Tate Realtors, and Tara is a genetic counselor 1997 at Wake Forest School of Medicine. The couple Class Chair, Beth Mangham Guerrero has two children. Taiwanna Billups is an executive advisor for Wellpoint Inc. She also is a USA Vol1994 leyball coach and assistant varsity volleyball Class Chair, Alicia N. Truesdail coach for Westminster schools. Billups lives Living in Washington, D.C., David L. Har- in Atlanta, Ga. rell is an associate director at Studley Inc. Harrell Mary Brede-Hayden lives with her famrepresents business clients in the leasing and ily in Weston, Fla. Mary is chief accountant acquisition of commercial office properties. for the City of Miramar, Fla. Mark Jason Loomis is co-founder of Resort Lee Chumney is a physical therapist Property Group and a Realtor with EXIT Realty for Amedisys Home Health. He lives in Elite. Loomis lives with his family in Myrtle Charleston, S.C. Beach, S.C. Living in Greenville, S.C., Ransome Kristie Wierks McMahan and her hus- Hayward Helmly is an attorney with the band, Scott McMahan ’95, live in Clermont, law firm of Pillsbury & Read P.A. He and his Ga. Kristie is vice president/portfolio specialist wife, Prentice, have two children. at Chattahoochee Bank of Georgia, and Scott is Krista Herron lives in Clarkston, Ga., owner of McMahan’s Nursery. The couple has where she serves as assistant principal at Shiloh two children, Lily and Olivia. High School. Dr. Dana Ray is a physician at Cypress Fred Jayet is an associate with the comInternal Medicine with the Greenville Hospital mercial real estate firm Stark & Associates. System University Medical Center. He lives with He received his MBA from the University his family in Greer, S.C. of Nevada-Reno in 2010. Jayet and his wife, Congratulations to Melford Wilson III, Sandra, live in Reno, Nev., with their daughwho earned a master’s degree in business admin- ter, Emma. istration with an emphasis on accounting from Dr. Rutha Camlin LaRue and her Winthrop University. husband, James, live in Summerville, S.C. LaRue is an associate professor and research 1995 heath scientist at the Medical University of Class Chair, Brandie Yancey Lorenz South Carolina and the Ralph H. Johnson Lennie Austin and his wife, Holly Daven- VA Medical Center. port Austin ’97, live in Raleigh, N.C. On July Stephen Lynn and his wife, Lauren 1, 2011, Lennie was named partner at Pricewater- Bates Lynn ’98, live in Charleston, S.C. houseCoopers. Holly works as a pharmaceutical Stephen is a senior associate with the audit, sales representative for Eli Lilly. The couple has tax and advisory services firm of KPMG. two children, Walker (9) and Mills (7). Lauren is arts coordinator for the city of North Wells Fargo Advisors has for the fourth con- Charleston. secutive year designated senior vice president Jule Living in Falls Church, Va., Evans Rice Eldridge III as a member of the firm’s Premier is an attorney with the law firm of Hogan Advisors Program. Eldridge has been a financial Lovells US LLLP. He and his wife, Libby, advisor with Wells Fargo Advisors for 12 years. have four children. He lives in Florence, S.C Shannon Willis Scruggs, the executive Krystal Pritchett Grant lives with her fam- director of the South Carolina Bar Foundaily in Simpsonville, S.C. Grant is self-employed tion, recently was named vice president of as a wedding and portrait photographer. the National Association of IOLTA Programs Dr. Dwain Pruitt has returned to Mor- (NAIP). NAIP was established in 1986 to gan State University in Baltimore, Md., enhance legal services for the poor. where he has been named associate dean Julie Mitchell Smoak is a biolfor administration. Pruitt holds a Ph.D. in ogy instructor at the University of South early modern European history from Emory Carolina Upstate. She lives with her family University. He is currently at work on three in Spartanburg. book chapters, including a historiographical Living in Hartsville, S.C., Jon Zeigler essay titled “Slavery and the French Revo- is mortgage loan manager for SPC Credit lution,” for the Oxford Handbook of the Union. He and his wife, Natalie, have two French Revolution. He is also working on daughters. two projects related to comic book history. Rachel Hannah McCoy and her husband, 1998 Jermal, live in Smyrna, Ga. McCoy is guidance Class Chair, Casey B. Moore department chair at Roswell High School. Erin Loray Holt Trypuc and her husband, Steven, live in Norfolk, Va. Trypuc 1996 is national account coordinator for Del 15th Reunion, Homecoming 2011 Monte Foods. Class Chair, Curt L. Nichols Jr. Travis Yelton is an account manager for Blakely Copeland Cahoon opened Sucampo Pharmaceuticals. He and his wife, Cahoon Law Firm LLC in Irmo, S.C., in 2011. Erica, live in Greenville, S.C., with their She has been practicing law in South Carolina for daughter, Avery Kate. more than 11 years. Cahoon and her husband, Living in Dulles, Va., Catherine HastFrank, have one son. ings Zilber is an HIV prevention specialist Pearce Fleming is executive director of the at USAID. She manages the HIV prevention consulting firm The Advisory Board Co. Fleming program in Jamaica and The Bahamas. and his wife, Nicole, live in Daniel Island, S.C. The couple has three children. 1999 Living in Columbia, S.C., Patrick Kelley is Class Chair, Zack O. Atkinson a service engineer for Duck Creek Technologic, a Oakbrook Preparatory School has ansoftware solutions firm. Kelley and his wife, Darby nounced the hiring of Travis Casey as head Sexton Kelley, have four children. baseball coach. Casey also will be the middle Dr. Mary Beth Knight lives in Arlington, and upper school math teacher at Oakbrook. Va., where she is senior associate, higher education He and his wife, Michelle, live in Enoree, S.C. program and practice, for The Education Trust. The couple has three children. David Lopez and his wife, Anabel, live in Charles Clementson and his wife, Boise, Idaho. Lopez is a software engineer for Dr. Blair Wetmore Clementson ’02, Hewlett Packard. live in Spartanburg. Blair is a dermatologist Doris Bryant Mobley is president of Sas- at Spartanburg Dermatology & Skin Surgery safras Plantation and a personal trainer and fitness Clinic. instructor for YMCA of Coastal Georgia. Mobley Living in Frisco, Texas, Bryan M. Davis lives with her husband, Carter, in Savannah, Ga. is an associate vice president at Nationwide The couple has one child. Insurance. He and his wife, Skye, have two Tanisha Cook Suber and her husband, children. Kevin, live in Simpsonville, S.C. Suber is associate Mary McFadden Craft Lawson vice president of corporate compliance-mortgage recently was honored as one of the Triangle lending at BB&T. Business Journal’s “Forty under 40” leadership In Charleston, S.C., Matt Whisnant is own- awards. She is vice president of philanthropy er of the medical sales firm MedWorks LLC. for the North Carolina Symphony. Lawson Andy Young lives with his family in Char- and her husband, Kevin, live in Raleigh, N.C., lotte, N.C. Young is a senior vice president at with their two children. Morgan Stanley. It was nice to hear from Dr. Ben McIntyre. He completed training as a plastic surgeon at the University of Virginia and has been living in New Zealand with his wife, Sherry, and
Cucuyo Creative Explorations offers cross-cultural arts education for youth
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aura Vaughn ’06 left a big chunk of her soul in the Dominican Republic after spending a semester there as a Wofford student. Now, through Cucuyo Creative Explorations, she’s revisiting that part of her soul while providing opportunities for arts education and cultural understanding to American and Dominican youth. The two and a half-week experience brings high school students from both countries together each summer in Bonao, a city about two hours north of Santo Domingo. “Cucuyo means firefly in Dominican folk language,” says Vaughn. “We wanted something particular to the Dominican Republic and easy to pronounce by both the American and Dominican youth. We started from the premise that all of us… all of these kids… have light on the inside. Our task is to incite it — make it glow.” Vaughn never considered herself an artist, but a few years after graduation from Wofford she decided to experiment with theater. “It helped me explore myself, other people and my way of thinking,” she says. “I realized that the arts could provide a powerful tool for getting to know another culture.” While researching crosscultural arts programs, Vaughn received a call from Lauren Stephenson ’06 who was interested in traveling to Latin America. Stephenson wanted traveling advice and knew that Vaughn had studied and spent time in Latin America. Vaughn offered to accompany Stephenson to Nicaragua, a country neither had ever visited. While in Nicaragua, Vaughn investigated arts education opportunities in Latin America, and Stephenson found herself hooked. “I started contributing to Cucuyo in small ways… Then, in 2010, I participated in our first summer program as a creative writing instructor. It was an overwhelming and hectic and beautiful experience,” says Stephenson. “I fell in love with our students and their families, and I wanted to give more to Cucuyo.” Vaughn, a web editor at New York University, now directs Cucuyo, acting as an interpreter, logistics planner and troubleshooter. Stephenson, a writer and English as a Second Language (ESL) textbook editor who now calls Buenos Aires home, raises money for the program and serves as the youth coordinator and
The inaugural staff in Bonao. Left to right are Lauren Stephenson ’06, Laura Vaughn ’06, Morgan Ward, Jose Luis, Kyle Waites and Amanda Lovelee.
touch point for the parents of American youth. The two run Cucuyo without pay, donating their own funds and vacation time to ensure the program’s success. “The Dominican Republic is a heart-opening environment to live in,” says Vaughn, “oddly enough Dominican youth don’t have a lot of access to formalized art education. Certain historical, social and economic factors have coalesced into a shortage of arts education programming.” Vaughn and Stephenson just finished their second summer program with Cucuyo. During the past summer, three artists led workshops in group puppetry (made with sustainable materials), the study of place using mixed mediums (including painting, sketching, interviewing and photography) and cross-cultural dance. More than 30 Dominican and American youth participated. “None of the artists have to be bilingual, and the kids don’t have to be fluent or proficient, just enthusiastic with a desire to learn,” says Vaughn. “The premise is that participants will communicate through the art they’re creating, but I didn’t know if it would really work out that way.” That first year as Vaughn observed a class, she realized that reality exceeded concept. “Watching the artist teach, I kept thinking, ‘this is the best teaching they’ve ever done and will probably do for a long time,’” says Vaughn. “The language barrier demanded that the artist be more active, engaging and wholly communicative than ever before. It was super exciting to watch.” Still, the program isn’t without challenges, but even those are part of the learning experience.
“The value of Cucuyo is that these are very different populations that have very different ways of living and thinking…. Understanding the expectations of the two groups and meeting those is a challenge. Funding is also a challenge,” says Vaughn. According to Vaughn and Stephenson, however, the rewards outweigh the stresses. For example following the pilot year, many of the Dominican youth expressed interest in continuing their theatre work and formed a year-round theatre troupe. Led by one of the Cucuyo Dominican coordinators, the troupe staged several productions during the year… one a surprise for Vaughn and the Cucuyo staff. “They built a beautiful set. It was a loud, slapstick-y comedy — very Dominican — and they pulled it off themselves,” says Vaughn. “Orlando, the Cucuyo coordinator and leader of the theatre troupe, in a hear-warming moment of disclosure, said that the troupe would not have formed without the precedent set by Cucuyo.” Visit cucuyo.org for more information. Cucuyo is a 501(c)3 non-profit that welcomes donations. In addition to securing program funds, the organization hopes to raise enough money to provide a program scholarship for an American participant and a college scholarship fund for one of the continuing Dominican participants. Visit Cucuyo.org to make a secure online donation or mail checks to Cucuyo at: 1051 Meriweather Drive, Bogart, GA, 30622. (Donors who give $25 or more receive a thank you American Apparel Cucuyo shirt.) by Jo Ann Mitchell Brasington ’89
Fall 2011 • Wofford Today • 19