Daily Helmsman The
Thursday, October 6, 2011 Vol. 79 No. 24
More accolades for women’s soccer Senior defender Lizzy Simonin nominated for Lowe’s Senior CLASS award. see page 8
Students gear up for theatrical spelling bee Play premieres tonight at UM Theatre Bldg.
BY ERICA HORTON News Reporter It was only the second round, but he wasn’t interested in that sort of pressure. “I lost on asparagus,” said Chris Carter, theater graduate student at The University of Memphis. “It was my darkest hour as a sixth grader. My best friend made fun of me about it for two years.” Carter said memories of his sixth grade spelling bee are part of the reason he’s excited to direct the “25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” which, premieres at 7:30 p.m. tonight on the main stage of the Theatre and Communication Building. The play is free for students with identification. Tickets begin at $10 for the public. It runs through Oct. 8 and then
again Oct. 13-15. The “25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” is about six over achieving adolescents who compete against each other in a spelling bee, each with the intent to win and their own life lesson to learn. One of the traditions of the production is to pull audience members onto stage to compete in the spelling bee with the six characters. Carter said he encourages people to come out and participate in the play. “I don’t want to give out too many details about it, but the audience has an opportunity to win,” he said. “I think the ‘25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,’ is a really wonderful story that relates to contemporary audiences of all ages.” Even people not interested in live theater will be interested in the show, Carter said. “I can guarantee you’re going to have a good time,” he said. Freshman theater major, Brad Waelock will play Chip Tolentino. “I am the jock that thinks he can win it all and gets proven
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by Aaron Turner
Independent Student Newspaper of The University of Memphis
Students perform a scene pertaining to the “magic foot” during dress rehearsal Wednesday night for the play, “25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.” The play, which involves audience participation, premieres at 7:30 tonight in the Theatre and Communication Building. Chris Carter, U of M theater graduate student, said his memories of participating in spelling bees influenced the play’s production. wrong and gets eliminated for a sexually-related reason,” he
said. “He experiences his first ‘stiffy,’ a boner, and gets elim-
inated. There’s a whole song
see
Play, page 3
Abbreviated Twitter lingo Without leads, investigation often sacrifices grammar into possible abduction stalls Grammar mistakes happen in everyday life, but once published over the web by social media platforms, such mistakes last forever. “Maybe part of what’s happening here is that Twitter is revealing the fact that a lot of people’s writing skills are not really what they should be,” said Carrie Brown, journalism professor and social media guru. “There are folks that could stand to brush up on their writing.” People tend to use Twitter and other social media sites for either professional or personal reasons. The way they present themselves varies, though sometimes is a complete departure from the user in real life. Brown interviewed students earlier this year for a study on how they use Twitter, and many said that they were using the service simply to communicate with friends. “I think there’s a whole subset of the population that is using Twitter like group text messaging almost where they’re
basically just talking to their friends,” she said. “They’re sharing real casual, informal stuff.” Brown said students should practice better grammar because these sites are a public forum, which employers can and have viewed in the hiring process. Every tweet posted since the site began in 2006 has been archived in the Library of Congress’ digital archive, as well. Kris Markman, communication assistant professor, said she doesn’t know if there is a whole lot of research on the grammar and language of social media sites, but understands why people may text the way they do. “You can’t make 140 characters without shortening and abbreviating certain words, like using numbers instead of words,” Markman said. “You change the words so you can get across a basic idea.” Markman said Twitter is a relatively new site that people are using as a way of informal communication, but people need to think before they click
see
Twitter, page 8
BY CHELSEA BOOZER News Reporter Four days after University of Memphis students told campus and Memphis police that they may have seen two women abducted from Richardson Towers, police investigations on the matter have come to a halt. “We’ve done all we can do, and unless somebody comes forward with more information, we are at a dead end,” said Derek Myers, deputy director of public safety with U of M Police Services. In an email sent out Wednesday morning, Rosie Bingham, Vice President for Student Affairs, urged anyone with information to call University police at 901-678-4357. “As of today,” she wrote in Wednesday’s email, “we have been unable to determine if any University of Memphis students were involved. At this time we have no evidence that a crime was committed.” Myers said five officers were assigned to the case, and Police Services had accounted for all but one female resident of Richardson Towers on Tuesday.
by Aaron Turner
BY CHRIS DANIELS News Reporter
The parking lot of Richardson Towers, where the alleged incident took place. However, police don’t think the woman fits the description of those reported leaving campus Sunday, he said. The resident in question hadn’t returned officers’ calls as of Wednesday afternoon, but Myers said that the woman had a class Wednesday night and police planned to check if she was there. Bruce Harber, Police Services director of public safety, was at The U of M’s Lambuth campus Wednesday and could not be reached for comment. Earlier in the investigation,
Harber said, “There is a lot of speculation, but there really isn’t anything right now that we can seek our teeth into.” Myers reiterated Harber’s sentiment. “It’s almost useless to speculate because we have no idea what was going on there. You could have had a domestic situation. You could have had somebody that wasn’t suppose to be here. There is really no telling what was going on unless someone comes forward with more information than we’ve got,” he said.