 2005 season with a shoulder injury. On the sidelines, head coach Skip Holtz begins his fifth season with a 29–22 record, a sweetened contract that now pays him $1.16 million a year, and some media speculation that he’s bound for bigger things if the Pirates enjoy a great season.

The team’s success over the past three seasons has produced some unsought attention for head coach Skip Holtz. His name was bandied about last fall when Syracuse and Boston College were looking to fill vacancies. Holtz continues to insist he loves his job and doesn’t see ECU as a stepping-stone to somewhere else. “I have not called for a job, applied for a job, or looked for a job since I’ve been here,” he says.

38

F o o tb a l l

Date Opponent

S chedu l e

Kick-off

TV

“I have Sept. 5 Appalachian State Noon* MASN/WITN one. And Sep. 12 at West Virginia TBA I love the Sept. 19 at North Carolina Noon ESPN one I have.

Sept. 26 Central Florida 3:30 WITN I’ve been Oct. 3 at Marshall Noon CBS College Sports honored Oct. 10 at SMU 8:00 MASN/WITN to have the Oct. 17 Rice 3:30 MASN opportunity Oct. 27 at Memphis 8:00 ESPN to talk Nov. 5 Virginia Tech 7:30 ESPN to some Nov. 15 at Tulsa 8:15 ESPN different Nov. 21

UAB

3:30 MASN/WITN people, and Nov. 28

Southern Miss 1:00 it makes me C-USA championship TBA realize what Dec. 5 *All kick-off starts are Eastern Time a special place I have. he says. “Florida State was where we are. So The grass isn’t always greener on the other can you build it here? Well, that would be side, and if you ever make a job decision for ideal. You’d like to build it right where you money you’ll never make it twice.” are. There are a million questions circling The BCS blues Many observers cite three things in assuming that Holtz would leave East Carolina if the right offer came along. Those three things are the letters B-C-S. Conference USA, in which the Pirates play, is not a member of the Bowl Championship Series alliance, which stages the major bowls and the national championship game. Thus, East Carolina isn’t automatically eligible for those high-profile bowl games. Although he will never say never, Holtz, 45, acknowledges that an offer could come along that would be impossible to turn down. One of those might be Notre Dame, Holtz’s alma mater, where coach Charlie Weis reportedly is on thin ice.

Holtz and Athletic Director Terry Holland would like to see the Pirates move up to the BCS level. The most likely re-alignment scenario would send East Carolina to the Big East, following in the footsteps of former C-USA opponents Louisville and Cincinnati, who made the switch in 2005. But Big East officials have made unfavorable comments about further expansion.

Holtz believes that there is only one foolproof way to attract BCS attention: continue winning football games. “Twenty years ago Virginia Tech was where we are,”

about college football and its future. But I don’t think we can concern ourselves with what everybody else is doing. We’ve got to build this program to where we’ve got to make them take us. We’ve got to become the elephant in the room.”

Holtz says he wouldn’t want to coach at a school where fans aren’t passionate about their football, and he knows that the Pirate Nation’s meticulous attention to his career path is a sign of a healthy program. But as his team suits up for another season, he hopes that coaches, players and fans can set aside conjecture and focus on the six home games and six road trips that will decide how Pirate Football is viewed in 2010.

“I think we are opening some people’s eyes to what we’re doing over here,” Holtz says.

“It’s kind of like that man who achieved overnight success in about four years. We didn’t just start playing hard last year. We’ve been building this thing.”

Learning from last year Quarterback Pinkney says he can’t wait to see the heights his team can reach with an experienced senior class and the confidence that comes from toppling big programs in the past. As one of the leaders in the locker

room, Pinkney feels that he and his teammates learned from last year, when an euphoric win over then-No. 8 West Virginia was followed by three disappointing losses in the next four weeks. But the team recovered and rallied for an improbable run through its conference schedule, followed by a win over Tulsa for ECU’s first C-USA championship.

It was a significant milestone, but the subsequent trip to the Liberty Bowl ended in a 25–19 loss to Kentucky.

“We had a taste of it last year and we didn’t cope with it well, so we live and learn,” says Pinkney, who completed 223 passes for 2,675 yards last season. “I think in the same situation we’ll handle it better this year. It’s all about staying focused and being consistent.”

Pinkney is a key player in a senior class that includes four returning starters on offense and six on defense. It’s a group of young men who are eager to jump into leadership roles and to capitalize on the trials and triumphs they have experienced so far. Head strength coach Mike Golden is legendary for pushing players to their absolute limits during his summer workout regimens, but Pinkney says the seniors have been asking him for more than he was dishing out.

“We’ve got to be ready to roll,” Pinkney says.

“We can’t take days off.”

Besides Pinkney, key senior contributors on this Pirates squad are expected to be wide receiver Jamar Bryant, running back Dominique Lindsay, offensive linemen Terence Campbell and Sean Allen, free safety Van Eskridge, linebackers Jeremy Chambliss and Nick Johnson and defensive linemen Scotty Robinson, Jay Ross and C.J. Wilson.

“It’s not only senior heavy, but it’s senior heavy with guys who have lots of experience,” Holtz says.

Wilson says that he and his fellow seniors know what’s expected of them now, and they know how to prepare for big games without being intimidated. But his overriding impression of spring camp was the talent and maturity of young players like Michael Bowman, Josh Jordan and Brandon Jackson.

When Wilson fits the pieces together— experienced veterans plus strong, eager newcomers—he likes the picture that emerges.

“It was a good surprise to see some of the young guys, how they played and stepped up,” says Wilson, who was named the 2008 C-USA Defensive Most Valuable Player by Sporting News Magazine. “We’re a well-rounded team right now. It’s good at every position.”

No breathers again this year One of Holland’s hallmarks as athletic director is scheduling opponents who will either highlight the football team’s strengths or expose its flaws, and the 2009 schedule continues that trend. There isn’t a breather from early September to Thanksgiving, and three consecutive games—Memphis on Oct. 27, Virginia Tech on Nov. 5 and Tulsa on Nov. 15—will air on national television.

Because of those TV contracts, the Pirates will deviate from the traditional Saturday routine, playing those three games on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, respectively.

Instead of a normal bye week, ECU will play

games 10 days apart during that period.

“We’re going to play three games in four weeks, is what it boils down to, but we’re not doing it the traditional way,” Holtz said. “You don’t really have that week where you can kind of give your players off. The tradeoff is that it’s going to be great exposure for the school and give us an opportunity to showcase a little bit about this university.”

“It’s exciting,” Pinkney says. “It’s tough, but it’s a good position to be in. We’ve got ESPN games. This is a dream for us.”

The season opens on Sept. 5 with another milestone game of sorts—ECU’s first contest against Appalachian in 30 years. The Mountaineers own a 19–10 lead in a series that dates back to 1932 but the two programs haven’t met since the Pirates posted a 38–21 victory over ASU in Boone on Nov. 3, 1979.

But the game that has generated the most preseason buzz is already marked on Pirate fans’ calendars for Thursday, Nov. 5—the primetime ESPN matchup against Virginia Tech. That Thursday night college game, Holtz said, has become like Monday night football for NFL fans—the only game offered, and a must-watch.

“I think about it, and I try not to think about it,” says Wilson, well aware that a player should focus only on the game ahead.

“I know that it’s going to be packed.” East

Davon Drew

P i r a tes i n the P r o s These former Pirates were on NFL rosters going into training camp: Davon Drew (’08) – Baltimore Ravens Khalif Mitchell (’08) – San Francisco 49ers Stanley Bryant (’08) – Denver Broncos Chris Johnson (’07) – Tennessee Titans Aundrae Allison (’06) – Minnesota Vikings Guy Whimper (’05) – New York Giants Terrance Copper (’04) – Kansas City Chiefs Vonta Leach (’03) – Houston Texans David Garrard (’01) – Jacksonville Jaguars 39

Place your bids and swing for a Pirate’s bounty Do you know what’s in the Pirate’s bounty? Find out on Thursday, Sept. 24, at the Pirate’s Bounty Scholarship Auction presented by Tobacco Road Cellars at the Hilton Greenville. Beginning at 7 p.m., this scholarship fund-raiser is a fun evening with hors d’oeuvres, Pirate beverages, auction items, and live entertainment. Support student scholarships by bidding on fantastic vacations, one-of-a-kind ECU items, sports memorabilia, and great Pirates merchandise. For the true Pirate, a special addition to this year’s live auction is Greenville’s collection of Painted Pirate Statues, proceeds of which will benefit the Alumni Association’s scholarship program and the GreenvillePitt County Chamber of Commerce Fleming House Renovation Project. Visit PirateAlumni.com/piratesbounty to submit auction items and register.

Come out to Ironwood Golf and Country Club on Friday, Sept. 25, for the annual ECU Alumni Scholarship Classic presented by the Hilton Greenville.

This four-person super-ball tournament offers two tee times, breakfast, lunch, and the 19th Hole Reception with prizes and trophies. Players also receive one complimentary ticket to the Pirate’s Bounty Scholarship Auction the night before. Early registration is recommended. Visit PirateAlumni.com/golf for registration and sponsorship opportunities.

40

Doug Smith

East Carolina

Come home to East Carolina to enjoy the many events for alumni taking place this fall. Attend the annual Pirate’s Bounty Scholarship Auction and play a round of golf at the Alumni Scholarship Classic. Reunite with friends and former classmates during Homecoming reunions. Honor alumni achievement at the Alumni Awards Dinner and Ceremony and cheer on the Pirates in Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium. Visit PirateAlumni.com for all fall event details and registration forms or call the Alumni Center at 800-ECU-GRAD. Welcome home.

A l umn i T a i l g a te 2 0 0 9 Leave your grill at home and make Alumni Tailgate part of your family’s football tradition. Join us two-and-a-half hours prior to kickoff for food provided by ARAMARK and local restaurants, live entertainment, plenty of cold beverages, activities for children, and a chance to win great door prizes. Home Alumni Tailgate is $10 per member and $20 per non-member. Away AlumniTailgates are $25 per person. Children 12 and under are free. Sign up by calling the Alumni Center at 800-ECU-GRAD or visit PirateAlumni.com/tailgate for complete details.

H o me A l umn i T a i l g a tes Sept. 5, Appalachian State vs. ECU. Tailgate 9:30–11:30 a.m., kickoff noon, sponsored by O’Charley’s Sept. 26, UCF vs. ECU. Tailgate 1–3 p.m., kickoff 3:30 p.m., sponsored by Tripp’s Restaurant Oct. 17, Rice vs. ECU. Tailgate 1–3 p.m., kickoff 3:30 p.m., sponsored by ARAMARK Nov. 5, Va. Tech vs. ECU. Tailgate 5–7 p.m., kickoff 7:30 p.m., sponsored by ARAMARK Nov. 21, UAB vs. ECU. Tailgate 1–3 p.m., kickoff 3:30 p.m., sponsored by Chico’s and Rep Express Catering Nov. 28, Southern Miss vs. ECU. Tailgate 10:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m., kickoff 1 p.m., sponsored by Uncle Yammy’s

Aw ay A l umn i T a i l g a tes Sept. 19, ECU vs. UNC. Tailgate 9–11 a.m. (please note adjusted time), kickoff noon Oct. 10, ECU vs. SMU. Tailgate 4:30–6:30 p.m. CST, kickoff 7 p.m. CST Not a member of the Alumni Association? Show your Pirate pride and join today.

Go to PirateAlumni.com/jointoday for details about the many benefits of membership, including Alumni Tailgate, or call us at 800-ECU-GRAD, or fill out the form on page 46 and mail or fax it in.

Thank you to our Alumni Tailgate sponsors:

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H omecoming Fr i d ay, Oct o ber 1 6 10 Years After the Flood: A Reflective Conversation 10–11:30 a.m., Hendrix Theatre Former chancellor Dr. Richard Eakin will lead a discussion about the challenging period of East Carolina’s history associated with the flood of 1999. Alumni, students, faculty, staff, and community members are invited to take this opportunity to commemorate Hurricane Floyd, the character and integrity that led the university through the episode, and reflect on ECU’s perseverance during a time of disaster.

Homecoming Luncheon 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m., Mendenhall Student Center, Great Rooms University Leader in Residence Tommy Spaulding ’92 will address how East Carolina continues to excel as the leadership university, and plans to take this responsibility to the next level in the future. Parking is available in the Mendenhall parking lot.

Explore ECU Bus Tour of Campus 1–2 p.m., bus departs from Joyner Library Clock Tower ECU Ambassador tour guides will lead a bus tour for ECTC and ECC graduates and members of the Golden Alumni 50th Reunion Class of 1959.

Walking Tour of Campus 1–2 p.m., tour departs from the Joyner Library’s Sonic Gates Bring your walking shoes to enjoy a walking tour of east campus. Join members of the 25th Reunion class of 1984 for this walk down memory lane.

Walking Tour of Medical and Health Sciences Campus 2:15 p.m.–4 p.m., bus departs from the Joyner Library Clock Tower Join us for a behind-the-scenes tour of the new East Carolina Heart Institute, the Health Sciences Building, including the robotics lab, the nursing simulation labs, and Laupus Library.

Classroom Experiences The Alumni Association is proud to offer seven ECU Classroom Experiences during Homecoming. Events are free and open to the public except as noted. and Taxonomy with ECU professor Dr. Jason Bond 1–2 p.m., Mendenhall Student Center room 221

n Spiders

Roots with ECU professor Dr. Steven Cerutti 1–2 p.m., Location TBA

n Roman n Major

General William Holland ’75 returns to campus 2:15–3:15 p.m., Mendenhall Student Center room 244

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A ctivities

Corral Culinary Center Cooking Class—Desserts 2:15–3:15 p.m., Golden Corral Culinary Center, $10 per person, must pre-register by calling 800-ECUGRAD (space limited to 25)

n Golden

Workshop with Lisa Beth Robinson and ECU professor Craig Malmrose 2:15–4 p.m., Jenkins Fine Arts Center, $10 per person, must pre-register by calling 800-ECU-GRAD (space limited to 15)

n Letterpress

Pottery Workshop with ECU professor Seo Eo 2:15–4 p.m., Jenkins Fine Arts Center, $10 per person, must preregister by calling 800-ECU-GRAD (space limited to 16)

n Painted

Behind-the-Scenes with 1998 Outstanding Alumni Award recipient and Washington, D.C. insider Michael McShane ’66 3:30–4:30 p.m., Mendenhall Student Center room 244

n Politics

Alumni Awards Dinner and Ceremony presented by Tobacco Road Cellars 6 p.m., Hilton Greenville Join us in recognizing alumni and friends who have demonstrated outstanding merit and achievement, distinguished themselves as leaders for the university, and adopted East Carolina as their own. This year’s recipients are: Out s t a n d i n g A l um n i Bruce A. Biggs ’66, owner and president of Biggs Pontiac Buick Cadillac GMC Truck in Elizabeth City and former chairman of the N.C. Automobile Dealers Association Maj. Gen. William L. Holland ’75, vice commander, 9th Air Force/deputy commander, U.S. Air Forces Central Dr. Garrie W. Moore ’85, vice chancellor for student affairs, City University of New York and former ECU vice chancellor for student affairs Dr. Jerry M. Wallace ’56, president, Campbell University Distinguished Service Dale W. Engelbert ’82, vice president and treasurer of the Alumni Association’s New York Metro Alumni Chapter, former Alumni Association Board chair Julia “Jewelle” S. Rogers ’56, retired teacher, owner of Witco Company and Mid Atlantic Shows and avid ECU volunteer H o n o r a r y A l um n i Steve Keen, founder of Adam’s Auto Wash, owner of Adair LLC and Atlantic Coast Deliveries, advocate of Pirates Supporting Pirates Dr. Jesse Peel, physician for Center for Psychiatry of Atlanta, instrumental in creating a number of ECU’s diversity councils and professorships

S a turd ay, Oct o ber 1 7 Alumni Breakfast 9 a.m., Taylor-Slaughter Alumni Center Enjoy a complimentary breakfast sponsored

by ARAMARK. Stay for the Homecoming Parade and enjoy a front-row seat.

Homecoming Parade 10 a.m., Fifth Street Listen for the Marching Pirates and see floats decorated with this year’s theme, “100 Years of Treasured Traditions.”

Homecoming Alumni Tailgate 1–3 p.m., Gate 1 outside Minges Coliseum See the Alumni Tailgate information, page 39.

Special Reunions 25th Reunion for the Class of 1984 Friday, Oct. 16–Saturday, Oct. 17 It’s time for your 25th reunion! Enjoy a special celebration in your honor on Saturday, Oct. 17, including a terrific photo op. We’ll also host an ’80s Flashback Party on Saturday night for you to enjoy hors d’oeuvres and Pirate beverages as DJ Jeff Diamond plays your favorite ’80s hits and beach music for dancing.

Black Alumni Friday, Oct. 16–Saturday, Oct. 17 East Carolina’s Black Alumni Chapter will host the Black Alumni Reunion during Homecoming weekend. Plan to participate in all Homecoming activities, as well as the Floating Mix and Mingle at the City Hotel’s Bistro, the Step Show, Xtreme Bowling at AMF Lanes, the reunion photo, and the Black Alumni After Party. DJ Kandid will spin music by artists like The Temptations, Beyoncé, Run DMC, Usher, Stevie Wonder, The Supremes, Kanye West and many more with plenty of appetizers and beverages to enjoy. Don’t miss this great opportunity to reconnect with your alma mater and former classmates.

ECTC and ECC Alumni Reunion honoring the Golden Alumni Class of 1959 sponsored

by SpringShire Friday, Oct. 16–Saturday, Oct. 17 Reconnect with former classmates and share memories of days spent at ECTC and ECC. Catch up on news since your last time together— whether it was last year’s reunion or when you said farewell at graduation. End Saturday evening at the Hilton Greenville with the ECTC and ECC Dinner Dance featuring music from The Collegians.

College, School and Departmental Homecoming Activities Air Force ROTC Oct. 17, 9–11 a.m., Wright Annex, 3rd floor Open House for former cadets Contact Karen Rehm at rehmk@ecu.edu or 252-328-6597 with questions.

Homecoming Parade watching with cider and doughnuts RSVP to Gayle McLawhorn at mclawhorng@ecu.edu or 252-328-6397 by Oct. 14.

Athletic Training Oct. 17, 1–3 p.m.

Gatorade tent under the oak tree between the tennis courts and football practice facility. BYOB and lawn chairs.

Contact Sharon Rogers at rogerssh@ecu.edu or 252-737-2982.

College of Human Ecology Oct. 17, 9–11 a.m., Rivers Building north end patio Continental breakfast and parade watching Contact Peggy Novotny at novotnym@ecu.edu or 328-2882 with questions.

Brody School of Medicine Oct. 16, cocktails at 6 p.m., dinner at 7 p.m.

East Carolina Heart Institute at ECU, 115 Heart Drive, Price TBD Reunions for the classes of 1984, 1989, 1994, 1999, and 2004 hosted by BSOM Dean Paul R.G. Cunningham RSVP to Karen Cobb at cobbk@ecu.edu or 252-744-3231 by Oct. 2.

Department of Chemistry Friday, October 16 2 p.m. Homecoming lecture from pharmaceutical development representative— Science and Technology Building, C-309 5 p.m. Alumni mix and mingle— Science and Technology Building, C-309 5:30 p.m. Wall of Honor recognition ceremony for alumni donors and industry contributors of the Laboratory Equipment Capital Campaign— Science and Technology Building, C-307 6:30 p.m. Pig Pickin,’ $15.00 per person— Science and Technology Building, outside first floor portico Please RSVP by October 1 to Kellie Guyton at guytonk@ecu.edu or 252-328-9710.

BSOM Alumni Society Tailgate October 17, 12:30 p.m., Bunting Field Price TBD RSVP to Karen Cobb at cobbk@ecu.edu or 252-744-3231 by Oct. 2.

College of Allied Health Sciences Oct. 16, 5:30–8 p.m., home of Stas ’79 and Brenda ’79 Humienny, 5223 Trent Woods Drive, New Bern. $12 per person RSVP to the Alumni Center at 800-ECU-GRAD by Oct. 14.

College of Business Oct. 17, 9:30–11:30 a.m., tent between Jenkins Fine Arts Building and Fifth Street, across from Chancellor’s residence Coffee, continental breakfast and Pirate hospitality Contact Anne Bogey at bogeya@ecu.edu or 252-328-4396 with questions.

College of Education Oct. 17, 9 a.m., Speight Building front porch

Department of Mathematics Oct. 17, 9–9:30 a.m., Flanagan Building, 3rd floor Mathematics Educator’s Homecoming Social Contact Rose Sinicrope at sinicroper@ecu.edu or Lyndsay Burns at lvb0324@ecu.edu with questions.

School of Music Oct. 16, 7 p.m., A.J. Fletcher Recital Hall 2nd Annual Alumni Reunion and Recital with Reception Contact Mary Jane Gaddis at gaddism@ecu. edu or 252-328-1268 to register.

On-Campus Homecoming Discounts Dowdy Student Stores will host an open house on Saturday, Oct. 17, from 9 a.m.–noon to welcome back alumni and friends. Visit the Wright Building store for Homecoming specials and enter a drawing for a chance to win a $50 gift card!

Alumni who show their ECU class ring will get a special discount on regular price gifts and apparel. Take 1 percent off the regular price for every year since you graduated (maximum 30 percent discount).

Workout at the Student Recreation Center Mention that you are an alumni when you stop by the Customer Service desk and you and up to two guests will be admitted free.

For more information please contact Dena Olo at olod@ecu.edu or 252-328-6387.

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pirate nation He’s finally leaving high school Charlie Adams ’59 ’62 points one long finger toward a knot of people gathered around Carolina women’s soccer coach Anson Dorrance, who’s eating lunch at a nearby table in the Chapel Hill restaurant, and slowly shakes his head. “Look at that; the poor fellow can’t eat his lunch in peace for all the people wanting to shake his hand.

Dean Smith was like that. Dean gave up eating in restaurants altogether because so many people would stop at his table to say hello. I’m glad I’m not like that.”

Adams is about to say more when the first of an eventual stream of well-wishers stops at his table to slap his back and shake his hand.

He greets each visitor with warmth and patience, his lunch slowly getting cold. Even Dorrance comes over to pay his respects.

Almost everyone associated with high school and college sports in North Carolina knows Adams, who is retiring after 42 years with the N.C. High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA), the last 25 as executive director. The association, based in Chapel Hill, oversees athletics at 381 public high schools in the state and certifies the eligibility of more than 150,000 athletes annually. A search committee is expected to recommend his replacement by Nov. 1.

“My wife Sue and I feel that this is a good time to retire, and in closing out our career, we feel extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to serve the association all these years,’’ says Adams, 72, who remains as tall and slender as he was as a guard on the varsity basketball teams of the late 1950s.

He announced his retirement after the sudden death of a son last fall.

“Charlie is one of a kind, a consummate professional,” says Dr. Bill Harrison ’77 ’80, chairman and CEO of North Carolina public schools and NCHSAA board chair.

“The NCHSAA is what it is, a first-class 44

organization and the best association in the nation, because of Charlie Adams. We deeply appreciate the years he has devoted to the students of this state.’’

The NCHSAA is credited with vastly improving the safety of high school sports by mandating minimum standards for all playing fields. Post-season play in all sports is supervised and sanctioned by the NCHSAA, with tournaments held at college venues—something many other states are copying. NCHSAA was the first state organization in the country to partner with the business community for tournament sponsorships, another of Adams’ innovations that other states have copied.

The NCHSAA was the first in the nation to create an endowment for high school sports, funded by a small surcharge on tickets to high school games. The endowment now exceeds $12 million and regularly doles out grants, often to smaller schools struggling to maintain their programs amid shrinking local budgets.

“We have tried to make high school sports a memory forever for our student athletes,” says Adams, who lives in his native Cary.

“Our role has been to get them involved, offer them participation, competition and carry over values. We have stressed academics, citizenship and sportsmanship.” A scholarathlete program he started in 1986 has grown to include about 30,000 students a year.

Adams, who has been inducted into several sports halls of fame, including East Carolina’s, says the biggest change he’s seen in high school athletics is the growth of girls’ sports. The NCHSAA was the first in the nation to put a female in charge of girls’ sports, and the first to hire an African-American woman as director of student services. “I can’t count all the girls who’ve played for Carolina that came out of the programs fostered by Charlie and his people,” Dorrance says.

His personal focus has been on changing NCHSAA from a regulatory body to a service organization. “We were the people that declared schools ineligible for the playoffs or made them forfeit games. But what we really were, and what we became known for, was being a service agency.

Everything we do should be helping the boys and girls of North Carolina.”

A basketball standout who led Cary High School to the state championship, Adams was recruited by Frank McGuire to play

for Carolina but he transferred to East Carolina after one year. Adams was a deadeye shooting guard who still relishes the long jumper he unleashed at the buzzer in 1959 to beat a fine Western Carolina team.

His years in Greenville were “probably the happiest time of my life. We had excellent professors, a beautiful campus and very friendly students. I have so many great memories that it is difficult to settle on just a few. I still stay in touch with a lot of my old teammates.”

—Steve Tuttle Association aims for 10,000 Three years after it converted to a dues-based structure, the ECU Alumni Association has grown to 5,800 members and is aiming for 10,000 within the coming year. Association officials said the revenue from membership dues has allowed it to maintain and expand its services during an era of tight budgets. The additional revenue supports publication of the quarterly Servire magazine, which goes only to association members. The dues are $35 for one year for one person or $50 for a couple.

A predominately self-funded organization, the association provides a variety of programs and services for alumni and students, from the classic tailgating parties to helping alumni find jobs through its Career Center. Fundraising and other activities by the association, which was founded in 1912, also generates more than $20,000 in scholarship money each year.

Membership is not restricted to alumni.

“We joined the alumni association because of our love for ECU and our belief in the tremendous promise that our newly adopted alma mater holds as a leader among universities. We are confident that East Carolina’s promise can be realized and magnified with the financial support of alumni and friends,” said former

Chancellor Dick Eakin, recipient of the 2008 Honorary Alumni Award. Eakin and his wife both are life members of the Alumni Association. A life membership is $750 per person or $1,000 per couple. A Centennial Pirate membership is $5,000 per couple.

Installment plans for those larger amounts are available.

Join online at PirateAlumni.com/jointoday, by calling 800-ECU-GRAD, or mailing or faxing the form on the next page.

Get connected in your area As the East Carolina Alumni Association strives to inform, involve and serve members of the ECU family throughout their lifelong relationship with the university, we take great pride in providing events and activities for our alumni and friends to stay connected with the university and with each other. Take advantage of the following networking and informational opportunities to gather with fellow Pirates and hear the latest news from ECU. ECU Ambassadors reunion Find out what’s been going on with those you served with as an Ambassador. This reunion will include the Pirate’s Bounty Scholarship Auction, the Alumni Scholarship Classic, a get-together at Ham’s Restaurant, and a special Ambassador event on Saturday, Sept.

26. Visit PirateAlumni.com/ECUAR for further information and registration details.

Networking breakfasts Join alumni and friends to start the day off right at one of our upcoming networking breakfasts, which are a great way to stay connected with ECU and make the business and social connections that are so important in today’s economy. Breakfasts are $5 for Alumni Association members and $10 for non-members.

Raleigh: Wednesday, Sept. 30, The Irregardless Café & Catering, 7:30–9 a.m.

Charlotte: Thursday, Oct. 8, Byron’s South End, 7:30–9 a.m.

Goldsboro: Thursday, Oct. 29, Plum Tree Gardens, 7:30–9 a.m.

Greensboro: Thursday, Nov. 12, Kress Terrace (Venue Only), 7:30–9 a.m.

Deans on Deck East Carolina University is privileged to have many experts on faculty and staff. The Deans on Deck series fosters communication and knowledge sharing between the university’s deans and alumni and friends. The cost is $10 for Alumni Association members and $15 each for non-members, which includes non-alcoholic beverages and heavy hors d’oeuvres. A cash bar will be available.

Visit PirateAlumni.com/deansondeck for complete details and to register online.

Winston-Salem: Wednesday, Sept. 30, The Piedmont Club, 6–8 p.m., with College of Business Dean Rick Niswander and Brody School of Medicine Dean Paul Cunningham Cary: Wednesday, Oct. 7, Bistro 64, 6–8 p.m., with College of Fine Arts and Communication Dean Jeffery Elwell and College of Education Dean Linda Patriarca New Bern: Thursday, Oct. 29, The Chelsea, 6–8 p.m. with Harriot College of Arts and Sciences Dean Alan White and College of Technology and Computer Science Dean David White Charlotte: Wednesday, Nov. 11, Upstream, 6–8 p.m. with Brody School of Medicine Dean Paul Cunningham, and College of Health and Human Performance Dean Glen Gilbert Richmond: Wednesday, Nov. 18, The Berkeley Hotel, 6–8 p.m., with College of Business Dean Rick Niswander, and College of Health and Human Performance Dean Glen Gilbert 45

JOIN TODAY! Join online at PirateAlumni.com/jointoday MeMbership Types

Annual Memberships: Pride Individual $35

Joint* $50

Lifetime Memberships:

Join today and help us reach our goal of

Forever Pirate Individual: Joint*:

10 000 in 2010

Full: $750 Full: $1,000

Installments: $200 semiannually for 2 years Installments: $275 semiannually for 2 years

Senior Forever Pirate (60 or older) Individual: Joint*:

Full: $500 Full: $750

Installments: $137.50 semiannually for 2 years Installments: $200 semiannually for 2 years

Centennial Memberships:

Centennial Pirate (paid in full) $5,000 Centennial Pirate (installment) 5 annual payments of $1,000

*couple living at the same address

Member ________________________________ Birthdate ____________ Class Year ______________ mm/dd/yyyy

Address __________________________________

currently

City/State/Zip _____________________________

members

Home Phone _______________________________

6,000

E-mail ___________________________________ Joint Member ______________________________ Birthdate ____________ Class Year ______________ mm/dd/yyyy

E-mail ___________________________________ payMenT OpTiOns Check enclosed payable to East Carolina Alumni Association Charge to: American Express MasterCard Visa Number ____________________________________________

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Signature ___________________________________________ Please fill out and fax to 252-328-4369 or mail to: Taylor-Slaughter Alumni Center • 901 East Fifth Street East Carolina University • Greenville, NC 27858-4353

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Mail or fax the form to the right, call 800-eCU-GraD, or visit piratealumni.com/jointoday.

Expiration date ________________

EAST

CLASS NOTES 2009 Kristen Dalton of Wilmington, Miss North Carolina USA, was crowned Miss USA 2009 in April and will compete in the Miss Universe contest.

Brittany Forrest and Joey Reddington of Greenville were married May 16 in Kinston. She majored in elementary education, and he is studying computer science at ECU. Among her bridesmaids were Ashley Smith Allen ’06 and Erica Parker Sanderson ’03.

2008 Amanda Janowski of Greenville was named the 2009 Most Promising Female Entrepreneur by the Business and Professional Women’s Network. Through Life Inc. Ministries, she leads “Next Generation Husband” conferences for mothers raising sons.

2007 Jordan Vainright and her mother Martha East “Marty” Vainright ’81 opened Coastal Fog, a home decor booth at Artisans in Greenville. In 2007, Jordan founded Signature Jordan Vainright LLC. Marty has directed recreation therapy departments in geriatric facilities and taught in autistic settings.

2006 Susan Elizabeth Glenn ’06 ’07 of Durham and Jarrod S. Dennis of Raleigh were married Dec. 21 in Durham, and they live in Raleigh. She works for Durham Public Schools.

2005 Randy Cahoon, a New Bern native, is Oriental’s new town manager. He was a planner in Wilson and Pitt counties before working for the last three years as Gates County’s planning director. Luke Hyatt of Wadesboro is the new head football coach at Anson High School, where he played quarterback and wide receiver. He was an assistant coach, health and P.E. teacher at Anson High and Peachland-Polkton Elementary schools. In 2005, he was named Anson County Schools teacher of the year, and for 2006-2007, was named N.C. Southwest Regional Teacher of the Year.

2004 Joshua B. Howard and Lawrence E. Babits, director of ECU’s maritime studies program, published Long, Obstinate, and Bloody: The Battle of Guilford Courthouse. Howard is a research historian at the N.C. Office of Archives and History. They previously published Fortitude and Forbearance: The North Carolina Continental Line in the Revolutionary War, 1775-1783.

Christina Leigh Roebuck and Andrew Daniel Mayse were married April 25 in Cornelius and live in Huntersville. She works in the Belk Corporate Office in Charlotte. Leanne E. Smith ’04 ’06

A lumni S p o tlight Capping a 33-year career with the U.S. Department of Energy, George Blanchard ’68 retired as deputy assistant manager for Security and Emergency Management with the U.S. Department of Energy’s facilities at Oak Ridge, Tenn. For the last six years he provided security support to all DOE national laboratories and facilities served by the Oak Ridge Office. An expert on safety and protection of highlysensitive government sites, Blanchard was honored for his role in writing the DOE security policy in the late 1980s. He also helped craft the first site security plan for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. In 1994 he was the DOE federal security representative for the initiative that led to the removal of nuclear material from Kazakhstan.

Entering the Army after college, Blanchard graduated from the Engineer Officer Candidate School and was commissioned in military intelligence. A native of Edenton, he then worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency before joining DOE in 1976. He joined the Oak Ridge office in 1983 as a security support specialist to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and other high-security facilities.

Blanchard lives in Seymour, Tenn., with his wife of 33 years, Pam, who teaches special education at Carter Elementary School in Knoxville. They have two sons, Andrew and Nathan, and a daughter-in-law, Jennifer. In his retirement, Blanchard plans to pursue volunteer activities and historical research.

Michael Smith ‘06 of Yorktown, Va., graduated in May from William & Mary School of Law. An ardent Pirate fan, Smith is an active member of the Southeast Virginia Pirate Club and ECU Alumni Association.

One of his law school classmates was Heather Willis ’05.

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class notes A lumni S p o tlight Paul K. Stevens ’83 was named chief ranger for the national parks on the Outer Banks, overseeing a staff of 66 and a budget of $1.7 million.

Shortly before the promotion, he received the 2009 NPS Southeast Region Harry Yount Park Ranger Award. The peer-nominated honor, named after the first known national park ranger, recognizes excellence in the field of rangering.

Stevens will serve as the chief of the ranger activities division and manage the law enforcement, emergency services, aviation, fire, lifeguard and fee collection programs. The Outer Banks Group consists of Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Fort Raleigh National Historic Site and the Wright Brothers National Memorial. Stevens, who began work as an Outer Banks parks ranger in 1989, is the son of Dr. David Stevens, the former attorney for ECU.

George Koonce ’99 ’06, formerly senior associate athletic director at Marquette University, was named athletic director at the University of WisconsinMilwaukee.

UW-M has 29,000 students and fields seven men’s and eight women’s teams in the NCAA Division I Horizon League, where it dominates in basketball. The Panthers made the Sweet 16 in 2005.

Originally from New Bern and a standout linebacker at ECU in 1989 and 1990 after transferring from Chowan College, Koonce starred for eight seasons with the Green Bay Packers and helped lead the team to a Super Bowl victory in 1997; he later joined the team’s front office as director of player development. Koonce returned to ECU in 2004 as a special assistant athletic director, working with promotions and marketing. During that two-year stint here he earned a master’s degree in sport management. He plans to continue working on his doctorate at Marquette.

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is in the MFA in Creative Nonfiction program at Goucher College in Baltimore, Md. 2003 Damane Duckett is a new offensive lineman with the New England Patriots after playing for the Carolina Panthers, New York Giants, and San Francisco 49ers. Lauren E. Huber and Ryan Priem of Baltimore, Md., were married March 21 on the beach at Grand Bahama Island. She is a cartographer for the National Aeronautical Charting Office. She and four of her bridesmaids are Chi Omega sisters. Will Jackson, who was a lead singer in a heavy-metal band, moved back to Mount Airy, opened a skate shop called Canvas because he enjoys painting, and with seven others, created a nonprofit, Skate Mount Airy, to raise funds to convert a basketball court into a skate venue. Erin E. Norton is a dance educator at New Town High School in Owings Mills, Md. Nate Wood ’03 ’04 of Fredericksburg, Va., was promoted to vice president at BB&T, which he joined in 2005 as a business services officer in the commercial department.

2002 Tara Pierce, a licensed marriage and family therapist, is the new director of Rockingham County Youth Services. She was a clinical supervisor there.

2001 Dustin Hall ’01 ’03 co-founded Hall & Burns Wealth Management in Cary, an affiliate of Bostonbased LPL Financial. He was employed at ING Financial. Scott ’01 and Amy ’00 Buchholz Hall of Raleigh had a son, Holden Scott Hall, on Sept. 20, 2008. He is the grandson of John ’74 and Collen ’73 Bunch Buchholz.

2000 Jay Czap is the new principal of Clearview Elementary School in Hanover, Penn. He taught history, and in 2005, became assistant principal of Hanover Middle School.

1999 Alico Dunk is interim coach of the ECSU women’s basketball team. Originally of Ayden, he played for the University of Tennessee for one season before transferring and becoming captain of ECU’s team his junior and senior years, and was assistant coach of ECSU’s men’s basketball team for six seasons.

1997 Samuel Thomas Eason ’97 ’99 and Marybeth Petteway Eason ’00 ’01 had twin daughters, Mary Roberts and Elizabeth Hayes, on Jan. 14. Jeremy Kenneth McDonald and Virginia Glenn Startsman were married May 9 and live in Wilmington. He received his law degree from the Washington College of Law at American University in Washington, D.C. Stephanie L. Williams of Wilmington is a financial advisor with Edward Jones in Leland with ten years of sales experience and eight

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class notes years of experience with business ownership. In 2005, she received her general contractors license. She was named to the 2009 Biltmore Who’s Who. 1996 Ricky Benton Jr. of Cerro Gordo was named to the board for the Brunswick-Columbus Business Parks.

He works for family-owned Black’s Tire and BTS Tire and Wheel distribution.

1995 Debbie Cerrito Dolan and her husband, Patrick, of Wake Forest had a daughter, Marissa, on March 18. J. Scott Fleming and Heather A. Zelinsky were married Sept. 27, 2008, and live in Eagle, Colo. He is a GIS specialist for Eagle County.

1992 Steve Raper, vice president of Geo. Raper & Son Inc., with 14 years of management experience, received his Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design accreditation from the Green Building Certification Institute.

1991 Lynn Miller, who studied commercial art and theater at ECU, was appointed to the board of trustees for the village of Cold Spring, NY.

Make a Note

1990 Denise Wicker Owen of Sumter, S.C., is a 2nd Lt. in the Civil Air Patrol, the PTO secretary at her daughter’s school, and a Girl Scout leader.

1989 W. Lee Allen III, a Greenville attorney, was certified as a family financial mediator by the N.C. Dispute Resolution Commission and gained eligibility to serve as a mediator in N.C. family law cases. A Wake Forest School of Law graduate with 16 years experience in law practice, he also was an Army officer during Operation Iraqi Freedom from 2004 to 2005.

Greer Beaty is communications director at the N.C. Department of Transportation. Her public relations consultant work includes stints with the state commerce department and Smart Start. Dawn Raiford is a private banker for RBC Bank in Greenville. She has 10 years banking experience and works with the American Heart Association, Rocking Horse Ranch, Education Cabinet for Pitt-Greenville Chamber of Commerce, Uptown Greenville, and the Pitt County Education Foundation.

1983 Donald “Ben” Strickland Jr. of Greenville, a First South Bank senior vice president with 25 years

of banking experience, was named executive of the bank’s Tar Region, which includes Greenville, Rocky Mount, and Tarboro.

1982 Lisa Rogerson ’82 ’83 ’08 is director of the College of Education Advising Center at ECU. 1981 Angela W. Allen, as a vice president for IBM’s Global Business Services, is an Americas Delivery Excellence leader for the U.S., Canada, and Latin America.

1980 Wayne Bolt was named director of football relations at Auburn University. He was an AllAmerican offensive lineman at ECU under Pat Dye, for whom he later was an assistant coach at Auburn.

He has spent 21 of his 31 years of coaching in Alabama. He also coached at ECU, UAB, Clemson, and Wyoming. Jerry Jackson ’80 ’96 is deputy director of the Penland School of Crafts.

He specializes in found-object assemblages, which have been exhibited in the Southeast U.S., Finland, Germany, and Estonia. His work recently appeared in a show called “Assemblages” at the Caldwell Arts Council’s main gallery in Lenoir.

O F YO U R N E W S A N D A C C O M P L I S H M E N T S

Complete this form (please print or type) and mail to: Class Notes Editor, Building 198, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858-4353; or fax to ­252-328-4269. Please use additional paper as necessary when sending your news. You also can e-mail your news to ecuclassnotes@ecu.edu. While East happily prints wedding announcements, it is our policy not to print ­engagement announcements. Also, when listing fellow alumni in your news, please include their class year.

Please send address changes or corrections to: Kay Murphy, Office of University Development, Greenville Center, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858-4353, fax: 252-328-4904, or e-mail: murphyk@ecu.edu.

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1979 Wendy Whitson participated in the Martha Burns Reunion Exhibit, sponsored by the Columbus County Arts Council, with several of Burns’ former students.

Whitson worked as a graphic designer and photographer, and moved from Atlanta to Asheville, where she resumed painting and has a studio in the River Arts District.

1978 Juli Anne Callis is president and chief executive of the National Institutes of Health Federal Credit Union in Rockville, Md. She was executive vice president and chief operating officer of Keypoint Credit Union in Santa Clara, Calif. David Hamm ’78 ’79 retired from Chatham County Schools in 2007 after working as a first grade teacher, assistant principal, and principal, and is now on the school board. His wife, ELLEN HAMM ’79, teaches in Chatham County Schools, and the Pittsboro family includes oldest daughters MELISSA HAMM ’05 ’06 and CATHERINE HAMM ’06.

1976 John Bullard is the new parks and recreation director at North Myrtle Beach, S.C. He was previously assistant recreation director and the director of recreation and parks in Statesville, where he helped the city add several facilities and acquire 300 acres of land for parks. He was regional and state chairman of the municipal division of the N.C. Recreation and Park Association and was on the board.

1974 Junius H. Koonce ’74 ’82 received the 20082009 Keihin Endowed Faculty Chair award at Edgecombe Community College, where he began teaching in 1980 and has been the criminal justice chair since 1988. Dennis “Al” Nichols, a senior vice president at First South Bank, was promoted to area executive for FSB’s Pamlico/Neuse Region. Residing in New Bern, he has more than 30 years of banking experience and is a member of New Bern’s Chamber of Commerce and the Craven County Committee of 100.

1972 Jim Norton is the new executive director of the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership. In the 1980s, he helped develop the National Main Street Program. In Oklahoma, he supported residential development as president of Downtown Tulsa Unlimited and chaired a state movement for tax increment financing.

1966 Edward Barnes of Chesterfield, Va., was named 2009 family lawyer of the year by Best Lawyers in America. From voting among nearly 30,000 Virginia lawyers conducted by SuperLawyers and Richmond magazines, he was voted one of the top 10 lawyers for 2008 and 2009.

A lumni S p o tlight “We are a nation of the best because of our people. For all we are, for the beacon of freedom that our nation stands for in both a troubled and dangerous world, you, the graduates of 2009, will rise to the task. You are the hope for our future, for our future literally rests in your hands.”

—Lt. Gen. Gary L. North ’76 North, who was commander of the 9th Air Force and U.S. Air Forces Central Command at the time of his spring commencement keynote address, was promoted to four-star general in July by President Obama. He took command of Pacific Air Forces, one of nine major Air Force commands.

Pacific Air Forces, based at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, has more than 45,000 military and civilian personnel supporting more than 300 fighter and attack aircraft. North was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Air Force in 1976 after completing the ROTC program at ECU. He has completed seven overseas tours and has served two tours on the Joint Staff. He has commanded the 33rd Fighter Squadron at Shaw AFB, S.C.; 35th Operations Group at Misawa Air Base, Japan; 8th Fighter Wing at Kunsan Air Base, South Korea; and the 18th Wing at Kadena Air Base, Japan. North flew 54 combat missions during Desert Storm and Southern Watch.

For more than 23 years, Tom Mallison ‘66 has made a weekly trip to WTEB in New Bern, the home of Public Radio East, to spend five hours sharing the music that is his passion to listeners as “TomtheJazzman.” His broadcast offers a cornucopia of jazz styles interspersed with wit and insights garnered from more than 40 years in broadcasting. This spring, Mallison donated thousands of LP jazz recordings he’s accumulated to Joyner Library. The recordings span a variety of jazz sub-genres, including ragtime, Dixieland, bebop, free, and fusion. Many of the more unique recordings were used to create the TomtheJazzman Collection in the A.J. Fletcher Music Center Library. A Greenville native, Mallison supports ECU in many ways and is current chair of the Robert Wright Student Government President’s Society. He received a Distinguished Alumni Service Award in 1998. Jazz lovers can view the collection online at catalog.lib.ecu.edu/ then search for “TomtheJazzman.”

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class notes

Scott Lien/Nevada Cancer Institute

A lumni S p o tlight You can add Miss USA 2009 Kristen Dalton to the long list of people who have reported bumping into other ECU alumni in the oddest places.

In late June Dalton was touring the Nevada Cancer Institute. Cancer research is one of Dalton’s main platforms as Miss USA. Leading the tour was Dr. Karen Milligan (third from right), director of the institute’s Survivorship Clinic, an innovative effort that focuses on quality of life and lifestyle issues following a cancer diagnosis.

Later, Dalton and Milligan began to chat and discovered they both are from Wilmington and both went to ECU.

1965 Harold Turbyfill ’65 ’76 is a string instrument repairman at The String & Horn Shop in Bryan, Texas.

He has 40 years of experience in instrument repair, and his repair and maintenance manual is published by the American String Teachers Association. He is married to Frances P. Turbyfill ’66.

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Milligan joined Nevada Cancer Institute recently from University Health Systems of Eastern Carolina in Greenville.

She earned her undergraduate degree from UNC Chapel Hill and her degree from the Brody School of Medicine in 2000.

She was selected chief resident of the Department of Internal Medicine in 2001, best senior resident in cardiology in 2002 was the most outstanding senior resident in 2003. She was an internal medicine resident at UHS and also served as chief medical resident and clinical assistant professor at Brody.

Dalton, a senior double majoring in psychology and Spanish, was crowned Miss USA in April. She has delayed graduation until after her reign.

Rob Goldberg, ECU Media Relations

As a defender for the Pirates soccer team, Madison Keller ’09 was a key architect in a 2008 squad that won ECU’s first Conference USA soccer championship. Now she is trying to bring that same tenacity to professional soccer.

Keller, a native of Clarksburg, Md., signed a contract with the Washington Freedom, one of seven franchises in the new Women’s Professional Soccer league. With that commitment, Keller became only the second ECU women’s player in any sport to earn a roster spot on an American professional team. Softball player Krista Jessup ’06 signed with the Chicago Bandits of the National Pro Fastpitch League in 2006, and several other alumnae have played professionally overseas.

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Gene Price of Dudley wrote Folks Around Here, a collection of columns and editorials from his more than 50 years in journalism, including his time as managing editor of Goldsboro’s News-Argus.

1945

Dot Lewis Wilkerson ’45 ’47 of Lumberton was named 2008 co-member of the year by the Lumber River Council of Governments. She was the first registrar and business manager at Wilmington College (now UNC Wilmington); taught accounting at ECU; co-managed the Robeson County Farm Bureau office with her husband for more than 20 years; and was president and vice-president of the Council of Governments Aging Advisory Council, Robeson County’s first delegate to the N.C. Senior Tarheel Legislature in Raleigh, and co-curator and board member of the Robeson County Museum. She was named a 2003 Robesonian Dynamic Woman and a 2004 Outstanding Volunteer in Aging by the Southeastern Aging Network Conference. She is a hospice volunteer and is active in the Methodist Church at the local and state levels.

1943 Joye Parnell Graham taught vocational home economics at Stedman High School and retired from Cumberland County Schools in 1975.

h g r r r r a Est. 2003

7th Football Season as TheVoice of the Pirate Nation!

Gameday coverage begins 4 hours before kickoff and postgame call-in show begins immediately after game listen online www.pirateradio1250.com

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in MemoriAm 1930s Dr. James F. “Jimmy” Carr Jr. ’36 of Searcy, Ark., died April 1. He was 95. He was manager of athletic teams at ECTC and submitted the Pirates name as a possible mascot to replace the Teachers.

During WWII, he was in the Army Air Corps stationed in the Cook Islands. He was an administrator at Florida State University and was on the Florida Board of Regents until his 1970 retirement. After retiring from Searcy’s Harding College in 1997, he was assistant to the president of White County Medical Center until he turned 95. Mildred “Mid” Furches ’39 of Southern Pines died March 13 at age 90. From 1939 to 1944, she was a home management supervisor at USDA. With her Army husband, she lived in several states and Japan, where she taught home economics. They were educational benefactors for multiple institutions, and in 1996, received The Order of the Long Leaf Pine. May Johnson Eure Harvey ’39 ’60 of Greenville died April 1. She taught in Lenoir County for two years and Pitt County for 26 years, held offices in First Presbyterian Church, and was a member of Greenville’s Service League, German Club, Inter Se Book Club, and the Golf & Country Club. Wheatley Martin Strickland ’36 of Dunn died March 21. She taught in Clayton and Meadow, and later at Wayne Avenue School until her retirement. She was named to the ECU Educators Hall of Fame in 2008.

1940s Robert Cowley “Bob” Young Sr. ’42 ’43 died March 23 at Spring Arbor of Greenville.

At ECTC, he was a member of the 1941 undefeated football team, and was also on the baseball, basketball, and track teams. He was in the Army during WWII, worked in the auto business for more than 50 years, was a Mason and Rotarian. Memorials may be made to the ECU Medical Foundation’s Alzheimer’s Research Fund or the John B. Christenbury Memorial Scholarship.

Helen Davenport Sanderson Brame ’41 ’59 of Greenville, formerly of Cadiz, Ky., and Kinston, died March 24. Her 31 years of teaching included time as chair of Grainger High School’s business department. She was a charter member of Kinston’s Northwest Christian Church and was active in the Pitt County Community Pop Singers and the Cypress Glen retirement community. Emma Lee Garris Jarvis ’48 of Ayden died May 7. She was a teacher, realtor, writer, painter, housewife, and mother. Gladys Mumford Jones ’44 of Zebulon died March 10. She was a teacher, dietician, homemaker, and a member of the N.C. Pharmaceutical Association, Rotary Club, and Zebulon Baptist Church.

Louise Wooten Marston ’45 of Greenville died April 28. For 20 years, she was a social worker with Pitt County’s Department of Social Services.

She was also active in St. James United Methodist Church and Meals on Wheels. Naomi Elizabeth Williams Morgan ’43 of Groveland, Fla., died March 29. She met her husband of 62 years met while teaching at Angier High School. She retired after 36 years of teaching, was the pianist at Groveland’s First Baptist Church for 40 years, and also played for the seniors’ Joyful Singers. Othelia Hearn “Sis” Treadwell ’41 of Richmond, Va., died May 8.

She was a member of the Daughters of the American Colonists, Daughters of the American Revolution, and Raleigh Fine Arts, and was named to Who’s Who of American Women. L. Howard Whitehurst ’49 of Greenville died March 24. He taught at Robersonville High School from 1950 to his 1982 retirement, volunteered at PCMH for 26 years, received the Governor’s Award for his volunteer service, and was a member of Jarvis Memorial United Methodist Church, the N.C. Association of Educators, National Education Association, and Association of Classroom Teachers. Elizabeth Pearsall “Libby” Wiggs ’41 of Raleigh died April 28. She taught home economics for several years and later worked in food research with NCSU’s horticulture department.

1950s Christopher Columbus Jr. ’52 ’53 of Columbia, S.C., died March 15. After 32 years with Blue Cross/Blue Shield in N.C. and S.C., he retired in marketing in 1985. He was a member of the Air Force Reserve, North Trenholm Baptist Church, and the Gideons. Maj. Harold Jay Edwards ’54 of Simpson died March 24. He was an Air Force navigator, returned to Simpson for retirement, enjoyed fishing, and was a member of Salem United Methodist Church. Carolyn Mason Gaskill ’51 of Atlantic died April 11. She taught at Atlantic and Smyrna elementary schools and at Camp Glenn School in Morehead City. Julius C. Mills ’50 of Raleigh died March 15. He finished high school in Rocky Mount early to enlist in the Army in February 1945, and later retired from the National Guard as a command sergeant major. He was an accountant and a member of Hayes Barton United Methodist Church. Kathryn G. “Kitty” Ring ’54 of High Point died April 27. She was an artist and designer, and taught in Washington and at Ferndale Junior High, High Point University, and High Point’s William Penn Alternative School. Larry Pierce Williams ’53 of Norfolk, Va., and Ocracoke Island died April 9. A native Ocracoker, and the youngest of seven children, he started teaching English in Wilmington. In 1954, he moved to Virginia Beach, where he also started teaching drama and developed the public schools’ award winning drama program. A board member of the Virginia Beach Little Theatre, he directed such productions as The Glass Menagerie and Look Homeward Angel. With Foy Shaw, he owned and operated Ocracoke’s Island Inn & Dining Room from 1977 to 1990, when the inn—a building that was the island’s first public school—was featured in national publications. He was a founding member and the first president of the Ocracoke Preservation Society, through which he helped revive several Ocracoke traditions, including beauty pageants and the July 4th parade. He was active in the Methodist church and enjoyed spending time with his dog, Maggie.

University Archives

1960s

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The 1941 baseball team.

Back row left is Coach John Christenbury.

Back row far right are Bob Young and manager John Thigpen.

William Douglas Cauley ’68 of Raleigh died March 15. He was in the Army 82nd Airborne Division for four years during the Vietnam War, worked as a salesman, and enjoyed boating and fishing. James Owen “Papa” Hall Sr. ’61 of Clarkesville, Ga., died March 5. He was in the Air Force during the Korean Conflict, and retired after more than 25 years in management with the Centers for Disease Control. Mike Handley ’69 of Citrus Heights, Calif., died April 10. He was a narrator and public service announcer for federal agencies and corporate clients in Washington, D.C., for more than 30 years; a freelance announcer and

1970s Scott Roy Bright ’78 of Oxford died April 23. He worked for Rose’s stores in N.C., S.C., and Virginia. He received the district level senior assistant merchandise manager award twice. After his 1985 diagnosis with progressive multiple sclerosis, he adopted the motto “Don’t shut out a shut in.”

William Randall Hutchisson ’71 of Palm Harbor, Fla., died April 22. A Marine officer for 21 years, he served in Korea and Vietnam, received

two Purple Hearts, and after his 1972 military retirement, was a guidance counselor at Rocky Mount Senior High School until his 1984 retirement.

Seth David Latham ’79 of Belhaven died April 13. He worked at the family-run C.F. Latham and Co. He was a scoutmaster, helped preserve the Wilkinson Center, was a founding member of the SCV Camp of Belhaven, established the Middleton Confederate Monument, gave guest lectures in schools about Belhaven history, and was active in Belhaven Missionary Baptist Church. Steven Franklin “Steve” Roberts ’70 of Raleigh, originally of Key West, Fla., died March 4. He was an artist, a fan of ECU and Miami Dolphins football, and was married for more than 38 years. Larry Weldon Shreve ’78 ’85 died March 6. He was in the Air Force, taught at Lenoir and Pitt community colleges and ECU, and worked in construction with his brothers. Phillip Anthony Templeton ’74 of Savannah, Ga., died May 2. While living in Athens for 30 years, he co-owned Sparky’s Seafood Café and then managed T-Bone’s Steakhouse. Barbara Ann Wilfong ’73 of Matthews died March 30. She was a social worker for Charlotte/Mecklenburg Schools and enjoyed traveling.

2000s Kevin John Dornblaser ’00 ’04 of Kings Mountain died March 12. He held a doctorate in physical therapy from Shenandoah University, worked at Spartanburg Regional Medical Center, was a member of Boyce Memorial ARP Church of Kings Mountain, and was married to Jennifer West Dornblaser ’04 ’07.

Facult y D e aths University Archives

voice-over artist for commercials and films; and a media instructor for the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists and an occasional actor in Hollywood. Claire Hardin Holt ’61 of Greenville died March 26.

She was a charter member, Sunday school teacher, and deacon at Oakmont Baptist Church; enjoyed music, swimming, and entertaining; and was married for 66 years to Robert Holt, a professor and vice chancellor here for 34 years. Memorials may be made to the ECU Medical Foundation’s Alzheimer’s Research Fund. James Gregory Meads ’60 of Kill Devil Hills died April 24. At ECU, he was a four-time All American swimmer and was inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame. He was a flood plain manager in Dare County and enjoyed outdoor sports.

Edward T. Rabel ’67 of Westminster, Md., died May 1. After receiving his masters in accounting at Widener University, he was an accounting and economics professor in Delaware and Maryland.

Bobby Wayne Rainey ’60 of Rockingham died March 31. He taught and was a high school football, basketball, and baseball coach in Alamance, Guilford, and Richmond counties for 38 years until his 1998 retirement. He was the 1987 Southeastern AAAA conference baseball coach of the year, and his 25 years as a referee included being a 1999 N.C./S.C. Shrine Bowl referee. Hubert Raines “Red” Shearon Jr. ’62 of Mt. Pleasant, S.C., died March 16. He was a high school band director in N.C. and S.C., wrote music for beginning band students, worked in real estate and construction, and published the visitor/newcomer guide Lighthouse Magazine. He played in several Charleston bands, for 20 years worked with the Mt. Pleasant recreation adult league softball.

Donald F. Smith ’60 of Falls Church, Va., died March 23. He received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from ECU in 1960, and a doctorate from American University in 1968. He taught social studies at Fairfax and George C. Marshall high schools, and at George Mason University from 1971 to 1999, where he also helped found a Phi Delta Kappa chapter.

Guy Walter Ward ’62 of Bella Vista. Ark., died March 20. He retired as a lieutenant colonel after 25 years in the Marines was a member of Judson American Baptist Church.

1980s James K. Coppola ’80 of Fredericksburg, Va., died April 21. He was an environmental engineer for the Army for five years in Germany, then worked for the Corps of Engineers headquarters in Washington, D.C. Katherine Lucinda Parnell “Cindy” Gurley ’87 of Clinton died March 27.

At ECU, she was named the Outstanding Nursing Graduate Student and was in the Sigma Theta Tau Honor Society. She was a nurse at Durham County General Hospital and taught at Sampson Community College, where she was also division chair of healthcare programs until her 2007 retirement. Thomas L. Kiehl Jr. ’86 of Virginia Beach died April 11.

Donald Alonza Nelms ’87 of Havelock died April 9. He was a land surveyor and co-owned Coastline Surveying in Morehead City.

1990s Shannon Baird Jenkins ’99 of Vale died March 16. A BSOM graduate, she completed a family medicine residency in 2001 and was later a module leader and attending physician in the family medicine department. In 2004, she joined ECU’s MedDirect staff, and in 2005, became director of family medicine hospitalists and associate chief of hospital medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School/ UMass Memorial Hospital in Worcester, Mass.

There she was recognized as teacher of the year, and a scholarship was named for her. She was a member of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Hickory.

Ruth A. Graber Shaw of Greenville died April 2. A music professor at ECU from 1966 to 1992, she enjoyed playing piano, watching football and figure skating, and singing in the Sweet Adelines and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church choir.

Harry “Vann” Latham Jr. ’68 of Greenville died April 2. He taught math and psychology at ECU from 1968 to 1974, and math at E. B. Aycock Junior High School from 1974 to 1986. He also enjoyed philosophy and writing poetry.

Dr. Ake Mattsson of Washington, D.C., died March 31. He was chair of child psychiatry at BSOM from 1992 to 1997. He was a research professor at New York University Medical Center before coming to ECU and was clinical professor of psychiatry at George Washington University since 2004.

Dr. Charles Lewis “Chuck” Ravaris of West Lebanon, N.H., died May 4. He was a professor and vice chair of psychiatric medicine at BSOM from 1978 to 1981, retired from Dartmouth’s psychiatry department in 1996 with emeritus status, continued teaching and practicing at Dartmouth and New Hampshire Hospital, and was married for 54 years.

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upon THE PAST “We are not here to destroy the old and accept only the new, but to build upon the past…”

—Robert H. Wright, Nov. 12, 1909 From his inaugural address and installation as East Carolina’s first president

President Leo Jenkins (in straw hat at left) helps count empty cigarette packs.

University Archives

Huffing and puffing to build a stadium Back when tobacco paid all the bills and East Carolina needed cash to complete a football stadium, the college naturally turned to a big tobacco company, Liggett & Myers, for fund-raising help. In January 1962, Durham-based L&M agreed to pay a penny for every empty pack of the company’s cigarettes collected on campus.

With the enthusiastic support of the student body and the active encouragement of the administration (this was four years before the first Surgeon General’s warning), 76,600 empty packs of Chesterfields and L&Ms were amassed in a matter of weeks, resulting in a $766 donation.

While that may not seem like a lot of money today, the check from L&M helped plug a hole in the construction budget for the 16,000-seat concrete stadium, whose 56

initial $200,000 cost was soaring beyond $300,000. Worse, an anticipated $50,000 state grant evaporated at the same time as engineers discovered the stadium would need additional pilings costing $30,000.

A committee led by local insurance executive W. M. “Booger” Scales initially raised $215,000 from the Greenville business community to build the stadium, which East Carolina needed to move up in athletics from the NAIA to the NCAA and join the Southern Conference. When costs rose, Scales went back to donors and raised another $57,000 on the promise that the stadium would be named for local tobacconist and civic leader James S. Ficklen.

Students also wanted to help out. They gave a benefit performance of the annual student musical—it was Guys and Dolls that year—

and raised $1,100 for the stadium fund.

A wrestling match was staged that brought in $1,300. And then the president of the sophomore class, Burke Stancil, came up with the idea of collecting empty cigarette packs, and the SGA endorsed the project.

L&M provided receptacles on campus, in the dorms, the soda shop, the cafeterias, in the CU Lounge, and in the downtown business areas. Students asked their parents and relatives to mail their empty packs to the college in care of the SGA. After more than a year of fund raising and setbacks—a worker fell to his death during construction—town and gown packed the new Ficklen Memorial Stadium beyond capacity for its first game on Sept. 21, 1963, and watched the Pirates down Wake Forest, 20–10.

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Last of the leaves.

Photo by Forest Croce