East Fall 2011

fall 2011

East The Magazine of East Carolina University

Waiting for an ECU dentist

viewfinder Point and click music Senior Lisette Fee of Arlington, Va., still uses the old control board for some things to broadcast her morning drive-time show on WZMB 91.3, but the heart of the campus radio station now is two servers, a monitor and a mouse. The station underwent a technical upgrade this summer to become all digital. WZMB also now streams live on the Internet, which is how most students listen.

Photo by Forrest Croce

fall 2011

East The Magazine of East Carolina University

F E AT U R E S

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WAITING FOR AN ECU DENTIST

By Marion Blackburn Thousands of people across the state who desperately need access to care are the focus of the new School of Dental Medicine, which welcomes its first class of students this fall.

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SAME FAN, DIFFERENT HAT

By Jessica Creason Nottingham ’06 ’08 Running the concession stand for the Kinston Indians taught John Clark what makes sports fans tick, a skill he uses today for success in a much bigger arena—Madison Square Garden.

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MY LIFE IN BOOKS

By Steve Tuttle Authors should stick to what they know, a simple tenet that Liza Wieland practices as a successful writer and an inspiring teacher.

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HE ’S GOT MY BACK

By Bethany Bradsher A young coach mentors a quarterback grateful for a second chance, creating opportunities for both to achieve dreams deferred.

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HOMECOMING 2011 Make plans to come home to East Carolina this fall to participate in the many activities planned for you.

D E P A R TM E NTS

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FROM OUR READERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 THE ECU REPORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 FALL ARTS CALENDAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 FROM THE CLASSROOM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 PIRATE NATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 CLASS NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

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UPON THE PAST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

fall 2011

from the editor

East The Magazine of East Carolina University

Now, all Tar Heels are Pirates

East Carolina University has a 100-year history of serving eastern North Carolina, so it probably will feel odd to be on a scenic drive through the Appalachian mountains and see a sign directing you to an ECU branch.

Folks may well experience the same geographic (and gastronomical) disorientation when an ECU branch opens off I-85 near Lexington, up where they put vinegar on their barbecue, bless their hearts.

I’m talking about the 10 community service centers that East Carolina’s new dental school will open around the state. Up to now, public attention on the School of Dental Medicine, which welcomes its first class this fall semester, has mainly focused on the impressive new building rising on the Health Sciences Campus in Greenville. But as our cover story clearly shows, the ECU dental school will have a statewide focus and will serve patients from Elizabeth City on the Inner Banks to Sylva on the Tennessee border. As those community service centers open over the next few years, the public perception of ECU as a fine school down there east of I-95 will change. We will increasingly be seen as having a statewide presence and a statewide impact.

Is ECU outgrowing its roots? When he was lobbying for the medical school, Leo Jenkins used to say that no North Carolinian should be denied adequate health care just because of where they live. Today, East Carolina is saying that no North Carolinian should suffer poor health, even death, because it costs too much and requires a trip too far just to see a dentist. There are a lot of people in those circumstances Down East. There are a lot in the Piedmont and the mountains, too. They don’t deserve rotten teeth just because of where they live.

ECU is making a commitment to all of North Carolina because North Carolina made a commitment to us. During the worst recession in generations, as the General Assembly struggled with horrific budget cuts, tax dollars continued flowing for the dental school, only the second one in the state. At a cost of nearly $100 million, it will open on time and fully funded. There are very few other state initiatives over the last five years that have enjoyed such a high priority.

Sometimes you can reduce an important concept to a symbol.

This one says it all:

Volume 10, 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, Kara Loftin, Jessica Creason Nottingham ’06 ’08, Steve Row, Spaine Stephens, Charles Welch ’07 CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Jay Clark, Rob Goldberg, Penny Graham, Susanne Grieve, Marsha Harris ’97, ’01, Cliff Hollis, Dan Roberts CLASS NOTES EDITOR Joanne Kollar 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. ©2011 by East Carolina University Printed by Progress Printing U.P. 11-411 65,000 copies of this public document were printed at a cost of $38,612 or $.59 per copy.

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from our readers She saved me from flunking out

Thank you for a great exposé on Janice Hardison Faulkner [in the summer issue].

I want to follow up with a memory of my own that I’m sure Ms. Faulkner does not remember. In 1966–67 I was a freshman, and as many of you will remember, we were on the quarter system. Everyone was required to take English I and II, with the first course requiring short written essays and a general exposure to literature; and English II requiring a lengthy written and typed term paper. At the time, ECC was pushing for university status and there was an unwritten charge by the math, science, history and English departments to weed out mediocrity. Freshmen were flunking out by the hundreds. Keep in mind that if you fell below a 2.0 GPA, you were automatically classified I-A for the military draft. Janice Hardison was very influential in teaching me to write and enjoy quality short-story literature. I’ll never forget reading and discussing “A Rose for Emily.” But more importantly, when I took English II, I had a professor who was down on college athletics and mediocrity. This particular professor was impossible to please and I was desperate.

I took my term paper to Ms. Hardison seeking help. She not only provided quality time and direction, she literally saved me from flunking out of school. I was no longer one of her students, but she took the time to help me. I eventually retired after 32 years in education, with 21 of those as a school principal. Many times I have used her as an example with teachers in all areas of the curriculum. I want to thank her for her sense of humor, dedication to her students and for helping me to pass English II. —William R. Kelley ’72 ’75 ’80, Hampstead Remembering Edgar Loessin

Since his passing in April, the late Edgar Loessin has received many numerations of awards and recognitions with which he was honored during his lifetime. But missing

from all of them is the notation of Gov. James G. Martin bestowing on him the Order of the Long Leaf Pine in 1987. This designation is the State of North Carolina’s recognition for extraordinary public service and originates only from the office of the sitting governor. Its presentation was a highlight of the three-day event (which I am proud to say I created and produced) that acknowledged Edgar’s 25th anniversary on the ECU staff.

—Robert Blake ’66, Sarasota, Fla.

Read East online at www.ecu.edu/east

Hawaii comes to ECU, and vice versa

First let me say as a former art student and graphic designer, I’m very proud of East magazine. And what a pleasant surprise when I got to the “centerfold” [of the summer issue on the new Olympic Sports Complex]. Having lived in Hawaii for 28 years (I just moved back to N.C. a couple of years ago) that plumeria in the hair [of the softball player] jumped out at me. And then I was dumbstruck when I remembered that the little girl that grew up down the street from me in Mililani, Hawaii, was now playing softball at my alma mater. I had completely forgotten that Kristi Oshiro had become a fellow Pirate. I guess Kristi can get Spam and rice at B’s, yeah?

—Martin B. Hollowell ’79, Edenton Remembering Professor Martin

Upon reading of the death of Dr. George Martin at the age of 101, I imagined Dr. Martin going to the blackboard and writing: T.A.L.O.L. (that’s a lot of living).

—Stephen Everett Davenport ’58, China Grove Correction

We misspelled Waightstill M. Scales Jr.’s first name in the Upon the Past feature in the summer issue about how he and Jack Ficklen led the 1961 fundraising campaign for the football stadium.

A reader who pointed out the error noted that the two Greenville business leaders died within hours of each other on Christmas Day 2001.

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 $100. 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 Mail Stop 108 East Carolina University Greenville, N.C. 27858 Send class notes to ecuclassnotes@ecu.edu or use the form on page 54

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the ecU Report ECU attracts more gifted students East Carolina saw a threefold increase this year over last in the percentage of academically gifted students who chose ECU over other schools to which they had applied.

The so-called “yield rate” of brainy kids who actually enrolled after being accepted rose from 13 percent to 39 percent, according to Honors College Associate Dean Kevin Baxter.

In 2010, the first year of the expanded honors program, East Carolina extended acceptance offers to 832 gifted students, and 103 of them enrolled. This year, admission was offered to only 209 gifted freshman applicants, and 82 of them accepted.

Another 24 applicants who had met the eligibility standards but had been waitlisted were then accepted, for a class of 106.

Counting students who joined the program in earlier years, the Honors College now numbers about 450 students.

Honors College student Arun Ajmera

Several factors have made ECU more attractive to academically gifted freshman applicants, but officials said the larger scholarships offered this year made the biggest difference. Scholarships of $1,500 to $2,500 were offered to gifted freshman applicants last year; now, all Honors College applicants are offered scholarships equal to the amount of in-state tuition, which is $3,348 for the current academic year. The aid is automatically renewable for four years if the student remains in good academic standing. This year, Honors College students also have greater access to advanced academic courses, seminars, colloquia, research opportunities with top faculty, internships, leadership and service projects, and studyabroad experiences. The Honors College “pulls in best practices from across the nation to offer a groundbreaking approach to honors education,” Baxter said.

Now housed in the remodeled Mamie Jenkins building on Main Campus and under the leadership of Chancellor Emeritus Richard

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Eakin, the Honors College now houses all special programs for top students—including EC Scholars, the university’s most prestigious scholarship, and Early Assurance, which provides four students each year provisional acceptance to the medical school as they graduate from high school. It also offers all incoming Honors College students a scholarship award in the amount of in-state tuition for four years.

Baxter said feedback from prospective students and their families validates the university’s focus on academic programs that challenge students and give them an education suitable for the global workforce. Matt Edwards, an Early Assurance scholar in the Honors College, was chosen for a health-related study-abroad experience this summer in Switzerland, an opportunity he doesn’t think would have come about if not for the college. “Many of us are already taking advantage,” he says.

The students also are focusing on local volunteerism. “One of the biggest goals of the Honors College is improving ECU and our community as a whole through our leadership and service,” Edwards said.

The students work together on academic endeavors and volunteer together on

community service projects. This cooperation is made easier by the fact they all live together in one residence hall. “I was able to meet people who were similar to me, and I definitely had study partners when I needed them for classes,” sophomore Jackie Traish said. “I get to meet people who challenge me and encourage me to do better and to achieve more.” Students also have central access to Honors College officials, advisors and professors.

With this year’s class set to begin, Honors College leaders are mounting recruitment efforts to build an even stronger incoming class next year. “We are working with colleagues across the university to maximize the visibility of the Honors College and its programs,” Baxter said.

Meanwhile, efforts to attract even more bright students continue. “We will undertake a vigorous, far-reaching recruitment program throughout North Carolina this fall to continue our progress in attracting ever more talented students to the college,” Eakin said.

To be admitted to the Honors College, applicants must have scored at least 1,200 on the SAT and compiled a 3.5 unweighted GPA in high school. This year, applicants

also had to meet earlier application and acceptance deadlines.

—Spaine Stephens 15 EC Scholars named Fifteen incoming freshmen at East Carolina University were selected for the prestigious EC Scholars program, which is part of the Honors College. The four-year merit scholarship recognizes outstanding academic performance, commitment to community engagement and strong leadership skills.

Recipients receive a scholarship for four years, along with a stipend for study abroad, for a total value of approximately $45,000.

In addition to the $45,000, EC Scholars also receive free in-state tuition.

The recipients are: Matthew Ryan Baucom of Marshville, Payton Burnette of Asheboro, Lindsay Caddell of West End, Destiny DeHart of Jacksonville, Georganna Lynn Gower of Dunn, Joshua Griffin of Greenville, Kali Harrison of Davidson, William Tyler Hayden of Leesburg, Va.; Clare M. Howerton of Smithfield, Jessica Jewell of Clayton, Dakota Johnson of Gastonia, Shayna Mooney of Greenville, Ashley Brenna Owens of Greenville, Mansi Trivedi of Cary, and Thomas Vaughan of Murfreesboro.

EC Scholar Christine Gurganus

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the ecu report $10.5 million for children’s health

James and Connie Maynard

ECU alumni James and Connie Maynard of Raleigh are donating $10.5 million to help build a pediatric wing at Pitt County Memorial Hospital and fund a distinguished professorship in pediatrics at the Brody School of Medicine. Maynard is the co-founder and chairman of Investors Management Group, the parent company of the Golden Corral restaurant chain.

“Connie and I have been blessed to be able to make this gift, which will benefit children and families of eastern North Carolina.

This gift is possible because of the many loyal customers of Golden Corral and the outstanding efforts of Golden Corral associates every day,” Maynard said in announcing the gift in May. Pitt Memorial parent University Health Systems (UHS) broke ground in June on the first phase of the $48 million Children’s Hospital wing. Completion is expected in 2013. The addition includes newly designed patient rooms, new equipment and more room for specially trained staff. Designers worked to pen it through the eyes of a child to be patient- and family-friendly.

“This is great news for every parent, grandparent or loved one of a child in our community and region,” said UHS CEO Dave McRae. “These families need and deserve a healing environment that is especially focused on the specific treatment of children’s illnesses.”

The $1.5 million gift to the Brody School

of Medicine is for the James and Connie Maynard Distinguished Professorship in Pediatrics. It will be designated for the chair of the Department of Pediatrics and will be used for recruiting physicians, continuing education and research. ECU will qualify for $667,000 in matching funds from North Carolina’s Distinguished Professorship Endowment Trust Fund, making the endowment $2.167 million when fully funded.

“We have a unique opportunity to expand our philosophy of care, which places children and their families at the center of everything we do,” said Dr. Ronald Perkin, chair of the Department of Pediatrics and co-medical director of Children’s Hospital. “This place

will be more than concrete and steel; it will be a place where miracles happen.”

The UHS Children’s Hospital in Greenville serves children and families from 29 eastern North Carolina counties. It also serves as the teaching hospital for the Brody School of Medicine.

James ’65 and Connie ’62 met at the campus soda shop where Connie worked. He opened the first Golden Corral in Fayetteville in 1973. He served as an ECU trustee in the 1980s, the formative years of the Brody School of Medicine. “Eastern North Carolina has a special place in our hearts,” he said.

—Doug Boyd

Cliff Hollis

50 years of applause East Carolina reaches an important cultural milestone this school year—the 50th anniversary of the university’s two performing arts programs, the S. Rudolph Alexander Performing Arts Series (SRAPAS) and the ECU/Loessin Playhouse and Summer Theatre. Both are named for men who were here at the beginning, longtime student activities director Rudy Alexander ’53 ’55 and Edgar Loessin, the founding chair of the theatre department. SRAPAS has emphasized serious music and dance performances in its programs, especially in recent years, while the theatre series has mixed comedy, drama, musicals, Shakespeare and dance productions.

Rudy Alexander

As an undergraduate, Alexander played French horn in the college band; he was active in student government and was president of the SGA during one summer session. He served in the Army after college and then worked seven years for the Boy Scouts of America as a local district executive. With great organizational skills and a trained musical ear, Alexander was a master producer who knew how to fill the seats.

What evolved into SRAPAS began in 1962 when Alexander was hired as assistant dean of student affairs and began staging sock hops and popular music concerts for students in the College Union, which then occupied the entire basement of Wright Auditorium. Alexander, a former Boy Scout district executive from Goldsboro, brought youth and energy to student activities; he often doubled as head of the student media board. For the next 33 years, until retiring in 1995, Alexander brought hundreds of concerts to Wright Auditorium, ranging from pop stars like Burl Ives, the Kingston Trio and Ray Charles to classical acts like Yo-Yo Ma and the Bolshoi Ballet. Alexander and his wife, Jennie Murphy Alexander ’71 ’73, live in Winterville.

Loessin also came to East Carolina in 1962.

He arrived from New York where he was a stage manager on Broadway; he held a BFA from the Yale School of Drama and a dramatic arts degree from UNC Chapel Hill, where he was the Kay Kyser Scholarship winner. Along with John Sneden and other

original faculty members who came soon afterward, he founded what is now the School of Theatre and Dance and served as its chair until retiring in 1990. He died this past spring.

With his Broadway connections, Loessin was able to bring Mavis Ray, a noted choreographer, to campus. In 1964 he began staging elaborate musicals during summer months, often drawing on his New York connections to persuade stars of the original Broadway shows, like Michael Learned and Orson Bean, to reprise their roles here, with students as co-stars and understudies.

SRAPAS is supported through donations, student fees and grants, and individual and season ticket sales. Tickets range from $10–$65 this season. SRAPAS has begun an endowment enhancement campaign to mark the 50th anniversary and will have a number of small celebrations throughout the year to mark the occasion, such as a birthday cake during intermission of one show, said Michael Crane, the program’s producing artistic director. SRAPAS shows this fall include Broadway star Ben Vereen and a night with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

The Loessin Playhouse offers two audience favorites, Oklahoma! and Stage Door. See page 19 for the full Fall Arts Calendar.

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the ecu report

$207,443,000 (as of June 30, 2011)

outreach projects, and increased resources for the university’s centers and institutes. With more needs still unmet, ECU will continue to seek donations through Dec. 31, the planned end of the campaign.

“This represents another important milestone in the history of East Carolina University,” said Vice Chancellor for University Advancement Mickey Dowdy. “[The] generous support of ECU and the Second Century Campaign has already touched thousands of students and reached most every area of the university. However, this is only the beginning of our goal to harness the university’s full philanthropic potential to meet the many additional priorities that have surfaced since the campaign began.”

The funds raised by the campaign are proving vital to sustaining the university during an era of declining state support.

Second Century Campaign exceeds goal Though it was launched during the worst recession in decades, East Carolina raised a record $202 million in donations during the Second Century Campaign, which was launched in 2007 to mark the university’s 100th anniversary. The money will go toward new scholarships and professorships, updated facilities, more research and

Gifts to the Second Century Campaign and ECU can be designated to the program, school, college or area of one’s choice, Dowdy said. “Contributions, whether large or small, designated for a specific program or not, all truly make a difference at ECU.” You can contribute online by visiting www.giving.ecu.edu, or by calling 252328-9550. Donors also can use the postagepaid envelope included in the magazine.

—Kara Loftin

Another double-digit budget cut North Carolina’s budget for fiscal 2011–12 reduces funding for the UNC system by 14.6 percent, or $414 million, including a cut of $35 million for the system’s needbased financial aid program. East Carolina’s share of the budget cut is about $49.1 million, a reduction that officials said will be apparent this fall inside and outside the classroom.

“Every part of the institution has been or will be affected,” Chancellor Steve Ballard said in a July 8 message to faculty, staff and supporters. “The fiscal year that has just begun will not be easy; we will not be the university a year from now that we are today.

“The percentage was bigger than what we anticipated. The $49 million figure is the biggest number we have had to deal with.”

This is the fourth year of reductions in state funding for the university system. The $49 million cut for East Carolina this year comes on top of $102 million lost over the previous four years. State funding now accounts for about $245 million of ECU’s roughly $800 million budget.

ECU is moving forward with initiatives begun in the spring to slash operating costs by reducing or eliminating programs.

One proposal is to close two colleges— Human Ecology and Health and Human Performance—and shift most of those departments to other areas. The proposal also recommended dividing the Thomas Herriot College of Arts and Sciences into two smaller units. A campus committee continues to study those ideas and is expected to issue its recommendations in a few months.

On the plus side, the new state budget does appropriate $3.5 million to hire 27 additional staff and faculty in preparation of the opening of ECU’s new dental school. Also appropriated was about $3.3 million over the next two years for the ECU Geriatric Center.

The state budget contains $46.8 million the UNC system requested in enrollment growth

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The new Family Medicine Center on the Health Sciences Campus, built at a cost of more than $40 million, opened in mid-summer after nearly two years of construction. The 112,000-square-foot facility, which also houses the Robert and Frances Monk Geriatric Center, contains 58 exam rooms, a pharmacy and a procedure room for minor surgeries and physical therapy. The center is expected to see 90,000 patient visits in its first year.

funding, an amount that would support 2,337 additional students throughout the system. Of that, East Carolina will receive $5.1 million. The budget sets aside $62.3 million this fiscal year for capital improvements; of that, East Carolina will receive $5.9 million.

East Carolina’s surging enrollment is evident in the number of credit hours that students are expected to take this academic year. ECU is now the second-largest campus in the UNC system in its teaching load but still a distant third in state capital appropriations.

Officials expressed concern that the General Assembly’s reduction of about $35 million appropriated for need-based financial aid means about 6,000 fewer college scholarships statewide next year, meaning it will be more difficult for students from poor families to go to college. Because of that, there will be no tuition increases this year at UNC system schools.

Teaching Fellows loses funding What may be the last class of North Carolina Teaching Fellows arrives on campus this fall as state funding dries up for a highly-regarded program that provides scholarships to deserving students who want to teach in the public schools. The recession-ravaged state budget that took effect July 1 phases out all funding for Teaching Fellows, which was created by the General Assembly in 1986 to address the state’s critical shortage of classroom teachers. East Carolina operates one of the largest Teaching Fellows programs in the UNC system, with about 220 students total.

The budget phaseout allows the 47 incoming freshmen who already had been accepted scholarship offers to enroll, said ECU Teaching Fellows Director Dionna Manning. Their financial aid and programmatic support are assured

until graduation. She said that there is no funding for the program in the second year of the state’s biennial budget for a 2012–13 cohort.

In addition to the 47 new Teaching Fellows, an additional 10 students received Maynard Scholarships, a separate program modeled on the Teaching Fellows, and they also will be arriving on campus this fall. Golden Corral founder James Maynard ’65 created the scholarships in 2006, and officials said that program will continue.

The Teaching Fellows scholarships are worth $6,500 a year for four years; 500 are awarded each year to students who can enroll in one of 13 UNC campuses and four private schools that participate. Teaching Fellow students agree to teach at a public, charter or federal school in the state for at least four years after graduation. Maynard Scholars agree to teach for four years in eastern North Carolina.

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Kieran Shanahan

Deborah Davis

Russell Corp., was the Outstanding Alumni of 2001 and a longtime member of the ECU Foundation board. Brinkley is a retired corporate attorney and member of the ECU Foundation board and Board of Visitors.

Lucas is senior partner of the law firm Lucas, Denning & Ellerbe. He received his law degree from the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala. Research dollars grow 17 percent

Lucas elected trustees chair Attorney Bob Lucas ’74 of Salma, who was SGA president his senior year, was elected chairman of the ECU Board of Trustees at a July meeting that saw three new members join the board. Appointed by the UNC Board of Governors to four-year terms were Kieran Shanahan ’79, a Raleigh attorney and former four-term member of the Raleigh City Council, and Deborah W. Davis ’79 ’83 of Richmond, COO of the Medical College of Virginia. This year’s SGA president, Josh Martinkovic, of Charlotte, a senior majoring in criminal justice and political science, joined as an ex-officio member.

Current trustees Robert Brinkley ’78 of Charlotte and Carol Mabe ’70 of Oriental, N.C., were reappointed by the Board of Governors. Trustees David Redwine and Bill Bodenhamer, who had completed two four-year terms, were not eligible for reappointment. Their seats on the board will be filled by Gov. Beverly Perdue. Other officers elected were Mabe, vice chair; and Joel Butler ’75 ’98, secretary.

Shanahan is the principal in Shanahan Law Group, a firm that mainly handles business law. He received his law degree from UNC Chapel Hill, after which he served for five 10

years as an assistant U.S. district attorney in the Eastern District of North Carolina and the Northern District of Georgia. He currently serves as chairman of Prevent Child Abuse North Carolina and the N.C. Property Rights Coalition.

Davis joined the Medical College staff in 2007 after spending more than 32 years at Pitt County Memorial Hospital in Greenville. At PCMH, she was named senior vice president in 1990 and president in 2002. Under her guidance, PCMH was recognition for nursing excellence by the American Nurses Credentialing Center.

Mabe, the retired president and CEO of

UNC system schools were awarded a record $1.4 billion in research grants and sponsored programs in fiscal 2010, a 17 percent increase over the prior year. Most of the increase results from more than $220 million in grants received through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly known as the stimulus bill. The six doctoral level schools in the 16-campus system—UNC Chapel Hill, East Carolina, N.C. A&T, N.C. State, UNC Charlotte and UNC Greensboro—account for more than $1.2 billion of the total.

Federal agencies made $929 million in grants to UNC schools, $80.3 million came from state government and $24 million came from local governments. The single largest source of grants was the National Institutes of Health, at $471.4 million. The numbers are contained in a report to the Board of Governors by Steven Leath, vice president for research for the UNC General Administration. Leath noted that total grant dollars to UNC campuses have doubled in the last 14 years.

Research Grants and Special Programs in the University of North Carolina system FY10 Total Campus Total Awards (in $ millions)

Change from FY09

East Carolina

462

$ 48.9

20%

N.C. A&T

235

$ 60.1

4%

N.C. State

2,066

$ 265.9

29%

UNC Chapel Hill

4,547

$ 803.6

12%

UNC Charlotte

386

$ 34.6

-6%

UNC Greensboro

284

$ 35.4

35%

Marsha Harris

© 2007 Brian Strickland

the ecu report

Video game makes science fun A new computer game that teaches science concepts developed jointly by East Carolina and N.C. State will be tested in some Down East middle schools this year. Crystal Island is a learning adventure game for middle grades in which students solve a science mystery as they learn about microbiology.

Initial tests with more than 1,000 students showed they made significant gains in both science and literacy after playing the game.

The Center for Science, Mathematics and Technology Education at ECU and the IntelliMedia Group at N.C. State together qualified for a $500,000 grant from Next Generation Learning Challenges, a national program with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The award was announced in June, and work officially began July 1. The grant will cover final development and distribution of the game as well as teacher training and support. After a year of tests, the game is scheduled to be distributed statewide next school year and nationwide in 2013–14.

Boot camp for future docs Officially, it’s called the Summer Program for Future Doctors, but the nine-week academic enrichment courses offered by the Brody School of Medicine amount to boot camp for future docs. Some are getting a jump on their first year of medical school; others hope to learn enough to pass the entrance test next year. All will spend more than 220 classroom hours studying anatomy, biochemistry and other tough subjects. “It’s a very important program for the students and for the school,” says Dr. Richard Ray, professor of physiology and director of the summer series. “It is a trial-by-fire program.

If they are successful, it gives them a strong recommendation for medical school, both here and elsewhere.”

From the program’s start in 1993, more than half of those taking the courses were accepted to medical school. This summer, 28 students were enrolled, including some

who already had been accepted to Brody and others who planned to apply next year. They spent long days working side by side with professors and second-year medical students who teach classes in anatomy, physics, biochemistry and neuroanatomy—essentially a preview of what they will encounter in first-year medical school. “Although it’s not the full curriculum, it gives them a head start in mastering the material and reducing their stress,” Ray says. What’s more, “they become school leaders down the road. It’s nice to see how the program builds not just our future classes, but also our future class leaders.”

Professors believe so strongly in the program that each summer, they volunteer to teach.

The program’s goal aligns with the medical school’s mission to offer minority, disadvantaged and nontraditional students a chance to gain the skills and experience they may have missed— and achieve their dream of attending medical school. —Marion Blackburn

The game focuses on science literacy, or the ability to read and understand scientific and technical language. “We’re focused not only on teaching literacy broadly, but on giving students the tools they’ll need to comprehend scientific and technical literature. That’s an area that is presenting challenges for students nationally,” said Dr. James Lester, a professor of computer science at N.C. State and primary investigator for the grant. “The trick, of course, is to make a game that is actually fun, as well as educational.”

—Greenville Daily Reflector

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After resting at the bottom of Beaufort Inlet for 270 years, one of four large anchors from Blackbeard’s flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, was recovered in May and is undergoing restoration at the QAR Conservation Lab on West Research Campus. “This is one of the biggest artifacts on the site,” said Mark Wilde-Ramsing ’09, the state underwater archaeologist who directed the expedition to recover the anchor. “I love it because anchors represent ships and seafaring. This is a beautiful example and has beautiful features.” The anchor, which weighs about 2,500 pounds, measures 11 feet long and 7 feet, 7 inches from tip to tip on the fluke. Its outside ring attached to the center shank measures 24 inches in diameter. It is one of three anchors about the same size in the main wreckage pile; a slightly smaller catch anchor lies about 450 feet south. Hundreds of other artifacts from the QAR, which was discovered in 1996, are in the process of being treated and restored at the conservation lab. Twelve more cannons still remain at the site. Many other artifacts are on display at the N.C. Maritime Museum in Beaufort.

E a s t

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C a r o l i n a

t i m e l i n e

YEARS AGO

Bad budget news Gov. Thomas Jarvis returns to an overcrowded campus with bad news from the General Assembly: “The legislature of 1911, I regret to say, appropriated nothing for enlargement and growth of the school.” He pointedly notes that, four years after ECTTS opened, “the state has put but $65,000 into this valuable plant, while the County of Pitt and the Town of Greenville have put into it $98,000. So, the state is still behind by $33,000.”

He says that since ECTTS opened it has admitted 2,450 students but turned away 1,132 “because there was no room for them.”

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YEARS AGO

ACE organizes East Carolina already is North Carolina’s largest producer of classroom teachers when students here organize the first state chapter of the national Association for Childhood Education in the fall of 1936.

Soon, chapters organize at other state colleges, and a newsletter is created for all N.C. colleges. For the next several years the newsletter is edited by ECTC students.

Susanne Grieve

Cliff Hollis

the ecu report

Secrets from a blockade runner When it was discovered in 1962 about 300 yards off the coast of Fort Fisher, the Civil War blockade runner Modern Greece yielded about 11,500 artifacts. Some of the best items were recovered, conserved and put on display in museums. Public excitement about the find spurred creation of the Underwater Archaeology Branch of the state Department of Cultural Resources.

But most items from the Modern Greece were never examined in detail, and were left stored in large water tanks for protection.

There they remained until earlier this year when 11 ECU maritime studies students traveled to Fort Fisher, near Wilmington, to examine, catalogue and describe the artifacts. Working with Susanne Grieve, ECU’s director of conservation for maritime studies, and Nathan Henry, an assistant state archaeologist, the students examined 100-year-old consumer goods like tableware, along with guns, ammunition and cannons.

Nicole Wittig holds a copper chain on an Enfield rifle recovered from the Modern Greece.

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June 27, 1862, and was sunk by the crew to prevent the gunpowder kegs from exploding.

The students worked to record the type and condition of artifacts, and photographed many items to evaluate them for future conservation. The items included Enfield rifle muskets, antler-handled knives, handcuffs, hoes, picks and other 1860s farm and household goods.

—Marion Blackburn Tableware

Modern Greece was one of the first casualties of the Union blockade. A steamer built in England as a cargo vessel, it was ill-suited for navigating shallow water. Fleeing Union gunboats as it approached Fort Fisher with a load of weapons and consumer goods for the Confederates, Modern Greece ran aground

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YEARS AGO Too many cars on campus The opening of new dorms on College Hill fuels a jaw-dropping surge in enrollment—to 5,883 in the fall of 1961 from 4,178 a year earlier—and makes finding a parking spot on campus practically impossible. The school decrees that only upperclassmen with GPAs above 2.0 can keep a car on campus or even “in the vicinity.”

YEARS AGO

Drinking age rises to 21 Students arriving at the start of fall semester expect to have two weeks before the legal drinking age rises from 19 to 21 on Sept. 1, 1986. But they learn campus police already are enforcing the law in the dorms. Many predict ECU students will revolt, but a story in The East Carolinian says the change is going relatively quietly, although many downtown bars announce plans to become private clubs. In Chapel Hill, a reported 10,000 students pack Franklin Street on Saturday night of Labor Day weekend, setting fires and breaking store windows to protest the new law. Commenting on this in an editorial, TEC sniffs, “And they call ECU a party school.”

Images courtesy University Archives

the ecu report News briefs Gift for new gym: Metrics Inc. founder and owner Phil Hodges ’79 ’84 and his wife, Lisa ’83, have given $250,000 to ECU’s “Step Up to the Highest Level Campaign” to raise $15 million to build a new practice facility for the basketball and volleyball teams.

Their gift brings the total to more than $10 million donated to date by over 200 benefactors. Metrics Inc. is a pharmaceutical testing company in Greenville. Hodges received an Outstanding Alumni award in 2004. He serves on the advisory board for the Department of Chemistry and led an effort last year to raise money for new chemistry lab equipment.

COE awards scholarships: The College of Education awarded $113,000 in scholarships to 56 of its students for the 2011–12 academic year. The scholarships and awards range from $250 to $7,000 each. The scholarship money comes from private donations honoring outstanding educators and the education profession.

Basketball and volleyball practice facility

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BA degree eliminated: The UNC Board of Governors approved East Carolina’s request to discontinue the bachelor of arts degree in exercise and sport science, effective spring semester. It was among a few identified in a 2008 campus review of degrees that weren’t attracting many students. The program had six majors last semester.

Burned warehouse to be rebuilt: East Carolina will use nearly $900,000 in insurance money to build a warehouse off 10th Street several blocks west of Main Campus to replace one that the university purchased in 2004 and which burned in 2007. The 19,200-square-foot metal structure on Clark Street near the campus operations support center should be completed in October.

Library receives grant: Joyner Library received a federal grant worth $104,719 to support its ongoing efforts to provide online access to 360,000 pages of materials from the 19th and early 20th centuries showing the development of North Carolina. Classroom

activities using the materials will also be developed for teachers and made available online. The grant was funneled through the State Library Division of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources.

Jobs in allied health grow: Since 1999, overall employment in North Carolina grew an anemic 2.5 percent as the state saw most of its traditional manufacturing jobs move overseas. But jobs in the allied health field exploded by 67.3 percent in that same time and now account for two out of three jobs in the health care field, according to a report by the Sheps Center for Health Services Research in Chapel Hill. Even after that growth, many jobs in allied health remain in high demand, according to the center, which reached that conclusion after analyzing data from help wanted ads published in newspapers around the state last fall and on the employment web pages of hospitals and health care organizations. For example, while there were 4,350 licensed physical therapists practicing in North Carolina in 2010, jobs

Rob Goldberg/ECU Media Relations

for 523 openings were being advertised.

Allied health covers 10 or more different jobs in health care and is often loosely described as anyone in a white coat who isn’t a doctor or nurse.

Grant boosts engineering: ECU’s Department of Engineering received a nearly $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to support scholarships for academically talented but financially needy students.

Spring sports teams excel East Carolina is one of only 14 schools nationally, and the only BCS nonautomatic qualifying institution, whose teams experienced NCAA postseason play in six major spring sports—baseball, softball, men’s and women’s golf and men’s and women’s track and field.

The softball squad won at least 40 games for the third straight year. Finishing fifth in the regular season, the team caught fire in the Conference USA Tournament, defeating three higher-seeded teams on consecutive days. In regional play, the Pirates eliminated host Maryland before falling to Baylor in the championship game. Toni Paisley ’10 was named Conference USA Pitcher of the Year for the third straight season. The Lakewood, Calif., native became the C-USA career record holder in wins (118), strikeouts (1,290), innings pitched (1,088.0) and appearances (183). Her final record sits at 118-39, a .752 winning percentage, with a 1.22 earned run average.

With an overall record of 39-19, the baseball team made its 25th NCAA regional appearance and 11th in the last 13 seasons.

Ranked as high as 23rd at one point in the season, the Pirates at one time boasted the nation’s lowest earned-run average. The team fell to No. 1 overall seed and host Virginia to end the year. Senior pitcher Seth Maness finished his career with an ECU record 334 strikeouts and 38 victories.

On the links, 2011 marked the first year in school history that both the men’s and

Harold Varner

women’s golf teams earned at-large NCAA regional bids. The women were invited to the NCAA Central Regional hosted by Notre Dame. Playing in their fourth straight regional, and seventh overall, the ladies finished 20th with a 96-58-2 overall record.

With two nationally ranked players on its roster, the men’s squad competed in the NCAA Regional in Radford, Va. Competing against some of the nation’s best college golfers, ECU took ninth, ending its season with an overall record of 122-48-2. Over the summer, rising senior Harold Varner rallied from a four-shot deficit on the final 18 holes to become the first male AfricanAmerican to win the North Carolina Amateur Championship in the 51-year history of the event. Varner, of Gastonia, won the event at Greensboro Country Club by three strokes. Another rising senior on the golf team, Adam Stephenson of

Greenville, tied for second place.

Rounding out the spring success for East Carolina are the men’s and women’s track and field squads. The Pirates sent a program single-season record 15 athletes to the NCAA East Preliminary Round at the University of Indiana. At that event, four women Pirates—three freshmen and a sophomore—qualified to compete in the NCAA Outdoor Championships in June.

Rookie Aiesha Goggins captured 10th in the 400-meter dash, earning Second-Team AllAmerica accolades.

In addition to East Carolina, the 14 schools whose spring sports teams garnered NCAA postseason play in the aforementioned sports were Alabama, Arizona, Arizona State, California, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Stanford, Texas, Texas A&M and UCLA. —Charles Welch ’07 15

the ecu report In spring of last year ECU investigated and reported to the NCAA that a women’s tennis player wrote papers for the four baseball players she was being paid to tutor.

The NCAA accepted ECU’s investigation of the violations and its findings rather than conducting its own inquiry. In its letter informing ECU of the penalties, the NCAA noted it chose to reduce the term of probation from two years to one because of ECU’s response and because of immediate steps the university took to improve compliance. ECU hired an additional senior compliance officer, Jamie Johnson, formerly of Rutgers University, who reports directly to the chancellor. Another change is that student-athletes no longer will be hired to tutor other student-athletes.

What’s new this fall?

Students may think they’ve died and gone to Disneyland when they see the expanded North Recreation Campus (NRC), a cluster of outdoor sports fields and walking trails adjacent to a sandy beach surrounding a 5.6-acre lake. A grand opening for the second phase of the recreation complex is set for Sept. 15, and comes about three years after the site first opened with eight large, lighted multipurpose playing fields and related facilities. The NRC is located about 10 minutes north of campus on Highway 264 in an area dense with student apartment complexes.

Now, students can sunbathe on the beach, swim or stroll into the new 2,000-squarefoot boathouse to check out canoes and kayaks, or use the volleyball courts, walking trails and fitness equipment. There’s an 18hole disc golf course. For the adventuresome, the NRC offers the Odyssey Challenge Course, a linear-based, high-challenge ropes course with a 300-foot zip line.

Campus Recreation and Wellness, which manages the site, is sponsoring a contest that will allow students to have a significant role in the naming of the new beach area.

Students do not pay any additional fees to use the facilities.

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Take a video tour of the recreation complex at the magazine’s website, www.ecu.edu/east.

NCAA puts ECU on probation The National Collegiate Athletic Association put East Carolina on a one-year probation and vacated games and matches from last year’s baseball and women’s tennis schedules for academic fraud violations selfreported by the school. University officials said the violations involved four baseball players and a tennis player working as a tutor in the athletics department. The terms of probation do not prohibit postseason play in any sport. The NCAA did not impose any recruiting sanctions, scholarship reductions or monetary penalties. However, the baseball team was required to vacate 17 games in which the athletes participated while ineligible. The women’s tennis team will vacate eight matches.

“ECU is embarrassed by the unacceptable academic fraud committed by a few student athletes who acted on their own volition,” said Chancellor Steve Ballard. “We have implemented numerous corrective actions and we will continually improve our practices with the intention of being one of the best universities in terms of academic integrity and compliance.”

“The record shows we responded quickly, investigated vigorously, immediately selfreported violations and took decisive corrective steps without being asked,” Provost Marilyn Sheerer said.

Athletics Director Terry Holland said, “This has been a traumatic event for our athletic program that has negatively impacted the lives of young student-athletes and embarrassed us all. While the athletics department’s response was immediate and appropriate, as recognized by the NCAA, it is critically important that the safeguards and guidelines implemented to educate our student-athletes are sufficient to prevent future problems.”

Chancellor Ballard chairs a special UNC Task Force on Athletics and Academics examining ways to strengthen athletic programs and ensure the academic success of student athletes. The task force is set to make recommendations this summer.

ECU will be required during the year to notify all baseball and women’s tennis prospects that the school is on probation.

It also must provide a compliance report to the committee on infractions. And, it must file a letter from the chancellor at the end of the probation period affirming that athletics policies and procedures conform to NCAA regulations.

U

N I V E R S I T Y

Tim Kelley, a professor of environmental health sciences, was appointed chair of the Department of Health Education and Promotion. Kelley, who came to ECU in 2008 and who served as interim chair since 2010, received his undergraduate, master’s and PhD degrees from the University of Georgia. He has authored or coauthored more than 30 peer-reviewed and invited articles and book chapters.

Geography professor Derek Alderman and Heather Ward ’10, a PhD graduate of the coastal resources management program, received the 2010 Urban Communication Foundation Journal Article Award for their paper “Writing on the Plywood: Toward an Analysis of Hurricane Graffiti” published in Coastal Management magazine. The award recognizes an outstanding article that exhibits excellence in addressing issues of urban communication.

Helene Reilly ’91 ’02, a family nurse practitioner in the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, is the 2011 ECU Physicians Nurse of the Year. Reilly works in the cardiovascular imaging unit at the East Carolina Heart Institute at ECU, where she sees patients, supervises cardiac stress testing and manages other nurse practitioners and physician assistants.

Paul Gemperline, analytical chemistry professor and ECU’s dean of graduate studies, and former student Patrick Cutler ’06 ’08, were among honorees presented with the 2010 William F. Meggers Award at the Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies’ annual meeting.

The award recognizes the authors of an outstanding paper or series of papers appearing in the journal Applied Spectroscopy.

Nutrition professor Sylvia Escott-Stump, director of the dietetic internship program since 1998, began her one-year term as president of the American Dietetic Association on June 1. She is the author of several textbooks, including Nutrition and Diagnosis-Related Care, now in its seventh edition.

Lucas Carr, assistant professor in the Department of Exercise and Sport Science in the College of Health and Human Performance, received the 2011 Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award from the Oak Ridge Affiliate Universities.

As one of 30 recipients nationwide, Carr will receive $5,000 from ORAU, and the ECU research division will provide an equal match.

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I F E

Associate professor of education David J. Siegel was selected for a Fulbright Specialists project at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, which he will conduct during August and September.

Siegel will present a series of lectures and workshops on the role of access, inclusion and diversity in promoting nation building and economic development.

Perry Ennis retired from the Department of Materials Management after a 33-year career with the university. He started in 1981 to manage the shipping and receiving function and the Medical Store at the Brody School of Medicine. In 2001 he was promoted to assistant director of store operations; his most recent responsibilities include the administrative oversight of office supply, maintenance supply and medical supply stores, as well as fixed assets and state surplus property.

Professor Veronica Pantelidis, a nationally recognized expert in the field of virtual reality in education, accepted emeritus status after retiring July 1 after 35 years of service to East Carolina in the Department of Library Science. Most recently, she served as codirector of the Virtual Reality and Education Laboratory and coedited the refereed journal VR in the Schools.

She received the Max Ray Joyner Award for Faculty Service Through Continuing Education in 1999, and the 2000–01 College of Education’s Distinguished Professor award in 2000–01.

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Broadway star Ben Vereen and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band highlight the fall lineup of the S. Rudolph Alexander Performing Arts Series, which is marking its 50th anniversary this season. Vereen, whose stage credits range from Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar to Wicked, will perform Friday, Nov. 4, at 8 p.m. The Preservation Hall Jazz Band will appear Friday, Dec. 2, at 8 p.m. All shows are in Wright Auditorium.

The nation’s oldest professional musical organization, the United States Marine Band, will perform Monday, Oct. 3, at 7:30 p.m. The Marine Band, which predates 1800 and includes John Philip Sousa among its former directors, performs more than 300 White House concerts annually. This concert will be offered at no charge under the sponsorship of the Alumni Association.

United States Marine Band

One of gospel music’s most accomplished performers, Donald Lawrence, will appear Friday, Sept. 9, at 8 p.m. Lawrence is a singer, songwriter, producer and director who studied at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and produced recordings by Stephanie Mills.

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David Dorfman Dance: “Prophets of Funk,” a program of contemporary dance and theater based on the music of Sly and the Family Stone, will be offered Tuesday, Oct. 25, 8 p.m.

The Green Grass Cloggers, a group founded at ECU in 1971, will stage a reunion performance to mark their 40th anniversary Saturday, Nov. 5, at 7:30 p.m. The group has won two World Champion Clogger titles.

fall arts calendar The a t re For many theatre students, fall semester begins with auditions for roles in Stage Door, the first ECU/Loessin Playhouse production of the year. One wonders who will win the part of Jean in the drama about struggling actresses on Broadway; 25 years ago, that role—her first—was won by Sandra Bullock ’87.

The play will be performed in McGinnis Theatre Sept. 29–Oct. 4 at 8 p.m.

The second production of fall semester will be one of the most popular of all stage musicals, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, which will be staged at McGinnis Nov. 17–22 at 8 p.m. Tickets for the shows, which run Thursdays through Tuesdays, with Saturday matinees at 2 p.m., range from $10–$12. The Friends of the School of Theatre and Dance will stage a gala revue Dec. 3 to raise money for scholarships. Tickets are $35.

The Family Fare series opens its 2011 season with Stinky Cheese Man: The Musical, presented by the ECU Storybook Theatre, on Friday, Oct. 21, at 7 p.m.

Who’s in town?

Internationally renowned author Sir Salman Rushdie will be the principal guest speaker in the fifth annual Voyages of Discovery Lecture Series. He will talk Wednesday, Oct. 5, about “Public Events, Private Lives: Literature and Politics in the Modern World.” Rushdie will speak in Wright Auditorium at 7 p.m.

The lecture series begins Sept. 13 at 7 p.m. with Dr. David T. Courtwright, a University of North Florida history professor, who will talk about “Sky as Frontier: America’s Air and Space Century.”

The third speaker in the series will be Harvard historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. He was in the news last year when he was mistakenly arrested as a burglar by Boston police and later shared a beer with his accuser and President Barack Obama. His talk Nov. 10 at 7 p.m. is entitled “African-American Lives: Genetics, Genealogy and Black History.”

Gates’ appearance will help mark 50 years of diversity at ECU.

I n c o n cer t classical music: Pianist Richard Goode, a Grammy Award-winner for his recording of the Brahms piano-clarinet sonatas with Richard Stoltzman and the first American pianist to record all of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, will perform in recital Thursday, Oct. 6, at 7:30 p.m. in A.J. Fletcher Recital Hall.

offer a concert Oct. 16 at 3 p.m. in Fletcher Recital Hall. The choral music program will sponsor a “Sing Off” vocal ensemble competition Thursday, Nov. 17, at 7:30 p.m. in Fletcher.

Opera: The fall schedule of the ECU Opera Theater consists of two shorter works: Samuel Barber’s A Hand of Bridge and Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Medium. The operas will be staged Thursday, Nov. 3, through Sunday, Nov. 6, in Fletcher Recital Hall.

Jazz at Christinne’s: Another season of the popular jazz program at the Hilton Greenville Hotel starts Friday, Sept. 16, at 8 p.m. Jazz students and faculty members perform, and part of the proceeds from the performances is returned to the ECU jazz program. A second program is scheduled Friday, Nov. 11. Tom the Jazzman from Public Radio East is the host.

Chamber Music: The 12th season of the Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival begins Sept. 29–30 in Fletcher Recital Hall and also includes a Next Generation concert Oct. 23. The Next Generation concert brings together a guest performer, an alumnus of the School of Music string program, faculty members and students in a Sunday afternoon of music-making.

Student ensembles: The ECU Symphony Orchestra will present concerts Saturday, Sept. 17; Saturday, Oct. 15; and Saturday, Nov. 12, all in Wright Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. The Wind Ensemble Chamber Players will perform Thursday, Sept. 22, at 7:30 p.m. and on Tuesday, Nov. 29, at 7:30 p.m. in Fletcher Recital Hall. The ECU Bands will perform Thursday, Sept. 29, at 7:30 p.m. and Tuesday, Nov. 15, at 7:30 p.m. in Wright Auditorium; the Percussion Ensemble will perform Wednesday, Oct. 19, at 7:30 p.m. and Wednesday, Nov. 16, at 7:30 p.m. in Fletcher. The Guitar Ensemble will perform Wednesday, Nov. 30, at 7:30 p.m. in Fletcher.

Choral music: The University Singers and St. Cecilia Singers will

Exhibitions The annual Alumni Exhibition will take place in three different venues this fall— the Wellington Gray Gallery on campus, the Greenville Museum of Art and Pitt County Arts Council at Emerge, between Sept. 2 and Oct. 1. A reception to open the show is planned for Sept. 2 at 5 p.m.

The annual Faculty Exhibition will take place at Gray Gallery between Oct. 14 and Nov. 19, with a reception planned for Oct. 14 at 6 p.m. The annual Holiday Exhibition and Sale, with works in a variety of media, will take place at the gallery Dec. 1–3.

—Steve Row 19

Waiting for an As a boy, Thomas Story remembers going to the hospital after he lost an eye in a gun accident on his family’s farm in Perquimans County. But as for visiting the dentist? Well, he says, you just didn’t. Now 62, he saw a dentist for the first time in decades this year at a clinic at a Washington, N.C. church. After waiting several hours along with hundreds of others, he had all his teeth pulled.

It was a blessing, he says, because it brought an end to the decay, pain and infection that often left him unable to eat or drink. He suffered his whole life because he didn’t have the money to pay a dentist, plus it would have required a lengthy trip to the closest one many miles away.

“I feel better and I’ve gained weight,” he says. “I can eat better with no teeth than with rotten ones.”

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ECU dentist

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By Marion Blackburn

It’s hard to imagine that people endure such hardship in our time, but rural North Carolina is full of tragic accounts like Story’s.

Adults like him who have gone years without dental care suffer infections, swollen gums and worn-down teeth. Hundreds of children lose their adult teeth because cavities set in as soon as they erupt. The health of people with diabetes, obesity or high blood pressure often fails to improve because they can’t chew healthy foods. For some, gum disease turns lethal when combined with heart disease.

There is hope. ECU’s $60 million School of Dental Medicine, set to open in August, will serve people like Story. At full enrollment, it will graduate around 50 new dentists each year who will have the training needed to provide broad care to people living in rural areas—places where they may

photography by forrest croce

well be the only dentist for miles around.

“This state has a genuine focus on helping its citizens achieve great things, but that’s tough to do when many are suffering from chronic conditions such as bad dental health,” says Dr. James R. Hupp, dean of the school and professor of oral and maxillofacial surgery.

“Our School of Dental Medicine is going to allow individuals who are crippled by severe pain and disfigurement from dental disease to overcome those obstacles and have better job opportunities, better overall health and better focus during their education. These things will help the state move forward, and all its people move forward. That’s where our school will have a major impact.”

And ECU will do it in a unique way, pioneering a program unlike any other in the

nation. Far beyond the walls of Ross Hall, the new dental school building, ECU will build and staff 10 dental practice centers serving some of the poorest, most isolated areas of the state. The clinics will house faculty dentists, dental residents and fourthyear dental students who will complete their training not in a building on campus, but where they are needed—working with people with no one else to treat them, in situations very much like the real-world ones they’ll have after graduation.

“We’re taking a different approach,” says Dr. Gregory Chadwick, associate dean for planning and extramural affairs and clinical professor of endodontics. “At most traditional dental schools, the education is within the walls of the institution. We’re changing the model for dental education.”

Dr. James R. Hupp, dean of the dental school

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At a Glance: ECU School of Dental Medicine Ross Hall is on schedule to open next summer in what many consider record time for such a major, publicly funded initiative, given that it was launched during a severe recession.

A final hurdle was cleared in June when the General Assembly included $3.5 million in the state budget for this fiscal year and $5 million for next year to complete the hiring of what eventually will be 66 faculty members and about 100 staff. That brings the state’s investment to roughly $95 million. Ribbon-cutting for the threestory, 100,000-square-foot facility will come next spring, just six years after the UNC Board of Governors voted to start only the second school of dentistry in North Carolina.

The facility is named for Ledyard E. Ross ’51, a Greenville orthodontist who donated $4 million to the university in 2010 to help start the dental school.

The first class of 50 students have already begun arriving; they will study in remodeled spaces in the Brody School of Medicine building and Laupus Library until Ross Hall opens.

Dr. Gregory Chadwick, associate dean, at the site of Ross Hall, which will open next year

Relief for rural counties ECU responded when the state needed more teachers, nurses, business leaders and doctors. Now, without a doubt, the state needs dentists. ECU’s new dental school joins a sister program at UNC Chapel Hill, which since 1950 has operated the state’s only dental school. As ECU’s school opens, Carolina also is on schedule to open a new Dental Sciences Building, a 216,000-squarefoot facility scheduled for completion in early 2012. ECU will focus on providing general dentists; UNC will have additional emphasis on specialty studies and research.

The 2006 Joint Plan for Dentistry, a study conducted by the two UNC campuses calling for a coordinated response to this need, holds some startling facts. North Carolina ranks 47th nationally for dental care, a statistic that derives from the state average of about four dentists for 10,000 people; the national average is nearly six dentists for 10,000 people. Today, four North Carolina counties (Tyrrell, Jones,

Hyde, Camden) have no dentists at all. Three counties have one dentist, 28 have just two.

Like most health care professionals, dentists tend to locate in urban areas because that’s where the most potential patients live who have insurance or the ability to pay out of pocket. Even when they can lure a dentist to their sparsely populated areas, poor counties have a larger percentage of residents on Medicare or Medicaid, which many providers don’t accept for payment. Together, these trends could create a chronic and potentially devastating health care crisis.

To change that bleak projection, ECU will open 10 dental practices, known as service learning centers, in rural parts of the state.

So far, four sites have been announced.

Two are east of I-95—where the need is greatest—in Ahoskie and Elizabeth City.

Others are set for Lillington, in Harnett County southeast of Raleigh, and in the Jackson County community of Sylva in the mountains. Anyone will be able to receive care at these practices. Patients will be

An integral part of the dental school will be the 10 community service learning centers that ECU will open around the state. Each of these centers will have 16 dental chairs, where four or five fourth-year dental students under the supervision of onsite residents and faculty will treat local residents at reduced charges.

Plans call for each center to be staffed by two to three hygienists and five or six dental assistants. It’s expected that the hygienists and assistants will be hired locally. The faculty members assigned to each center will reside in those communities. Each center will cost about $3 million.

Ross Hall will have 160 operatories, rooms much like a dentist’s office with surgical-grade lighting, sinks and air systems. Students and faculty will use those facilities to hone their skills while providing care to patients under a three-tiered pricing system.

East Carolina received a $1.76 million federal grant to help with construction of the centers in Ahoskie and Elizabeth City.

Meanwhile, construction on UNC Chapel Hill’s $92 million Dental Sciences Building also is on schedule, with completion expected in November. The facility will allow Carolina to enlarge its dental classes.

ECU and Carolina are following a joint plan they developed to improve dental care statewide.

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It was “one of the sweetest professional moments of my career” when Kim Schwartz, CEO of the Roanoke Chowan Community Health Center, learned she had won a $6.2 million federal grant to buy the land for, build and equip a new community health center that will team with a new ECU dental clinic in Ahoskie. The site is a field between Hertford High School (background) and the RCCHC medical offices on South Academy Street. RCCHC is a not-forprofit community health organization operating clinics in Murfreesboro, Ahoskie and Colerain.

charged a sliding scale of fees according to the type of provider they see—student, resident or faculty.

Because they often are uninsured, many people in rural communities who need dental care wind up in hospital emergency rooms. There they are given antibiotics and possibly pain medicine. But in counties without dentists there’s a good chance the problem will worsen, says Dr. Masud Baksh, an emergency room physician at RoanokeChowan Hospital in Ahoskie.

“This is one of the poorest parts of the state,” says Baksh. “There is a very large population without any kind of medical insurance. We tell them, ‘This is the extent I can help you but you have to get to a dentist to get to the real problem.’ It can be a simple toothache, to a very complicated 24

thing—they can come in with swelling of the jaw and pain, to high fever of 103, 104, shaking.” Baksh can drain the abscess from a large cavity, but once his patients go home “it can turn into a serious problem. I have seen people become septic from untreated dental abscesses that we have to treat with systemic problems. There is a potential for getting seriously ill.”

These costs and health risks could be avoided through simple measures, he says.

“Dental decay can be easily prevented,” he says. “If they have access to dental care, it wouldn’t progress to that stage, or they wouldn’t have these problems. If these patients could go to a dental office and could have their dental care provided, it would be a tremendous help to the entire community.”

Indeed, that’s the goal. “As soon as the first center is up and operating, you’ll see a difference in that community,” Chadwick says. “The difference will be felt in a number of ways. We’ll see a difference in oral health promotion, with providers able to incorporate an oral health message. More school kids will be screened.”

But overall, it will take time. “We are the fifth-fastest growing state,” he says. “To stay even, we’re going to have to work because the state is growing so fast. We’re not going to be able to drill, fill and extract our way into better oral health. It will have to be achieved one individual at the time, by delivering a message. But we’ll clearly have more people seeing a dentist because of what we’re doing here at ECU.”

The people behind the numbers The only dental care that many children in Hertford County receive is when a mobile office visits schools around Ahoskie once each year, says school nurse Emily Jenkins.

Yet even that modest level of care brought one mother to tears. “Her children were so in need of a dentist,” says Jenkins, lead school nurse for the Hertford County Public Schools. “She had lost her job, lost her insurance benefit for dental care and knew they needed to be seen, but she couldn’t find a way to do it because of the hard times. When I told her about the mobile dentist, she was so appreciative she started crying on the phone.”

Jenkins sees children whose teeth have eroded so far the nerves are exposed. Left untreated, those children will suffer years of pain and eventual tooth loss. Poor dental health also affects their education. “When they have poor teeth, they can’t pay attention because their mouth is hurting,” Jenkins says. “They can’t learn.”

Kim Schwartz, CEO of Roanoke-Chowan Community Health Center in Ahoskie, says ECU’s new dental center there will improve life for entire families. She’s been working for years to bring dental care to her area.

The dental center will be linked with a new federally funded health center in Ahoskie for which she received a $6.2 million federal grant. The center provides families with routine, or primary, care.

It’s an important step forward for an area that suffers with long-term economic depression. “Generational poverty is different than situational poverty,” Schwartz says. Those whose families have always been poor often accept bad health—and its discomforts—as a natural part of life.

“Tooth pain is so different than any other pain,” she says. “They don’t know why they have pain until we ask, ‘When was the last time you saw a dentist?’”

Dental pain sometimes drives people to almost unthinkable measures. It’s not unusual, she says, to hear of people pulling

Who’s in the first class of dentists?

Classes begin Aug. 15 for the first class of ECU dentists.

Who are they, and where do they come from? Here’s an overview: Class size: 52 Male: 28 Female: 24 Caucasian: 38 Hispanic: 1 African American: 5 Asian: 8 Average age: 24.7 Age range: 22–35 All are North Carolina residents and represent 28 counties.

All have bachelor’s degrees.

Eight also have master’s degrees.

Source: Dr. Margaret B. Wilson, associate dean for student affairs, ECU School of Dental Medicine

25

“We ran the numbers and saw that over 2 percent of the visits in our [emergency room] were dental related,” says Phil Donahue (right), vice president of Albemarle Hospital in Elizabeth City. “This shocked me, and gives you an idea of how bad the problem is. The people who are showing up—their teeth are in horrific shape.”

Along with Jerry Parks, health director of Albemarle Regional Health Services, he stands on the site where the ECU dental clinic will be built across the street from Albemarle Hospital on North Road Street.

their own teeth. She tells of an 80-year-old who removed all of her teeth. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that story.”

She believes the community will prove a worthy choice for one of ECU’s first dental practices. “You can’t come anywhere that needs you more,” she says. “You can do work that makes a difference.”

A new kind of dentist Dental education, like medical school, begins with two years of classes in basic human sciences. Indeed, ECU’s dental students will study under Brody School of Medicine professors for some of their classes. During their second year, dental students work with 26

mannequins and other simulators to learn fillings, crowns and bridges. During their third year, they begin real dentistry with fillings, root canals and other procedures. They will work with faculty dentists at Ross Hall.

But during their fourth year of school, ECU dental students will do something very different. Instead of studying in a classroom on campus, they will practice their new skills in one of the 10 service learning centers.

While some of their time will be spent at Ross Hall, they will complete rotations in other communities here in eastern North Carolina—and across the state.

At least part of their fourth-year practice will take place in these special dental offices

established and staffed by ECU’s dental school. Faculty members will live in these small towns. Hygienists and dental assistants for the service learning centers will be hired from the community, providing additional jobs. Chadwick says he’s not aware of any other institution taking this approach.

It’s hard to imagine the situation changing in rural areas without some help, Chadwick says, citing the costs of establishing a dental practice as the first impediment. And since many residents of these areas are on Medicaid or Medicare, the returns can’t cover the investment. Plus, many dental students graduate “$200,000 to $300,000 in debt,” he says. That burden is piled atop other financial demands—house payments,

Penny Graham

The campus of Southwestern Community College in Sylva, in Jackson County, will be the site of the ECU dental clinic serving the mountain region. Most county agencies are located nearby on County Services Road. The county health department operates a dental clinic, but director Paula Carden says it “cannot meet the demands for dental care because the need is so huge. The free clinic in Cashiers has a waiting list of more than 500 people from Jackson County and two neighboring counties. We have hosted the Mission of Mercy Dental Clinic three or four times, and people line up for hours to receive these services.�

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A dental school on the Brody model The curriculum of the ECU School of Dental Medicine will offer a distinctive mix of course work that in many ways resembles the model that East Carolina developed for the Brody School of Medicine, which focuses on training family doctors to serve rural counties.

First year—Students study the cardiovascular, nervous, endocrine and reproductive systems of the body. They will learn normal, abnormal and clinical medicine. Some work will be done with dental models, known as simulators, to learn fillings, crowns and other “hand skills.”

kids, personal expenses—forcing many new dentists to begin practicing in urban areas where patients either have insurance or can pay for their dental care out of pocket.

That year of on-the-job training has benefits for dental students, too. “When I graduated, I worked in a community health center as a solo dentist,” Chadwick remembers.

“I realized there was a big transition between working in a dental school and working in a community in a more rural area. There are different needs. Now, we have the opportunity to bring dental education into the picture and give students hands-on experience with faculty in those communities, so they can be successful in that environment later on.”

That’s one of the reasons Alex Crisp, 23, of

Second year—Students learn how the human systems apply to dental health, especially how a dysfunction in another part of the body can affect the head, neck and oral cavity. They will do more advanced practice with models, as well as some time working with patients doing basic procedures such as fillings.

Third year—Most of the students’ time will be spent taking care of patients under the supervision of faculty members in the Ross Hall dental school clinics.

Fourth year—For ECU students, this year will take place in one of 10 universityowned and operated dental offices throughout the state. “ECU believes that the best way to encourage practice in underserved areas is to physically train dental student in these communities,” says Dr. Todd Watkins, assistant dean of dental education informatics.

—Marion Blackburn

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Juanita Johnson

Burlington chose ECU. The son of a dentist, he’s known for many years that would be his career choice. Now, he says, he can follow his dream and take part in the excitement of creating a new course for dental education.

“I feel like Columbus traveling uncharted waters,” he says. “There’s something great that I’m going to be a part of, and some great ideas behind this curriculum. One of the reasons I decided to come to ECU was because I knew we were going to go into a rural place and have an impact on people lives.”

Nevertheless, change will take time. It will be four years before the first students graduate from the dental school. There are 16 faculty members currently on campus; the number should grow to 67 over the next three years.

“As soon as the first center is up and

Dan Roberts

The service learning center at Lillington, in Harnett County southeast of Raleigh, will be built on U.S. 401 near the Harnett County Courthouse at a site in the Brightwater Science and Technology Campus. Shelia Simmons, CEO of First Choice Community Health Centers, ECU’s local partner, said, “We are so appreciative and welcome the opportunity to have a learning institution like this in our community.”

All inset text by Meagan Williford

operating, you’ll see a difference in that community,” Chadwick says. “The difference will be felt in a number of ways. We’ll see difference in oral health promotion, and a difference for our partners. But, if you have several people at your front door, who are hurting and swollen, you have to work your way through the urgent needs first. We’ll not be able to take care of all the urgent needs immediately, but we want to be able to find ways to treat those patients first. Then, we can work with larger groups, and help them understand, for instance, that you don’t put your baby to bed with a bottle of CocaCola in it, because they’re going to have a tremendous amount of tooth decay if you do.

“We’ll talk to pregnant women, mothers of infants and young children—here are the things you need to be doing,” he says.

“Because if you don’t have oral health, you’re not healthy.”

Juanita Johnson, a registered nurse and community case manager at the Community Care Clinic in the Chowan County community of Tyner, population about

2,000, agrees. “They come into my office and literally I’m talking about their diet, health and nutrition—and they will just take their teeth and move them back and forth in their mouth. They come in such pain, and when I recommend what they should eat, instead of soft, fast foods, they say, ‘I can’t chew.’” She met Thomas Story through her work at the clinic, where she learned of his unbearably painful toothaches.

Today, Story offers a compelling endorsement of the vision and approach taken by ECU. His experience, he believes, would have been vastly different had affordable dental care been available near his farm. His only neighbors are farmland and woods, his only companions his dogs, geese, chickens and cats. But only a few miles to the east of his farm is Elizabeth City, where ECU will host a service learning center. Had the clinic been open a few years ago, would he have sought the care that could have saved his teeth?

“I’m sure I would,” he says.

East 29

30

Jay Clark

Same

Fan,

Different

Hat

Running the concession stand for the Kinston Indians taught John Clark ’96 what makes sports fans tick, a skill he uses today for success in a much bigger arena— Madison Square Garden

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B y J e ss i c a c r e a s o n N o t t i n g h a m

John Clark ’96 certainly knows those statistics—in fact, it was his team that gleaned that demographic information from surveys—because it’s his job. Since 2009, he’s worked as vice president of marketing partnerships for sporting events at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Clark, 36, oversees the revenue streams, corporate sponsors and marketing endeavors that support three Big Apple pro sports teams: the Knicks of the NBA, the Liberty of the WNBA and the Rangers of the NHL. Clark also procures sponsorships for other events held at the Garden, including college basketball, wrestling, tennis tournaments and boxing. The famed arena even is home

to the Professional Bull Riders.

Clark and a team of about 20 associates work to identify companies that may be interested in affiliating with Madison Square Garden sports teams through advertising.

They research and meet with Fortune 500 companies to learn about their target audiences and attempt to link MSG’s assets with their goals. “That’s just the nine to five part,” Clark cautions. “In the evenings we’re taking clients out to dinner or a cocktail, plus some weekends away.”

Luckily, Clark’s fiancée also works in sports marketing and “has an understanding for the hours that we keep and supports me regardless,” he says. Keri Conway is currently the marketing coordinator for Town Sports Clubs, the parent company of New York Sports Clubs.

To help fund a successful sports team, Clark and his team must stay at the forefront of media trends. For example, Clark’s team set up a meeting with Kia based on research that

found Knicks fan are highly likely to lease or buy a car within 18 months of attending a game. And Hugo Boss recently affiliated with MSG sports through sponsorships and advertising despite its reputation of being known for rarely investing in advertising.

Why? Clark showed them that their target market could be found sitting in the first 20 rows of a Knicks game.

Understanding the fans “Sales,” Clark says, “it’s part art and part science. For every 100 calls we make, we get 10 meetings that require 10 proposals, and we might end up with one client. You have to get used to hearing ‘no’ a lot. The art is seeing the value in what we’re doing, because it’s not traditional marketing. We have to understand the fan base and associate with brands that reach these fans. We work with over 70 brands in order to do this.” Clark, whose communication degree is in public relations, also serves as the liaison to the rest of the

John Clark is on the court with Bob Stohrer, CMO of Boost Mobile, Madison Square Garden’s wireless partner, during a break at a New York Knicks game. Clark is sporting a “Rangers Playoff Beard” to support the Garden of Dreams Foundation, an MSG charity.

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© Madison Square Garden, L.P., courtesy MSG Photos

Here’s an interesting fact from market research: Fans of the New York Knicks are highly likely to lease or buy a car within 18 months of attending a game at Madison Square Garden. And did you know that sitting in the first 20 rows at Garden games are people who are the perfect market for Hugo Boss, the high-end fashion house?

company, particularly the vice presidents of entertainment and media marketing.

He maintains a work schedule that can be challenging, but his high energy level and ability to promote any topic keep his team motivated and clients engaged. “My job as a leader is about having fun and generating more business. It’s a lifestyle, not a living,” he says. “The number of hours a week we put in is something no one would want to calculate.”

Clark was introduced to the business side of sports as an intern for the Kinston Indians before graduation and for a year afterward.

“I literally ran a concession stand. The product we sold was affordable, family fun.

The players changed every day, but we could guarantee a good baseball game.

“Public relations touches everything,” Clark says. “The first three years with the Indians, I used strategies learned in class on agency branding. Ninety percent of a communication [degree] will be used.” He ended up creating the first beer garden still in existence and running ticket sales by the time he left the Indians.

From the Indians, which competes at the lowest level of pro baseball—Single A—in 1997 Clark moved up to manage group tickets sales for the Double A Norwich (Conn.) Navigators.

After three years there he became assistant general manager for a Philadelphia Phillies affiliate, the Lakewood (N.J.) BlueClaws, in 2000. During six years with the BlueClaws, he played a key role in designing, overseeing and naming their new stadium, FirstEnergy Park.

Clark made it to the big leagues in 2006 when he was named director of corporate development with the Houston Rockets of the NBA. There he had to learn a completely new business model and product— basketball. That position set the stage for yet another leap forward in Clark’s career when he was named vice president of sponsorship sales and services with the Miami Dolphins of the NFL in 2008. After a year there,

Clark has worked in the three major sports—baseball, football and basketball— and was ready to take on the Big Apple.

“I believe in sports,” said Clark. “From football that has a broader audience to hockey that has die-hard fans, people have an emotional connection and I believe it’s a great release. The atmosphere is amazing.”

Sharing difficult moments Back on campus in May as the graduation speaker for the School of Communication, he spoke mostly on opportunity, a concept that played a significant role in his life while growing up in a small town in West Virginia.

He empathizes with recent graduates with similar ambitions. “I want students to think bigger. First, get a degree, then what?”

Being the school’s commencement speaker caused him to remember his own graduation.

“I remember it—the feeling I had when graduation was finished. I had just lined up my second year with the Kinston Indians.

I also realized I love what I’m doing.” As the graduation speaker, “I want to relay the experiences I’ve had to take advantage of opportunities.”

He believes there are bigger things yet to achieve in his career. “Have I come a long way from intern at Kinston Indians? Yes, but if you talk to me in 20 years, I hope to say the same about what I’m doing now. I’m always asking ‘What’s next?’”

At graduation, he talked about the difficult moments he has experienced in his career.

One was about his first day on the job with the Kinston ball club. He arrived at work in a suit only to be handed a paintbrush and told to paint the stadium’s first four rows a bright teal color.

Another difficult time was when his grandfather died just seven months after Clark graduated from ECU. When he was 10 years old, his grandfather promised to be at his college graduation. “He was a radio

announcer for the Red Sox and even though I had no idea what I wanted to do for a long time, my grandfather was an inspiration. He lost his battle with cancer just seven months after graduation.” Like his grandfather, Clark has a radio-worthy voice, but he says he lacks the patience to sit in a studio for hours.

Clark’s first brushes with East Carolina were when he witnessed ECU’s famed win in the 1992 Peach Bowl and then later visiting a friend attending ECU. It just took one tour through campus for him to become a Pirate.

Madison Square Garden will undergo complete renovations over the next three years and Clark will be able to see another team through a huge stadium remodel.

“Everything will change,” Clark says. “My proudest accomplishment was opening the (Navigators) stadium in New Jersey and seeing the team through the first year and then through the fifth.”

Clark’s job has given him the opportunity to meet lots of sports stars, but there’s one day that stands out as a career highlight.

“Spending the day with Cal Ripken Jr. was it. He owns minor league teams in New Jersey and a league for youth that he does in memory of his father. He has one heck of a business mind.”

Currently, Clark is granting internship opportunities to ECU students studying public relations. Recently he treated an ECU intern to a ride through Manhattan on a publicity bus, and it got in the paper.

Clark and his fiancée met in 2000 while he was working for the BlueClaws and living in Lakewood, N.J. Now, the couple lives in Jersey City, just a 20-minute subway ride away from Manhattan. “We agreed that some separation from the city would be a good thing and we wanted more than 500 square feet of space,” says Clark. The wedding date is set for this October, which “is considered a long-term opportunity,” he joked during his graduation speech.

East 33

from the classroom

My life in books Authors should stick to what they know, a simple tenet that Liza Wieland practices as a successful writer and an inspiring teacher

35

By Steve Tuttle As a teenager growing up in Atlanta, Liza Wieland won an exchange scholarship to a girls’ boarding school in the English countryside near Wales. Later, she was accepted at Harvard and arrived in Boston shivering in a cloth coat, definitely an odd duck to her classmates in comfortable down jackets. After college she crossed the continent to become a teaching fellow at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, a locale as exotic as her next stop, Columbia University and the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Such abrupt departures from the familiar and comfortable in search of distant horizons is a recurring theme in Wieland’s life as well as in her seven novels and short story collections. She gives new meaning to the old saw that authors should write about what they know, and she continues a long tradition at East Carolina, perhaps best exemplified by Ovid Pierce, of commercially successful writers on the English faculty.

In her acclaimed fiction—she’s won two Pushcart Prizes and received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Christopher Isherwood Foundation and the North Carolina Arts Council—strong female characters are confronted with jarring events that spawn introspection and growth. In her creative writing classes, she encourages students to also look within for inspiration. “She interjects thoughts which steer a conversation in the most illuminating directions,” says former student Erin Michelle Warren ’11 of Angier, who just completed her master’s in English under Wieland. “She points toward the answers within us—she has faith that they already exist there—and gives a space to let them simmer.”

Ivory Kelly ’11 of Greenville, another former student and recent master’s graduate, echoes that thought. “Even though she is an accomplished writer, she instinctively understands the needs of creative writing students who sometimes feel apprehensive about sharing their writings, especially in 36

workshop settings, and she responds to this need by creating a comfortable classroom atmosphere in which students feel safe to explore, experiment and let it all hang out.”

Although most of her literary characters are women struggling under unfamiliar circumstances, Wieland says she isn’t a feminist writer. “A feminist writer is different than being a woman’s writer, which I consider myself,” she says. “I’m interested in the way women make their way through the world, particularly teenage women in the ’70s when I was one. My concerns are women’s lives and women’s lives under duress in extreme or difficult circumstances. A good story comes when a character is put someplace they don’t want to be and has to figure it out.”

‘I have very good hearing’ Born in Chicago and raised mostly in Atlanta, Wieland attended Harvard, she says, only because Yale turned her down. “I wasn’t anywhere near the top of my [high school] class, but I think I seemed suitably odd,” she recalls about her transition to college.

“My application essay was mostly original poems.” Raised in the sunny South, “I was completely unprepared for Harvard. My roommates were from Massachusetts and they had these things called down jackets, which I had never seen. I had this small cloth coat. But I loved Boston and Harvard.”

She especially loved her professors there, particularly the poets Mark Strand and Derek Walcott. She read voraciously, consuming Henry James, Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, D.H. Lawrence and lots of poetry. Reading, she says, is how she learned to write well. But it was listening that taught her about people. “I would have to say that listening taught me as well, listening to what people say and all they don’t say. I have very good hearing, and I’m an obsessive watcher and eavesdropper.”

It’s a method she follows in the classroom.

“The best way to teach students to write well

is to make sure they do a lot of writing and a fair amount of revising. But not too much of the latter. I think young writers need to complete lots of new work, try on different voices, themes, styles, genres, subjects­—make wonderful messes—rather than hone one or two pieces to some kind of lifeless perfection.

I have to say, though, that all the writing in the world won’t amount to much unless it’s accompanied by reading, so that students have other voices in their heads besides their own.”

Wieland herself has repeatedly sought out other voices. After a postcollege stint in Utah, she hit the Big Apple, completing a master’s in English and comparative literatures at Columbia in 1984 and a doctorate there in 1988. During those years she also taught at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan and at tony Dickinson College in Pennsylvania. In 1991 she crossed the continent a second time to join the faculty at Cal State-Fresno.

It was there that she met her husband, Dan Stanford, who was a student in one of her undergraduate fiction writing classes. He had gone back to college after working several years as a truck driver, so they were about the same age. His long road to college “made him very interesting to me for many reasons,” Wieland says. He went on to receive an MFA in creative writing.

Over the next 15 years at Cal State-Fresno, Wieland found her muse. She published two novels, two collections of short stories and one of poems. But she again sought new horizons in 2006, trading the Pacific for the Atlantic to settle first in New Bern, where she taught a year at the private Epiphany School, and later in Greenville. Stanford joined the faculty at Pitt Community College and Wieland soon heard about an opening at ECU. While in retrospect it may seem that her continental career moves are evidence of some extreme desire, Wieland says there is a more down-to-earth reason. “I simply went where the jobs were. That’s how we got here.”

A writer with broad appeal

Wieland has had two more books published since coming to East Carolina. Her latest, Quickening, is a collection of short stories that is attracting literary notice and commercial success.

In her review of the book, author Cynthia Shearer said Wieland demonstrates “a gift for culling extraordinary prose from the ordinary human moment.”

In addition to chairing several thesis committees, Wieland has represented the creative writing faculty on both the undergraduate and graduate curriculum committees in the department, and she serves on a committee in the Honors College.

Wieland and Stanford are enjoying raising their daughter, Georgia, a seventh-grader and budding writer who has had stories published by the Greenville Daily Reflector. “People often assume she’s named for the state in which I grew up,” Wieland explains, “but actually it’s for Georgia O’Keeffe.”

Dim Tom Maloney, also known to the citizens of Harmony, North Carolina as “Preacher,” is the young first-person narrator of this thought-provoking novel.

Although Tom has been serving as the town’s Methodist minister for only two months when the story begins, it’s clear that he is the wrong man for the job.

It’s not that Tom is not a man of faith (although, as the story progresses, he begins to have doubts); it’s that he has an inclusive outlook that is out of step with the Bible-belt community where he lives and works.

This novel is packed with important issues: homophobia, racial bigotry, hypocrisy, spousal abuse, suicide, patricide, secularism, and biblical authority.

Dangers also abound, such as a storm that forces Tom and his girlfriend to abandon their fishing boat and plunge into shark-infested waters, food poisoning run amok during the annual potluck, and hurricane-season weather, which marches into the endgame of the novel as an “act of God.” As rich as this novel is in ideas, it is also funny, sexy, plot-driven, and page-turning.

Tom eventually takes a hard second look at his adopted hometown, his chosen profession, and even his lifelong faith commitments. His ties severed, Tom’s future may be uncertain, but crisis has brought a choice and a change.

Jim Metzger Jim holds degrees in religion from Vanderbilt University (M.A., Ph.D.), Princeton Theological Seminary (M.Div.), and the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill (B.A.) and has taught at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, Luther College, and East Carolina University. Although this is Jim’s first novel, he has written an academic monograph as well as several articles and reviews for journals of religion.

Jim and his family live in Greenville, NC.

Aberdeen Bay

U.S. $15.95

Bibliography 2011 Quickening, short stories 2009 A Watch of Nightingales, a novel 2005 Near Alcatraz, poems

Deep philosophical conversations about God and the nature of evil definitely are more interesting when they occur between a neophyte Methodist minister and a curvaceous parishioner who sneaks beer into the parsonage. Set in a backwater town in eastern North Carolina not far from ECU, this humorous novel

by Philosophy department teaching assistant Jim Metzger takes us on a journey of discovery for Tom Maloney, the young minister who narrates.

“Preacher” METZGER soon learns that the narrow life allotted to him is killing his soul—and hampering his love life. This juxtaposition of moral aspiration and mortal urges allows the author to explore theological questions within a bodice-buster plot.

Familiar names and places turn up throughout the book, from Cubbie’s in downtown to Bill’s Hot Dogs in little Washington. Metzger’s descriptions of church and parsonage life are spot on.

The thought-provoking ideas and gentle humor at the heart of this first work make it a good book club choice.

DIM

Jim Metzger

Wieland soon began working with Bauer as fiction editor of the annual Literary Review, another legacy of ECU’s long history with writers.

Wieland’s poetry, short stories and essays also have appeared in anthologies and such literary magazines as Southern Review, Georgia Review, New England Review and Quarterly West. Bauer points out that only a writer with broad appeal can entertain such geographically diverse audiences.

Sex and the single preacher

Dim

Wieland had five books to her credit when professor Margaret Bauer interviewed her for the ECU position. As editor of the North Carolina Literary Review, Bauer certainly knows good writing. “I served on the search committee when Liza applied to ECU, and I was so impressed by the writing that I read in her file that during her interview, I invited her to submit a story for publication in the Literary Review,” Bauer says.

“I’ve since read most of her work,” Bauer adds.

“Her second novel, Bombshell, includes a brother and sister reminiscent of Caddy and Quentin Compson in William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury—although Liza’s characters are emotionally healthier. Her third novel, A Watch of Nightingales, which received the Michigan Literary Fiction Award, has the most poignant description of grief I have ever read.”

B O O K S B Y FA C U LT Y

JIM

Dim Aberdeen Bay 244 pages, $15.95

2001 Bombshell, a novel 1999 You Can Sleep While I Drive, short stories 1994 Discovering America, short stories 1992 The Names of the Lost, a novel

37

He’s got my back A young coach mentors a quarterback grateful for a second chance, creating opportunities for both to achieve dreams deferred

Quarterback Dominique Davis and offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley spend many hours watching game film.

By Bethany Bradsher

It might happen during the season opener against South Carolina at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte or a week later at home against Virginia Tech. But Coach Ruffin McNeill and offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley are sure a play will occur when senior quarterback Dominique Davis does something truly amazing, causing television commentators to rave about his maturity, leadership and NFL potential.

And when that top-of-the-world moment comes, the coaches will remember a chilly January night 18 months ago when they first met Davis, when he was on the bottom looking up.

Back then, McNeill and Riley had been in their new jobs at East Carolina for only a couple of days after coming from Texas Tech. Before they even moved into their new offices they booked a flight to Florida to meet Davis. A high school star in Lakeland, Fla., Davis had accepted a scholarship to Boston College in 2007; he showed promise on the field his freshman year but struggled to adjust in the classroom. Declared academically ineligible, Davis swallowed his pride and enrolled in tiny Fort Scott Community College in Kansas so he could pull his grades up and still play football.

When he caught the eye of former ECU coach Skip Holtz, Davis believed he’d earned his ticket back to major college football. But when Holtz abruptly resigned to take the coaching job at South Florida, Davis thought his chance at redemption had passed.

40

p h o t o g r a p h y b y j ay c l a r k

game (30.2) and total touchdown passes (37).

Now Riley and Davis are at the start of their second season together, and they agree on one central point: Last year might have been better than expected, but it only scratched the surface of how exciting and high-scoring the Pirate offense can be.

The proof was seen in spring practice, when the offense seemed much more comfortable in spread formations and was thus able to focus on executing plays.

And then McNeill and Riley showed up on his doorstep.

Riley remembers being impressed by Davis’ size (6'3" tall and 222 pounds) and physical condition. But the most convincing part was the way he handled himself throughout their conversation. “I told him what we’re going to do offensively,” Riley says. “He didn’t say a word; he just looked me square in the eye the whole time, and you could just tell there was a maturity. We walked out of that house, and we said, ‘I don’t know if he can throw, but that was pretty impressive.’”

From that first meeting, a strong relationship developed between Davis and Riley that helped ECU defy expectations last season.

With Riley calling the plays from the sidelines and Davis leading the Pirates’ new spread offense, the team finished 6-6 and earned a school-record fifth straight bowl invitation. Davis proved to be a quick learner with the right strengths for the uptempo offense McNeill brought from Texas Tech. Davis was named Conference USA Newcomer of the Year. He was tops in the NCAA’s FBS ranks in completions per

“I want the expectations to be a lot higher than what we did last year,” says Riley, who at 28 remains one of the nation’s youngest offensive coordinators. “I know it was good and I know, relative to a lot of seasons that offenses have had here, it was the best in a lot of categories. But it’s going to get a lot better. It’s going to get a whole lot better. If we keep working, stay on the path we’re on, we’ll look back on this year and almost laugh at it, because we’ll be so much better.”

“When people say we had a great season, that’s the fan saying that, but inside, it could have been even better,” says Davis, who is known around the football program as a fixture in the film room. “When you go to the film and look at it, we missed a lot of big opportunities that could have really, really exploded. We averaged 30-plus points a game; we could have easily scored 50 points a game if we had just done this little thing, and that little thing. In film, I can complete a pass, but there was another guy that was wide open. And I’m like, ‘oh man, if I had just stuck to my read, or held the ball a little bit longer it would have been right there.’”

Setting a new course

that I learned from those mistakes.”

about the dilemma he faced then.

Riley and Davis are only two of many players and coaches who must have excellent seasons for the Pirates to again shine this year, but they carry some of the weightiest expectations. Oddly enough, they have each arrived at this point in their lives after being forced to admit failure and strike off in a different direction.

Riley credits Davis’ maturity and his parents’ stability in helping him make the most of the community college detour, and the character forged on that Kansas field helped turn Davis into an exceptional leader among his fellow Pirates, he adds.

Riley accepted Leach’s offer, and for most of his college career he attended classes in the morning, worked as a coach all day until the wee hours, went to bed and started all over again. Through those long unpaid hours, he learned every intricacy of the offense that he and McNeill brought from Texas Tech to ECU, and the experience only confirmed his life’s calling as a football coach.

For Davis, the turning point came with his academic struggles at Boston College.

He had begun a great relationship with his quarterbacks coach, ex-ECU coach Steve Logan, and completed five passes in his first spring game before redshirting his freshman year. His future as an Eagle looked bright but he was declared academically ineligible after that freshman year and found himself picking up the pieces in a landlocked community college in rural Kansas.

It might be a little-known school whose activities include livestock judging and rodeo, but Fort Scott Community College was Davis’ shot at redemption. He put his head down, did everything that was asked of him and became, he says, a man.

“I was very appreciative, because there are a lot of guys out there who would love to be in the shoes I was in when I was at BC,” Davis says. “Going to Fort Scott humbled me and helped me stay focused. I was given a second chance, and what made me a man is

“A lot of guys get a second chance and think there’s going to be a third chance. They think there’s going to be a fourth or a fifth; they think those chances never run out,” Riley says. “He knows this is his chance.

His maturity level, he’s got to be a lot more mature than most 30- or 40-year-olds. He’s serious about what he’s doing; he’s got a very businesslike, professional approach to it. And he’s just scraping the surface of how good he can be as a quarterback.”

Riley experienced his own disappointments as a college athlete. After playing quarterback in high school in Muleshoe, Texas, he went to a walk-on tryout at Texas Tech and made the team. He wasn’t good enough to get in many games, but he did get enough playing time on the practice squad to show head coach Mike Leach he had talent. However, Leach asked Riley to give up his spot on the roster to become a volunteer student assistant coach.

Riley was 19 years old. “It was like, ‘Do you want to grow up in a hurry right now, or do you want to live the college life?’” he says

On the cusp of their second season together, Riley and Davis are more comfortable with the game plan and more at ease with the other players and coaches. They feel more at home at ECU now, they say, but neither wants to settle in so thoroughly that they forget to be hungry for more touchdowns, more victories, bigger bowl destinations.

Having been granted his second chance, Davis sees his senior season as a last opportunity to show McNeill and Riley that they made the right decision. “This year everybody knows what needs to be done and knows what’s going on,” Davis says. “It will be a lot more fast-paced.”

“The expectations within this offense are probably so much higher than they are on the outside,” Riley counters. “There’s not a player or a coach who’s satisfied with what we did last year. That won’t be good enough this year, and I won’t allow anybody to think that way.”

East

Fall 2011 Football Schedule

Tickets scarce as gamecock’s teeth

Away vs. South Carolina in Charlotte, 7 p.m. FSN Sept. 10 Home vs. Virginia Tech FSN Sept. 24 Home vs. UAB Oct. 1 Home vs. North Carolina, 8 p.m.

CBSSN Oct. 8 Away vs. Houston, 7 p.m.

CBSSN Oct. 15 Away vs. Memphis Oct. 22 Away vs. Navy, 3:30 p.m.

CBSSN Oct. 29 Home vs. Tulane (Homecoming) Nov. 5 Home vs. Southern Miss, 4 p.m.

CSS Nov. 12 Away vs. UTEP, 8:05 p.m.

Nov. 19 Home vs. UCF FSN Nov. 26 Away vs. Marshall Dec. 3 C-USA Championship Game

The last time East Carolina opened its season at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, the Pirates scored a touchdown off a blocked punt at the end of the game to upset heavily favored Virginia Tech.

Three years later, the Pirates again open the season in Charlotte, this time as the underdog to a powerful South Carolina team. The senior-heavy Gamecocks, champs of the SEC East division, return 81 percent of their rushing yards from last season’s 9-5 team, 100 percent of their passing yards and eight of their top 10 tacklers. The Labor Day weekend game was expected to be a sellout. ECU is 4-1 in games played in Charlotte; its record against the Gamecocks is 5-10.

Kick-off time is 7 p.m. on the Fox Sports Networks.

Sept. 3

FSN=Fox Sports Networks, CBSSN=CBS Sports Networks, CSS=Comcast Sports Network

It looks like the football stadium attendance records that East Carolina set last season won’t stand for long.

Four of the six home games will be televised this year, which will be the fifth straight time that season ticket sales have topped 20,000. Four of the six home games will be televised, and most are expected to be sell-outs at newly enlarged Dowdy-Ficklen.

East Carolina set records last season in total attendance (297,987) and average attendance (49,665) to help the Pirates to a fifth-straight bowl appearance. In addition to topping Conference USA in average attendance for the third straight season, last year ECU trailed only BYU among all Bowl Championship Series nonautomatic qualifiers in attendance.

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The Alumni Association is proud to offer opportunities for alumni, friends and community members to return to campus this fall and experience some of the most exciting resources ECU has to offer.

Reservations for all activities can be made by calling 800-ECU-GRAD or by visiting PirateAlumni.com.

Welcome home!

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Pirate’s Bounty Scholarship Auction Your bids could win you a bounty of treasures at the Pirate’s Bounty Scholarship Auction at the Hilton Greenville on Thursday, Sept. 29, at 7 p.m. Guests will enjoy live music, hors d’oeuvres, Pirate beverages and live and silent auction items. All proceeds benefit Alumni Association scholarships given to current ECU students. Tickets are $20 per person.

ECU Alumni Scholarship Classic A tradition among Pirate golfers, the ECU Alumni Scholarship Classic golf tournament is Friday, Sept. 30, at Ironwood Golf and Country Club and presented by the Hilton Greenville.

This four-person super-ball tournament offers two tee times, breakfast, lunch, and the 19th Hole Reception with prizes

Alumni Tailgate 2011 Make Alumni Tailgate part of your game-day tradition. Leave the grill at home and join fellow Pirates fans at the East Carolina Alumni Association’s Alumni Tailgate presented by ECU Dowdy Student Stores for great food provided by local restaurants, Pirate beverages, live music, activities for children, a chance to see Pee Dee the Pirate and the ECU Cheerleaders, and the opportunity to win great door prizes. Home Alumni Tailgate

tickets are $10 per person for Alumni Association members and $25 per person for nonmembers.

Away Alumni Tailgate tickets are $25 per person. Children 12 and under are free to all tailgates.

Home Alumni Tailgates Sept. 10—vs. Va. Tech, 1–3 p.m., food provided by Tripp’s and ARAMARK Sept. 24—vs. UAB, 1–3 p.m., food provided by CPW’s and ARAMARK Oct. 1—vs. UNC Chapel Hill,

and trophies. Players receive a complimentary ticket to the Pirate’s Bounty Scholarship Auction and the winning team will play at legendary Pinehurst Resort in the Acura College Alumni Team Championship October 27–30.

Player and sponsorship opportunities are available. Please call the Alumni Center at 800-ECU-GRAD or 252-ECU-GRAD for details. Thank you to our generous sponsors: 5th Street Inn, ARAMARK, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, Coca-Cola, ECU Dowdy Student Stores, Ironwood Golf & Country Club, Liberty Mutual, Occasions Party & Tent Rentals, Pirate Radio 1250 & 930 AM, RA Jeffreys Distributing and WITN.

5:30–7:30 p.m., food provided by HoneyBaked Ham and ARAMARK Oct. 29—vs. Tulane, time TBA, food provided by ARAMARK Nov. 5­—vs. Southern Miss, 1:30–3:30 p.m., food provided

by Dickey’s Barbecue Pit and ARAMARK Nov. 19—vs. UCF, time TBA, food provided by Rep Express and ARAMARK Away Game Tailgates­—sponsored by the Alumni Association and Pirate Club

Sept. 3—vs. South Carolina in Charlotte, 4:20–6:30 p.m.

Oct. 8—at Houston, 4:30–6:30 p.m. (ET) Oct. 22—at Navy, 1–3 p.m.

Thank you to this year’s Alumni Tailgate sponsors: ARAMARK, Coca-Cola, CPW’s, Dickey’s Barbecue Pit, HoneyBaked Ham, Liberty Mutual, Mutual Distributing, Occasions Party & Tent Rentals, R.A. Jeffreys, Tripp’s, Rep Express and WITN.

Homecoming Special Events Friday, October 28 Homecoming Luncheon 11:30 a.m., Mendenhall Student Center, $10 member/$15 nonmember, please preregister Begin your Homecoming weekend by meeting with fellow alumni and enjoying a buffet lunch.

Metered parking is available behind Mendenhall Student Center.

Explore ECU Walking Tour of Campus 1:15 p.m., Tour departs from Joyner Library Clock Tower Bring your walking shoes and enjoy an informative stroll around east campus. ECU Student Ambassadors will lead you on a walk down memory lane while showing off ECU’s newest buildings and campus landmarks.

Bus Tour of Campus 2:45 p.m., Bus departs from Joyner Library Clock Tower ECU Ambassador Tour Guides will narrate a lively bus tour of East Carolina’s campus for alumni and guests. This tour fills up quickly; reserve your spot today.

Classes without Quizzes A Culinary Experience 2:30–4:30 p.m., Red Lobster Dining Room Learn how to pair white and red wine with unexpected culinary delights under the instruction of Dr. James Chandler, associate professor in the Department of Hospitality Management.

Examining the Stars Over ECU on Homecoming Weekend 1:30 p.m., 221 Mendenhall Student Center Take a closer look at the night sky with instructor Daniel Bellittiere ’91 from ECU’s Department of Physics Education, Innovation and Technology in Today’s Classroom 2:30–4:15 p.m., Irene Howell Assistive Technology Center in Rivers Building See how today’s technology and innovation are enhancing the classroom. Presented by the College of Education.

Alumni Awards Dinner and Ceremony 6 p.m. Cocktail reception 7 p.m. Dinner and ceremony Hilton Greenville, Carolina Ballroom $40 Alumni Association member/ $50 nonmember, registration required Join the Alumni Association Board of Directors, Chancellor Ballard, and members of the Pirate Nation as we recognize eight special alumni and friends who have demonstrated outstanding merit and achievement.

The 2011 Alumni Award Recipients are: Outstanding Alumni Award Ralph Finch Jr. ’67—president of Virginia Land Company, author of The Adventures of Pee Dee the Pirate children’s book, U.S. Air Force veteran

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Marsha Moore Lewis ’76, ’85—elementary school teacher, International Reading Association board member, and member of the North Carolina Literacy Advisory Board Emilie Tilley ’60—retired coach and K–12 public school administrator, one of the “100 Incredible ECU Women,” and Health and Human Performance Centennial Leader Steven Wright ’78—executive partner at Holland & Knight Law Firm, member of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, and former trustee and executive board member of The Boston Bar Foundation Distinguished Service Award Sen. Robert Morgan ’47—former U.S. senator; North Carolina senator, attorney general, and director of the State Bureau of Investigations. Outstanding Alumni Award recipient in 1955 and 1965. Former chair and member of the ECU Board of Trustees and former Alumni Association president. Influential advocate for university status and the Brody School of Medicine William “Kel” Normann ’85—managing director of The Normann Financial Group, member of ECU’s Foundation Board of Directors and ECU’s Business Advisory Council Honorary Alumni Beatrice “Bea” Chauncey—ECU School of Music professor from 1949–1990, sailing instructor, Beatrice A. Chauncey Endowed Music Scholars Program—the largest faculty gift in the University’s history V. Parker Overton—founder of Overton’s, developer, member of ECU’s Department of Chemistry Advisory Board, influential advocate for the new School of Dental Medicine, member of Metrics’ Board of Directors, community advocate

Saturday, October 29 Alumni Homecoming Breakfast 9 a.m., Taylor-Slaughter Alumni Center Lawn Enjoy a complimentary breakfast presented by ARAMARK and visit with fellow alumni. Stay for the Homecoming Parade and a front-row seat.

Homecoming Parade 10 a.m.

Listen to the ECU Fight Song as performed by the Marching Pirates, cheer for student organizations and their elaborately decorated floats, wave to the 2011 Alumni Award Recipients and Homecoming King and Queen candidates, and enjoy the many sights and sounds of this year’s parade! This year’s homecoming theme is “Pee Dee Goes to Hollywood.”

Homecoming Alumni Tailgate Two-and-a-half hours before kickoff Gate 1 outside Minges Coliseum $10 Alumni Association member/ $25 nonmember, children 12 and under are free, registration required Gather with fellow fans for a buffet lunch, Pirate beverages, live music, games for children, and a chance to win great door prizes.

Reunions Collegians Reunion Friday, Oct. 28– Sunday, Oct.30 “The Best Band in Tarheel Land” will hold their annual Homecoming reunion. Band members and their guests will enjoy a weekend full of activities, including golf, fellowship and jam sessions, and playing for fellow alumni at the Homecoming Celebration Dinner and Dance on Saturday night at the Hilton Greenville.

ECTC and ECC Reunion Friday, Oct. 28– Saturday, Oct. 29 Reconnect with former classmates and your alma mater. Enjoy all of the Homecoming activities available and end the weekend with the Homecoming Celebration Dinner and Dance featuring The Collegians at the Hilton Greenville on Saturday evening.

Society of Law Alumni Reunion Friday, Oct. 28– Saturday, Oct. 29 Are you an East Carolina graduate who works in the field of law? Join other alumni who share your affinity. Enjoy all of the Homecoming activities available and a special lunch and social on campus immediately following the parade on Saturday.

Wesley Foundation Reunion Friday, Oct. 28– Sunday, Oct. 30 Were you part of the Wesley Foundation while on campus? Join other alumni who share your affinity for a reunion. Enjoy all of the Homecoming activities available and special events planned just for your group. Visit PirateAlumni.com/reunions for more information.

College, School and Departmental Homecoming Activities Brody School of Medicine Friday, Oct. 28 Golf at Ironwood BSOM alumni are invited to play a round at Ironwood Golf & Country Club.

Please call Karen Cobb at 252-744-3231 for details.

Brody School of Medicine Alumni Reunion Cocktail Reception and Dinner Classes of ’81, ’86, ’91, ’96, ’01, ’06 Time and location will be announced in August.

Saturday, Oct. 29 BSOM Alumni Society annual fall meeting Time and location will be announced in August.

College of Allied Health Sciences “It’s So Good To Be Home” Saturday, Oct. 29 8:00-9:30 a.m. Complimentary reception and tour of the College of Allied Health Sciences, CAHS Lobby 9:30–11:30 a.m. “Welcome Home” complimentary brunch in the Brody School of Medicine meeting and conference suite, Brody 2W-38/2W-40A/ 2W-40B/2W-50 Two-and-a-half hours prior to kickoff Alumni Tailgate at Gate 1 of Minges Coliseum; $10 for Alumni Association members, $25 for nonmembers. Children 12 and under are free.

College of Business Homecoming Social with Continental Breakfast Saturday, Oct. 29, 9:30-11:30 a.m., on the lawn between Chancellor’s Way and Fifth Street (across from the intersection of Fifth and Student Streets), complimentary to all alumni, students, faculty, and staff of the College of Business and their families. Contact Anne Fisher at 252-328-4369 or fishera@ecu.edu.

College of Education Breakfast on the Porch Saturday, Oct. 29, 9–10 a.m., Speight Building front porch, complimentary for all alumni, students, faculty, staff, friends and family.

Contact Kendra Alexander at 252-737-4162 or alexanderk@ecu.edu.

College of Fine Arts and Communication and School of Music Friday, Oct. 28 School of Music Alumni Homecoming Reception 5 p.m., A.J. Fletcher Music Center 7 p.m., Alumni Reunion Recital, A.J. Fletcher Recital Hall Saturday, Oct. 29 College of Fine Arts and Communication Breakfast on the Terrace and Parade Watching 9–10:30 a.m., Jenkins Fine Arts Center Terrace (next to Gray Gallery), all alumni of the Schools of Art and Design, Communication, Music, and Theatre and Dance are invited, complimentary.

RSVP to Mary Jane Gaddis at 252-328-1268 or gaddism@ecu.edu.

College of Human Ecology Continental Breakfast for Alumni and Friends Saturday, Oct. 29, 9–11 a.m., North end patio Rivers Building, complimentary for all alumni and friends of child development and family relations, criminal justice, hospitality management, interior design, merchandising, nutrition science and social work.

Marriage and Family Therapy master’s program and Medical Family Therapy doctoral program Open House Saturday, Oct. 29, 11 a.m.–1 p.m., Family Therapy Clinic, no charge for alumni and their families.

Contact: Lisa Tyndall at 252-328-4206 or tyndalll@ecu.edu.

College of nursing Homecoming Reception Friday, Oct. 28, 5:30–8:30 p.m., College of Nursing lobby, Health Sciences Building, complimentary. RSVP to Jane Boardman at 252-744-6504 or boardmanj@ecu.edu.

Department of Biology Homecoming Tailgate Saturday, Oct. 29, 1 p.m., Belk Building parking lot, no cost. RSVP by Oct. 26 to Jone Letsinger at 252-328-6204 or letsingerj@ecu.edu (please include in subject line: BIOL Tailgate).

Department of Chemistry Alumni Social Friday, Oct. 28, 5-8 p.m., Science and Technology Building, Third Floor Atrium area/C-307 (large classroom), cost is less than $15 RSVP by Oct. 1 to Jennifer Burnham at 252-328-9710 or burnhamj@ecu.edu.

Department of Criminal justice Alumni Reception Friday, Oct. 28, 4–6 p.m., 208 Rivers Building, complimentary. RSVP by Oct. 14 to Vicki Taylor Rowe at 252-328-4192 or taylorv@ecu.edu.

Department of English Homecoming Reception Friday, Oct. 28, 5–8 p.m. (program at 6 p.m.), Ledonia Wright Cultural Center, complimentary wine and hors d’oeuvres. RSVP by Oct. 17 to Susan Howard at 252-328-6042 or howards@ecu.edu.

Department of physics Alumni Homecoming Lunch Saturday, Oct. 29, 10 a.m.–1 p.m., C-207 Howell Science Complex, complimentary for alumni and professors. RSVP to Dr. Tom Sayetta at 252-328-1857 or sayettat@ecu.edu to reserve a lunch plate.

Department of political science Reception Friday, Oct. 28, 2–4 p.m., C-105 Brewster Building, complimentary. RSVP by Oct. 26 to Brad Lockerbie at 252-328-6189 or lockerbieb@ecu.edu.

ECU Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered Student Union and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered Resource Office Friday, Oct. 28, 5:30–7 p.m., Evening Social, contact Aaron Lucier at luciera@ecu.edu for location.

Saturday, Oct. 29, 9–10 a.m., Pre-Parade Breakfast on the lawn in front of Jarvis Hall, the GLBTSU, GLBT Faculty and Staff, and affiliated alumni will participate in this year’s Homecoming parade. Contact Aaron Lucier at 252-328-2758 or luciera@ecu.edu.

Honors College Open House and Tour of Mamie Jenkins Building Saturday, Oct. 29, 9 a.m.–noon, Mamie Jenkins Building, No charge. Contact Kevin Baxter at 252-328-6373.

Other Homecoming Activities and Specials Campus Recreation & Wellness Alumni Workout Friday, Oct. 28–Saturday, Oct. 29 Student Recreation Center No charge for alumni and one guest. Two additional guests will be admitted for $5 each. Please stop at the Customer Service Desk and mention that you are an alum.

Contact Dena Olo at 252-328-6387 or olod@ ecu.edu.

Dowdy Student Stores Open House and Alumni Sale Friday, Oct. 28, 7:30 a.m.–5 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 29, Wright Building Store Stop by the Student Store to sign an “autograph” banner and take 10 percent off all regular priced gifts and apparel. Alumni who graduated more than a decade ago will receive an additional 1 percent discount for each year when you show your class ring, up to 30 percent off! In-store only; no other discounts apply; certain merchandise excluded; see store for details. Contact ECU Dowdy Student Stores at 877-499-TEXT, www.studentstores.ecu.edu, or on Facebook at ECU Dowdy Student Stores.

ECU Athletics Women’s Soccer vs. Marshall (Senior Day) Thursday, Oct. 27, 7 p.m.

Volleyball vs. Tulane Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum (Faculty/Staff Appreciation Day) Friday, Oct. 28, 7 p.m.

Volleyball vs. USM Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum (Letter Winners’ game) Sunday, Oct. 30, 2 p.m.

Contact ECU Athletics at 800-DIAL-ECU.

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pirate nation Association regional contacts host viewing parties where ECU fans gather together to cheer on the football team. If you are an Alumni Association or Pirate Club member, you will have the chance to win ECU goodies during halftime. Viewing parties will be hosted in: Arlington, Va. Richmond Charlotte Rocky Mount, N.C. Greenville, S.C. Washington, D.C. New York Wilmington Raleigh

Regional alumni receptions The Alumni Association will feature select members of the Board of Visitors during a series of regional alumni receptions throughout North Carolina this fall.

Connect with fellow Pirates in your hometown while learning more about the board’s strategic set of priorities, including university engagement, government relations and fundraising. Regional alumni receptions are $5 for Alumni Association members and $10 for nonmembers. Check PirateAlumni.com for dates and locations.

Additional locations will be added as televised games are announced. If you live in one of these areas, look for an e-mail that provides information on how to register, attend and bring a friend to your local viewing party.

Networking events

Wine and Spirits Club The Alumni Association invites all wine enthusiasts to join in and imbibe on a fall tour of wineries, breweries and distilleries throughout North Carolina and Virginia.

Tastings, educational seminars and tours will all be part of these fun events. Pirates can sign up to attend just one site visit or can purchase an entire season package.

Dates and locations will soon be available on PirateAlumni.com. Contact Director of Alumni Programs Tanya L. Kern ’02 at Tanya.Kern@PirateAlumni.com or 800-ECU-GRAD with questions.

Viewing Parties Come and join the fun as Alumni 46

Embark on a Russian Voyage Like a jewel box fashioned by Fabergé, St. Petersburg is a masterpiece of design and Furnished

A number of networking events will soon take place in areas across the Pirate Nation. Enjoy the camaraderie of your fellow Pirates while making business and social connections. These events provide opportunities for new graduates to meet ECU professionals and give alumni in given areas the chance to get to know one another.

All are encouraged to attend and pricing will vary depending on location. Check PirateAlumni.com for dates and locations.

ingenuity, a tapestry of vibrant colors framed by sparkling water. The days of the czars may be long over, but a vivid record of their glory and aesthetic influence lives on in this fabled city. It was the vision of Peter the Great to build a Russian capital that would rival the great cities of Europe. Through three centuries of strife, St. Petersburg has reigned like a charming, flamboyant monarch—defiantly opulent, extravagantly colorful and altogether irresistible. This cruise sets sail on Oct. 16 and returns to port on Oct. 24.

Pirate Voyages provide opportunities for alumni to cultivate their passion for learning through travel. The Alumni Association has partnered with AHI Travel and Go Next to offer alumni and friends these special opportunities to travel the world at affordable rates. Visit PirateAlumni.com/ piratevoyages for specific trip information or call 800-842-9023 and ask about the St. Petersburg trip.

Catherine Palace, St. Petersburg, Russia

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CLASS NOTES 2011 EMILY REBEKAH TACKETT wed John McQuade Hylant on March 5 at The Mount Vernon Inn, Mount Vernon, Va. 2010 Air Force Airman 1st Class SOCCORRO C. CRUZ graduated from basic military training at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas. CHRISTIAN LANIER is a nurse practitioner at the Goshen Medical Center, Beulaville, and owns a baking and honey business, The Tipsy Bee. SARAH ELIZABETH JONES wed Daniel Carroll Miller on March 19 at King’s Crossroads Free Will Baptist Church, Fountain.

AMANDA JORDAN MATTHEWS received her licensure as a registered nurse from the N.C. Board of Nursing and works in the oncology nursing unit at Nash Hospitals, Rocky Mount. CHRIS RUPP launched an evening bus service in Greenville providing rides from downtown to student apartment complexes in the city.

2009 THERESA BAREFIELD, executive director of Literacy Volunteers-Pitt County, received a $500 Youth Leaders Literacy Grant from Youth Service America and the National Education Association to support youth-led, service-learning initiatives addressing education and literacy. STEPHEN BROOKS IRVIN wed Abigail Lauren Mayhew on April 30 at the RandBryan House, Garner. He is a physician assistant at Burton Family Medicine, Wake Forest. ABIGAIL RUSSELL PARKER wed Joseph Charles Elmore on April 2 at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Bath. She was on the volleyball team. She works for Guilford County Schools in Greensboro. Dr. FRANK C. SMEEKS is chief medical officer and senior vice president of medical affairs for Bon Secours St. Francis Health System, Greenville, S.C. 2008 Army National Guard 1st Lt. THOMAS P. BARSALOU returned to the U.S. after serving in Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom/New Dawn or Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and the Southwest Asia Theater of Operations. He is an all source intelligence officer with more than two years of military service, assigned to the 105th Military Police Battalion based out of Asheville. M. ALLISON CASTELLANA joined the advertising and promotions division of WBOC-TV, Delmarvas, Del. She was coordinator of events in Crisfield, Md. Dr. JACOB CUELLAR is CEO of Peak Behavioral Health Services in El Paso, Texas. He was associate administrator at the hospital for the past two years.

A lumni S potli g ht Beulah Lassiter Raynor ’31, believed to be the first full-time woman faculty member at Wake Forest University, celebrated her 101st birthday on June 26 at an assisted living facility in Winston-Salem. A native of Rich Square, she taught in the Northampton and Bertie County Schools until enrolling at Wake Forest. She completed a master’s in English and later married Wake Forest math professor K.T. Raynor. She taught there for 34 years before accepting emeritus status in 1979. There are scholarships in her name at both ECU and Wake Forest.

At East Carolina, she was a member of the Lanier Society, a reporter for the Teco Echo, and a member of the YWCA cabinet and the Student Council. She recently told a visitor that she decided to attend ECC because the president of the college was her high school graduation speaker. Coming from a poor family, she worked in the dining hall and library to earn spending money. “If it were not for ECTC I would never have gone to school,” she said.

The General Federation of Women’s Clubs of North Carolina honored 18 women, including six with strong ties to ECU, for their contributions to the state. The Women of Achievement award winners were recognized for their achievements in government, business and nonprofits in the state. The six ECU 2011 Women of Achievement honorees are: Sabrina Bengal, alderman, president of tourism, managing partner of the Birthplace of Pepsi and 2008–09 chair of the Alumni Association; Patricia Dunn ’58, mayor of Greenville and former ECU faculty member; Janice Faulkner ’53 ’56, former N.C. secretary of state, secretary of revenue, commissioner of the DMV and former ECU English professor; Marian McLawhorn ’67 ’88, N.C. House of Representatives member; Dr. Marilyn Sheerer, ECU provost and senior vice chancellor for academic and student affairs; Linda Staunch ’82, president of a public relations firm and television personality, Pine Knoll Shores Aquarium Advisory Board.

The Medical and Health Sciences Foundation added six board members: E. Bradley Evans of Greenville, William A. Ferrell ’90 ’93 of Cary, Clyde A. Higgs of Kannapolis, Garrie W. Moore ’85 of Greenville, Suzanne Pecheles of Greenville and Tom Robinson ’83 of Salisbury.

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class notes A lumni S potli g ht Phillip R. Dixon ’71 of Greenville received the N.C. Bar Association’s I. Beverly Lake Public Service Award for 2011. The annual award, bestowed at a dinner at the Grove Park Inn in June, recognizes a lawyer in North Carolina who has performed exemplary public service. Dixon was cited for serving on the UNC Board of Governors and previously chairing the ECU Board of Trustees and the Pitt Community College Board of Trustees. Five groups have honored Dixon for service to their organizations: the Greenville Jaycees, Pitt Community College, Boy Scouts of America, East Carolina Alumni Association and the bar association’s Education Law Section.

Eddie Buck Sr. ’64 of Charleston was inducted into the South Carolina Business Hall of Fame in May. Buck started out as a banker, rising to become executive vice president of Citizens and Southern National Bank. He bought a small lumber supply company in 1975 and built it into a mainstay of the area, Buck Lumber. He built the Bluewater chain of convenience stores, opened fast food restaurants and 18 public storage sites. His enterprises operate through Jupiter Holdings, the parent company of Buck Holdings. Buck has chaired more than a dozen of Charleston’s civic organizations as well as the State Railroad Commission and the State Ports Authority Commission. He and his wife, attorney Margaret Brown, have two children, Susanne Buck Cantey and Eddie Buck Jr., both of whom work in the family business.

Bill McBride ’86 of San Francisco, who already was chief operating officer of the company, was named president of Club One, a chain of 14 fitness centers Northern California and five others in Southern California themed for kids. He joined the company eight years ago as director of operations. Club One also manages more than 60 corporate fitness centers, community centers, multitenant business parks and municipalities serving more than 140,000 members nationwide. McBride, who grew up in Fayetteville, serves on the board of his industry’s trade association and its magazine editorial board, Club Solutions and Club Industry Magazine advisory boards, regularly contributes to numerous advisory panels as an industry expert, and presents both nationally and internationally at major industry conventions. He is married to Adrienne Francis McBride and they have three children.

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2007 COREY BASS ’07 ’09 is Ball State’s assistant athletic director for football operations. He was director of football operations at Elon University. AMY ELIZABETH BAPP wed Aaron Billings on May 7 at Deep Run Park, Richmond, Va. She is a recreation therapist for Henrico County and is Virginia Recreation and Parks Society, Central Service Area Chair Elect.

AMANDA CHURCH is a program assistant with the city of Charleston’s (S.C.) business development office. She had worked in public relations, marketing and event planning. SCOTT JUSTIN POAG ’07 ’09 wed Summey Nicole Savage on May 21 at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Salisbury. He is the existing industries coordinator with the Pitt County Development Commission. CRYSTAL BLAIR VICK ’07 and MICHAEL JOHN ROSE ’06 wed on May 14 at Ginter Park Baptist Church, Richmond, Va. She works for VCU Health Systems in Richmond, and he works for SunTrust Bank.

2006 Dr. SUSANNE ADAMS is president of Brunswick Community College. She was vice president of student services and academic support at Sandhills Community College. ASHLEY RENEE BRITT ’06 ’10 passed her state boards as a physician assistant and works in the emergency room at Roanoke-Chowan Hospital, Ahoskie. WILLIAM D. EDGAR joined Southern Bank’s commercial business unit in Rocky Mount as a vice president and commercial banker. MEGAN HATHAWAY HANDY and husband, Samuel, had a daughter, Madelyn Faye. She joins brother Samuel Mark. ANNE MULLIGAN ’06 and SIDNEY ROBERT MULLIS ’04 ’05 wed on April 30 in Airlie Garden, Wilmington. She was a Chi Omega and works in human resources for PPD Inc. He works in contracts and proposal development for Kendle.

2005 MIRIAM ABERNETHY YOUNG ’05 ’07 received the Employee of the Year Gold Star Award for 2010 at Frye Regional Medical Center, Hickory, where she is an occupational therapist. LIONEL KATO, principal of Farmville Middle School, is Media Administrator of the Year 2011.

2004 JAMES “AARON” HARDWICK is a 2011 Yale Distinguished Music Educator. These awards honor 50 music educators from across the country for their outstanding accomplishments teaching music in public schools. He is director of orchestras at Frank W. Cox High School, Virginia Beach, Va. AARON STEPHEN HOLLAR wed Holly Kent Isbister on April 30 at Calvary Moravian Church, WinstonSalem. He owns Boxer Construction Co., Charlotte.

SARAH JOHNSON is an assistant professor of biology and natural resources at Northland College, Ashland, Minn. She had a post-doctoral position

at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she developed collaborations with the National Park Service’s Great Lakes Inventory and Monitoring Network and with the Nature Conservancy in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. JEFFREY ALLEN LEVY wed Julia Hope Harlow on May 28 at The Inn at Crestwood, Blowing Rock. He is a nurse at Nash General Hospital, Rocky Mount.

2003 Dr. JASON BOEBEL joined the medical staff in cardiology/electrophysiology at Grand Strand Regional Medical Center, Myrtle Beach, S.C. Spec. DAVID W. HARDEE deployed for one year to Afghanistan, Kunar Province, with the U.S. Army. CAROLYN HELLER, principal of West Carteret High School, is the 2011–2012 Wachovia Principal of the Year.

PAUL KAPLAR, county agent Kaplar for N.C. Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Co., is one of the Top 10 Rookie Agents for 2010 based on his outstanding sales and service record. MICHAEL ANTHONY MILIOTE is principal of Matthews Elementary School in Matthews. He and wife, Amber,

live in Fort Mill, S.C., with their 1-year-old son. Dr. JEFFREY PALIS is interim director of the Center for International Studies at Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, Ga. BECCA FLEENOR SMITH ’03 ’04 and husband, JONATHAN “BLAKE” SMITH ’04, work in their family-owned and -operated firm, Robert G. Smith, CPA, in Cary, which was named Employer of the Year 2010-2011 by the Cary Chamber of Commerce. She also serves on the Cary Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors. They have two sons.

2002 HEATHER ANNE FREEMAN CRIBB received her National Board Certification in 2010. She teaches sixth and seventh grades at Stokes Elementary School in Pitt County. NICOLE MARTIN is director of corporate health & network development for Novant Health, Charlotte. LESSLIE REBECCA OVERTON wed Ryan Sherrill Duncan on Jan. 15 at the First Presbyterian Church, Wilmington. She is a registered nurse with New Hanover Health Network. DANA L. REASON, Miss North Carolina 2003 and founder of her own line of cosmetics, appeared on Lifetime Television’s The Balancing Act as part of The Balancing Act’s “2011 Balance Your Life Road Tour” with the Southern Women’s Show. She did a makeup presentation and traveled to Nashville, Richmond

and Memphis to serve as makeup artist for the show’s hosts. KATHRYN HICKS SHIELDS graduated cum laude from N.C. Central Law School.

2001 KELLY ELAINE HARDY ’01 and JASON MATTHEW DEANS ’99 ’01 wed on April 30 at the Immanuel Baptist Church, Greenville.

2000 JENNIFER ’00 and SCOTT ’99 CAMPBELL own a State Farm Insurance agency in Winterville. She was recognized nationally by the company for outstanding customer and claim service as well as the lead life insurance producer in North Carolina. He specializes in small business commercial insurance. KELLY ELAINE HARDY ’01 wed JASON MATTHEW DEANS ’99 ’01 on April 30 at the Immanuel Baptist Church, Greenville. She works for Aetna and he works for Baseball Concessions. ROBERT KNOWLES is a captain in the U.S. Public Health Service. A regional representative for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in San Francisco, he is involved in state and national emergency activities and has responded to public health emergencies like 9/11, anthrax investigations, Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater

It takes EVERY PIRATE for East Carolina to reach new heights.

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Your membership in the Alumni Association helps support Alumni Scholarships, which help to retain deserving ECU undergraduates who excel in the classroom and serve the community. These students walk the same grounds you did…sit in the same classrooms you once sat in…and proudly proclaim their Pirate heritage as loudly as you do!

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51

class notes Horizon oil spill. MATTHEW MALONE and wife, Lisa, had their first child, Fiona Isabelle. TOMMY PRICE ’00 ’01 is city executive and senior vice president with BB&T in Greenville. He was the business services office for the Greenville market. He and wife, AMANDA ’00 ’05, live in Winterville with sons Zachary and Evan.

1999 FRANKIE ’99 and CRAIG ’07 BOGENN had twins, Hannah Alexis and Reagen Suzanne. ELIZABETH ROONEY DOLBY ’99 ’02 and husband, Keith Dolby, had a daughter, Mackenzie Jane. SCOTT D. LENHART is the health director for Stokes County.

BRAD MYERS is the legal and legislative issues chair for the N.C. Occupational Therapy Association.

He is the clinical specialist for Carolina Therapy Services. STACEY PATTERSON, a graphic artist at Edgecombe Community College, exhibited two paintings in the 2011 N.C. Community Colleges Art Exhibition in Raleigh. Dr. ROXIE WELLS joined the associate staff in family medicine at Stedman Medical Care in the Cape Fear Valley Health System.

1998 ALICIA MARIE TALMADGE DELSASSO and husband, Chris, had a son, Mason Francis, joining big

52

brother Parker. MARY ANGELA CLEMMONS LEE of Tabor City exhibited her paintings at the Tabor City Visitors Center. She is a retired social worker. MARVIN MCFADYEN ’98 ’02 is director of the New Hanover County Board of Elections.

CHRIS PADGETT ’98 ’04 is chief planner for Greenville. He was the Ayden assistant town manager.

DAVID “JAKE” PERRY received the Pollie Award for Best Fundraiser, the American Association of Political Consultants annual award, for his work on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s re-election campaign in November 2010. ANNETTE STONE is the economic and community development director of Carrboro. She was the city planner for New Bern.

1997 LAVETTE FORD ’97 ’03 is principal of Lakeforest Elementary School, Greenville. She was principal of South Greenville Elementary School. NATALIE JACKSON was named the N.C. Best Female Muzzleloader at the Dixie Deer Classic in Raleigh with a deer that weighed 190 pounds and had 13 antlers.

ROBERT LANCASTER, a school counselor at West Carteret High School, is Certified Employee of the Year in Carteret County. MYRA MCCLAIN MALLISON ’97 ’99 wed WILLIAM GRIFFIN ROSS JR. ’97 ’99 on April 9 at Dinwiddie Chapel at Peace College,

Raleigh. She works in pharmaceutical clinical research at PPD, Morrisville, and he is an occupational therapist at Innovative Senior Care, Durham. KAREN QUICK ’97 ’09, a biology teacher at D.H. Conley High School, Greenville, was selected by the Kenan Fellows Program for Curriculum and Leadership Development at N.C. State as a Class of 2012 Fellow. The program develops innovative curricula for use in North Carolina classrooms. BRAD SPELL ’97 ’98 resigned as head boys basketball coach at Clinton High School but continues as the head soccer coach. Dr. HARRY A. STARNES is dean of the Division of Arts and Sciences at Edgecombe Community College, Tarboro.

He was a senior academic and administrative officer at UNC General Administration. HEATHER STEPP’S daughter Olivia was an extra in the film Trials and Tribulations of a Trailer Trash Housewife starring ECU grad Beth Grant ’72.

1996 TRACEY MAYNOR is COO of VT Hackney Inc., Washington, specialty truck body and trailer manufacturer. He was senior vice president, sales and operations, at the company. BRYNN THOMAS returned as vice president of Thomas Development Inc., New Bern, after serving two years as a senior adviser to Gov. Bev Perdue.

1995 SHAWNDA CHERRY ’95 ’05 is principal at Lakeforest Elementary School, Greenville. She was Pitt County’s 2011 Assistant Principal of the Year at Wintergreen Intermediate School.

1994 CHARLIE ADCOCK ’94 ’99 is assistant vice president and business development officer at Fidelity Bank, Fuquay-Varina. He is a town commissioner and chair of the Fuquay-Varina Economic Development Committee. EVELYN “LYN” STORY ANDREWS was inducted into the Johnston County Athletic Hall of Fame. She was the first Smithfield-Selma High School female athlete to earn a basketball scholarship when she was recruited by Peace College in 1975; she was team captain in 1977. Inducted to the Peace College Hall of Fame in 2002, she is the director of the Smithfield Recreation and Aquatics Center.

THOM C. BLACKWELL is vice president of technical services for Boston Software Systems. His work focuses on automating workflow and integrating applications in the healthcare industry. Dr. LUREDEAN HAMILTON BRANDON joined Catawba Blackwell Valley Medical Group. She was the associate staff physician at Caldwell Memorial Hospital and Novant Health Services. CHARLES HUDSON joined The Laurinburg Exchange as an ad sales representative. JANIS HENDERSONHUNSUCKER exhibited “Connections” in the Apple Gallery of the Stokes County Arts Council, Danbury.

A mixed-media artist, the exhibit featured digital collages, printmaking paintings, fabric collages, ceramic sculpture and fused glass pieces. KIMBERLY CORCORAN MOORE ’94 ’96 and husband, Kent, completed their first full marathon at the Kiawah Island Marathon, Kiawah Island, S.C., in December 2010. ROBERT CARL NELSON II received the 2011 Teaching Excellence Award for the Bryan, Texas, campus of Blinn College, where he is the computer information technology program coordinator. SUSAN PURSER was named one of two Outstanding 9-16 Educators in Science, Mathematics and Technology Education presented by the N.C. Science, Mathematics and Technology Education Center. PAUL RUSTAND, founder and director of Chattanooga, Tenn.-based Widgets & Stone, a graphic design firm, was honored by the American Institute for Graphic Arts with a Fellow award. His work has been recognized and awarded by the American Advertising Federation, Communication Arts, Graphis, How magazine, the One Show, Print magazine, Step Inside design magazine and the Type Directors Club. GREG SCOTT, a ceramicist and painter, is the art studio coordinator for the Cornwell Center at Myers Park Baptist Church, Charlotte.

A lumni S potli g ht Lindsy Hardin ’05 and Joshua Deal ’06 were married in April in Ponce Inlet, Fla., and couldn’t let an opportunity pass to show their school spirit.

Friends since high school and all through college, Lindsy earned a BFA in metal design and illustration and Josh received a bachelor’s in exercise physiology.

Beverly Jones Cox ’67 of Arlington, Va., announced her retirement after 43 years with the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. For the last 11 years she was director of exhibitions and collections management at the gallery, responsible for exhibition programs as well as the care and housing of 20,000 works of art. Cox joined the National Portrait Gallery in 1968 when it opened to the public, just after graduation from the School of Art. She is married to Norman Cox ’66, who was a Lambda Chi Alpha.

Kurt Garner ’05 ’07 was named 2011 Teacher of the Year for Pitt County Schools. He teaches business education at D.H. Conley High School, Greenville. Finalists were: Paige Best ’95, first grade, Chicod School; Samantha Blake ’04 ’05, fifth grade, Sadie Saulter Elementary School; Lora C. Joyner ’89 ’94, health science, Ayden-Grifton High School; Jamie Stanfield ’03, sixth-grade science, C.M. Eppes Middle School; Cindy Vainright ’81 ’84, kindergarten, Eastern Elementary School; Kimberley White ’02 ’03, second grade, Ayden Elementary School.

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class notes 1993 MARY STRICKLAND, manager of the Women’s Center at Nash General Hospital, earned her nurse executive certification from the American Nurses Credentialing Center, the world’s largest and most prestigious nurse credentialing organization, and a subsidiary of the American Nurses Association.

PATRICIA LEE WOODARD published her first book, Twice Colombia, a memoir of her time living and working in Bogota and Cali, Colombia.

1992 COLLINS HINES was inducted into SouthWest Edgecombe’s Hall of Fame. He was one of the most decorated track stars at the school. He was the school’s MVP in 1980 and 1981. LISA MATARESE, BS MT (ASCP), is a part-time field surveyor with COLA, a clinical laboratory accreditation organization in Columbia, Md. She was education coordinator for the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Services at the Orlando VA Medical Center. D. PAUL POWERS JR. ’92 ’94, senior vice president and manager of the Commercial Business Unit for Pitt County, was selected as Commercial Banker of the Year at Southern Bank’s annual Best Bankers event.

1991 SUSAN WILKINS LAMM received an MA in

Make a Note

teaching (history) from UNC Wilmington. She and husband, Chris, live in Leland with their two children.

1990 Dr. MARY B. CHATMAN ’90 ’96 was appointed to the Georgia State Board of Nursing. She is senior vice president for patient care services at Memorial University Medical Center, where she is responsible for all nursing and ancillary clinical departments. SUSAN DEANTONIO, a nurse manager in the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences at ECU’S Brody School of Medicine, is the 2010 ECU Physicians Nurse of the Year. Lt. Col. ROB MORRIS and his family were reassigned to the Royal Air Force Base Waddington, Lincoln, United Kingdom, where he serves as an exchange officer with the Royal Air Force.

1988 BILLIE DAVIS CHADWICK and ANGELA TOSTO PITTMAN achieved certification by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.

They teach at Beaufort Elementary School. ADELE GOODMAN’S art exhibition, EquuTour 2011, featured horses in majestic, strong and powerful ways.

WALTER REID PERKINS III wed Mary Elizabeth Anderson on May 19 at the First United Methodist Church, Wilson. He is CEO of The Hammock Source, Greenville. DAN STRICKLAND is superintendent

of Marion County Schools. He was superintendent of Columbus County Schools. SONNY SWANNER is vice president and city executive of the Select Bank & Trust branch in Washington, N.C. 1987 J. ROBERT BUIE JR. was certified as a private investment manager. He is a financial adviser with the Brown & Buie Wealth Management Group of Wells Fargo Advisors, Greenville. TIMOTHY S. MAPLES is executive vice president of First Bank. He and his family live in Southern Pines. KAREN DENEEN ROBERTS celebrated 20 years with 100 Black Men of Atlanta Inc., where she is the office manager. The organization sponsors mentoring and educational initiatives along with postsecondary tuition assistance for Atlanta public school students living in at-risk communities. JAN SITTON WAYNE is the 20102011 Teacher of the Year at Jefferson Elementary School in the Winston-Salem Forsyth County School System. She is a second-grade teacher.

1986 MARTHA CLARK ’86 ’97 is principal of Valle Crucis Elementary School, Sugar Grove. She was assistant principal at Watauga High School. LEIGH HEBBARD, athletic director of the Guilford County Schools, received the 2011 Dave Harris Award from

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class notes the NCHSAA as the Athletic Director of the Year.

MELANIE ORLANDO formed Envision Mortgage Corp. in Wilmington with fellow ECU graduate ROBERT “BOB” WEBER JR. ’72. She is the company’s president.

1985 KAREN GARDNER of Ayden-Grifton High School is the Media Coordinator of Year 2011. JENNI KOLCZYNSKI received the Greenville-Pitt County Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business Leader award.

She owns Jenni K Jewelry, Greenville. STEPHEN LAROQUE ’85 ’93 is serving his third term in the N.C. House of Representatives, representing the 10th District of Lenoir, Greene and Wayne counties. He is chair of the Rules, Calendar and Operations of the House Committee, vice chair of Appropriations Subcommittee on Natural and Economic Resources, member of the Appropriations, Commerce and Job Development, Commerce and Job Development Subcommittee on Business and Labor, Environment, and Public Utilities.

He and his wife, Susan, live in Kinston.

1984 Dr. SUSAN WEST ENGELKEMEYER is president of Nichols College, Dudley, Mass. She was dean of the Charlton College of Business at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. DWIGHT TOUCHBERRY is a recipient of the Silver Beaver Award, a national Scouting award presented by the local council. It is the highest honor a local council may bestow upon a volunteer. Previously, he received the District Award of Merit for his Scouting volunteer work. He and his family live in Orange County, Calif.

His son, Garren, is an Eagle Scout.

1983 JO ALLEN became president of Meredith College in Raleigh on July 1. A Meredith alumni, she earned her master’s at ECU and doctorate at Oklahoma State.

She was provost and senior vice president at Widener University in Pennsylvania. An English scholar, she also taught at ECU and N.C. State. GLENDA BRADLEY is the director of finance for Orange County. She was the director of finance for Northampton County in Virginia. JOSEPH W. CLARK, financial operations manager of the City of Durham’s Finance Department, is serving a one-year term as president of the Carolina’s Association of Governmental Purchasing. TERRI GILLESPIE is the chief nursing officer at Batson Hospital for Children in Jackson, Miss. Rev. Dr. OTIS BERNARD ROBINSON SR. was consecrated as bishop in the Reformed Churches of God in Christ International. He serves as president, prelate of the First Ecclesiastical Diocese of North Carolina. He is married to PAMELA BEST ’82.

1982 KEVIN G. ADAMS joined Southern Bank of Bethel’s local board of directors. He is president of J.W. Rook & Son Insurance and owns the Winterville Insurance Agency. CHRISTOPHER M. DALY is senior vice president of Wachovia Bank in Greenville.

Dr. DEBORAH L. LAMM, president of Edgecombe Community College, received the I.E. Ready Distinguished Leader Award for 2011 from the N.C. State College of Education. USMC Brig. Gen. FRED PADILLA commands the 3rd Marine Division on Okinawa. He was commander of Parris Island.

1981

The 2011 issue of the North Carolina Literary Review is out, and for the first time the cover art isn’t the work of Art Director Dana Ezzell Gay ’96, who started designing the NCLR while still in college. Getting a shot this time is Joan Mansfield ’82, an associate professor in the School of Art and Design who often has contributed work to the magazine’s interior pages, but never the cover. The pressure’s on because last year’s issue won the Best Journal Design Award from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals.

NCLR, which won the same design award in 1999 and the Parnassus Award for editorial achievement in 2007, is published by ECU and the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association. The NCLR is available by subscription as well as at several retail outlets across North Carolina. For more information, visit the journal’s website at www.nclr.ecu.edu.

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RANDY LANGLEY is sales producer with Mayo Simmons & Harris Insurance Co., Rocky Mount. He and wife, Denise, have two children. FRED MILLER and wife, Virginia, received the Wake Soil and Water Conservation District Pioneers Award for leadership and innovation in developing Wake County’s first USDA-certified organic farm.

1980 MARY BRYAN CARLYLE, South Central High School girls’ basketball coach, is The Daily Reflector’s Girls’ Coach of the Year. She guided her team to its

first basketball championship with an overtime win over Hickory in the state 3-A finals.

JAMES K. DILL was appointed executive director of the Virginia College Fund in Richmond. He is a former chair of the fund, which benefits private colleges in Virginia. He was with Wells Fargo’s Private Bank for 16 years, serving as a senior trust and fiduciary Dill specialist. PATRICK FLYNN is the southeastern regional director of programs and services for Learning Ally, which serves visuallyimpaired individuals.

football coach Steve Spurrier, heavyweight champion James “Bonecrusher” Smith and former NFL defensive back Donnell Woolford. DIANA BRAAK KINCANNON is president and director of The Barns of Rose Hill where she led a successful six-year capital campaign to restore two barns in Berryville, Va., for use as a community, arts and education center. The center, which will open in September, was honored by Virginians for the Arts in 2010. RICK MCMAHON ’74 ’83 ’86, head of Nash-Rocky Mount Public Schools, was named Superintendent of the Year by the N.C. High School Athletic Association. KENNETH NEIL WINDLEY JR. ’74 ’83 retired after 37 years in county government, including 27 years as county manager in Carteret, Davie and Robeson counties. He now is executive director of the Carolina Commerce and Technology Center in Robeson County.

1977

1973

1979

LANA TEW DAVENPORT has a new name and a new address at 804 Raleigh Rd., Clinton. DAVID LIVINGSTON DENNING ’77 ’79 celebrated 30 years in sales with Sanofi-Aventis Pharmaceuticals. He is senior sales representative selling Multac. At ECU he was a Sigma Nu. MARK GARNER is on the Pitt County Development Commission and its building and grounds committee. He represents the commission on the Advisory Committee for LandsEast Industrial Park, a joint venture of the Economic Development Commissions of Martin and Pitt counties. He is vice president of Rivers and Associates.

DONALD TRAUSNECK is commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1115, Hillsville, Va., one of the largest VFW posts in the Southeast. He has held numerous district and state VFW offices.

1972 PHIL FLOWERS was appointed by the Greenville City Council to the Greenville Utilities Board of Commissioners. ROBERT “BOB” WEBER JR. formed Envision Mortgage Corp. in Wilmington with fellow ECU graduate MELANIE ORLANDO ’86.

He is the company’s CEO. 1970

1976 WILMA BISESI ’76 ’82 received the Order of the Longleaf Pine. In March, she retired as executive director of the Exceptional Children’s Program for Johnston County schools. She has 35 years in special education, including 15 years as a teacher in Wilson County. JOHN EVANS, editor of The Times-Record, a weekly newspaper in Caroline County (Md.), received the Outstanding Media Professional Governor’s Victim Assistance Award for articles about the Mid-Shore Council on Family Violence that raised awareness about domestic violence and services available to victims of domestic violence. Dr. MICHAEL TAYLOR ’76 ’78 retired after 15 years as president of Stanly Community College, Albemarle. He worked 32 years in the N.C. community college system.

1975 DEBORAH B. DALTON received her PhD in mathematics education from Ohio University through a National Science Foundation-funded program.

1974 CURTIS FRYE and wife, Wilma, founded the Frye Foundation to provide support for diabetes and mental illnesses research. Among the celebrities who played at its kickoff golf tournament in May were Olympic Gold Medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee, South Carolina

ROBERT E. BENCINI III is county manager in Washington County. He was director of community and economic development in Guilford County.

PAMELA E. THOMAS ’70 ’84, a retired media/ technology director for Onslow County Schools, is chair of the Onslow Board of Education and part-time faculty member at UNCW. 1969 RICHARD BROUGHTON and wife, Claire, were recognized at the annual Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research VIP Awards Ceremony in New York in April. He and his wife sponsor an annual Parkinson’s fundraiser on the Outer Banks which over three years has raised more than $40,000. Dr. PHYLLIS HORNS received the 2011 Distinguished Alumni Award in the ECU College of Nursing. Now vice chancellor of health sciences at ECU, she was the college’s longest serving dean. THOMASINE KENNEDY is secretary of the boards of directors of the University Health Systems of Eastern Carolina and Pitt County Memorial Hospital.

1967 RONALD E. HIGNITE ’67 ’77 of Ahoskie retired from Hertford County Public Schools after 43 years as a teacher, tennis coach, school administrator and district administrator. Three times he was Principal

of the Year in Hertford County and in 1996 was inducted into the Walk of Fame for coaching tennis at Washington High School. He received the Order of the Long Leaf Pine from Gov. Bev Perdue and has written three books of poetry.

1965 BETH WARD is the liaison between the Pitt County Board of Commissioners and the boards of directors of the University Health Systems of Eastern Carolina and Pitt County Memorial Hospital.

1964 E.T. “TOMMY” TOWNSEND received the Order of the Long Leaf Pine for his 90th birthday. The WW II Air Force veteran and retired teacher was honored for his work in veterans’ affairs and education. He was head of the New Hanover County Veterans Council and past president of the N.C. Veterans’ Council.

1963 FRANK E. BARHAM ’63 ’66 ’71 retired in 2010 and was named executive director emeritus of the Virginia School Boards Association.

1951 WALTER WILLIAMS joined the Eastern Carolina Vocational Center Foundation Board in Greenville.

He also was recognized by the Pitt County District of the Boy Scouts with its 2011 Boy Scouts of America Distinguished Citizen Award. He is president of Trade-Wilco.

1944 Dr. GENEVIEVE HODGIN GAY received the Order of the Long Leaf Pine in 2010 recognizing her 47 years in education in N.C. public schools. She spent four years in Roanoke Rapids and 43 years in Northampton schools.

1940 LARUE EVANS was honored by the Winterville Chamber of Commerce as its Citizen of the Year for her contributions to the community over 60 years. She helped to get Winterville streets paved, served as first secretary of the Winterville Recreation Department, helped to write the chamber’s bylaws and served as chair for Winterville’s bicentennial celebration in 1974. She assisted the Winterville Historical and Arts Society in preserving and securing grants to restore the Angle House and established an endowment fund to support the Historical Society. She helped to write a grant to fund the vintage street lighting lining the west side of Railroad Street and wrote a grant to fund The Historical Architecture of Pitt County in 1991. She is an editor of Chronicles of Pitt County. She taught high school English, history and French and has been a member of the Chamber of Commerce for more than 50 years. She was also recognized as one of “100 Incredible ECU Women.”

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in MemoriAm 1920s MARY JANE JONES BURGESS ’28 of Elizabeth City died March 18 at 102. She taught elementary school in Camden County for 33 years and was the first principal of Grandy Elementary School in Camden.

1930s JOHN HOLLIDAY COWARD JR. ’31 of Grifton died Feb. 26 at 97. He worked for J.R. Harvey & Company, Grifton, and later retired from Cox Trailer’s after 30 years. ELIZABETH “LIB” WILSON JONES ’36 of Winton died Jan. 14 at 94. She taught school in Lucama, Wilson and Hertford County.

THELMA IRELAND SPENCER ’33 of Alliance died May 5. GRACE DAWSON NEWMAN ’39 of Morehead City died May 2 at 93. She taught elementary school for 25 years. During WW II, she served in hospitality and recreation in the American Red Cross. DOROTHY LAWSON MATTOCKS HUMPHREY VONCANNON ’35 of Richlands died May 10 at 96. She taught school in Onslow and Duplin Counties for 30 years. She was a Delta Kappa Gamma. CONNIE JORDAN WHITEHURST ’31 of Bethel died April 17. She taught school in Falkland and Bethel.

1940s HELEN JOHNSON BROWN ’46 of Wilmington died April 7.

She taught elementary education in New Hanover, Bladen and Pender Counties for 32 years and was principal of Rocky Point Elementary School.

She was one of the first women accepted into the all male Burgaw Lion’s Club.

MARGARET BROUGHTON DALE ’43, formerly of Raleigh, died April 13. She taught school for several years. CAROLYN LAMB DANIEL ’49 of Ruffin died April 17. She taught French and commerce at Cobb Memorial High School in Caswell County for 36 years.

FRANCES JONES HERRING ’41 of Goldsboro died May 27 at 93. She was a home agent with the Farmers Home Administration. JEAN McKINNON HUBBARD ’44 of Mt. Gilead died May 6. She was the first dietitian for Montgomery Memorial Hospital.

In 1970, she received the Distinguished Service Award from the National Association of Extension Home Economists. In 1982, she retired as Moore County home extension agent. EVELYN ELAINE COLLINS McCORD ’49 of Pine Knoll Shores died May 23. In 1964, she and husband, Ted, opened the first of six family shoe stores called the House of Shoes where they worked together for 25 years. NINA SUTTLE

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GATLING PARKER ’42 of Gatesville died May 16.

She taught home economics and biology in Bear Grass for 15 years and seventh- and eighth-grade science in Gates County for 15 years.

1950s Dr. DONALD B. ADCOCK ’50 ’52 of Raleigh died May 11. He was the band director at N.C. State University for 22 years. Dr. WILLIAM HUGH AGEE ’59 ’60 of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., died March 13. He was director of freshman English at Western Kentucky University before moving to the University of Georgia, where he taught for 29 years before retiring in 1998.

WILLIAM DALE ALDRIDGE ’58 of Elkin died April 28. He taught industrial education at Elkin High School for 28 years, followed by a career as a licensed real estate broker. Retired Air Force Lt. Col. ROBERT OSBURN BALLANCE JR. ’58 of Montclair, Va., died May 1. Serving 23 years in the Air Force, he flew with the Strategic Air Command and volunteered in Vietnam as a forward air controller. ERNEST GUY BLACK ’53 ’59 of Asheville died Nov. 25. LOUISE CARTER BLAND ’56 of Chesapeake, Va., died April 19. She was an elementary school teacher and librarian.

ROBERT SMALL BRASWELL ’59 of Mt. Dora, Fla., died Feb. 25. He retired from Lockheed Martin after 35 years. ROBERT DONALD CHARLTON ’51 of Lynchburg, Va., died May 23. An ECU basketball player, he worked 30 years in public health in several North Carolina counties. JACQUELINE BARNHILL EARLEY ’50 of Trap died May 5. She was a home economist in Hertford County and taught at Ahoskie High School. JAMES HARRISON GAYLORD ’57 ’63 of Roper died June 1. He taught in Norfolk City Schools and was a studio teacher with the Hampton Roads ETV Association. He taught history at Old Dominion College and later started a business, Mackeys Net and Rope Co. JERRY C. HELMS ’56 of Belmont died March 27. An ECU football player, he worked for Pet Dairy in Charlotte and Gastonia for more than 30 years. PATSY STROUD JAMES ’51 of Belvoir died April 6. She was a supervisor in special education in Pitt County Schools and then principal of Belvoir Elementary School, retiring in 1987. JOHN ANDREW KOVALCHICK ’52 of Greenville died May 1. He was a mail carrier for 19 years. JAMES CLIFTON “JIM” NOBLES ’57 of Chatham, Va., died Feb. 28. He was an auditor for the U.S. General Accounting Office in Virginia Beach, retiring in 1986.

ALFRED EZRA PAGE JR. ’59 of Raleigh died April 2. He was an industrial therapist at Dorothea Dix Hospital and later personnel manager at Dix. He moved to the N.C. Department of Human Resources, retiring after 32 years. HARRIET TRUMAN “TRUDY” WARD PARKER ’59 of Edenton died May 12.

She worked for the N.C. Farm Bureau in Edenton.

JOHNNY GREEN SMITH ’58 ’63 of Dover, Del.,

died May 9. He was principal of Lakeview Elementary School, Benjamin Banneker Middle School in Milford and Allen Freer Elementary School in Dover, retiring in 1990. Dr. RUTH MARIE SUESSMUTH SMITH ’55 of Wilson died May 23. She taught in elementary, middle and high schools in Nash and Wilson Counties for more than 30 years. BRYANT TRIPP ’59 of Bethel died March 6. He taught high school math in Maury, Tarboro and Bethel and was principal of Pactolus Elementary School. He also was a farmer and owner of T&T Cleaners. CELIA INEZ HAMILTON WIGGINS ’50 of Goldsboro died April 2. She taught in the public schools for many years before joining her husband in the family business. BETTY FREEMAN WILLIAMSON ’58 ’61 of Goldsboro died May 13.

She was a former teacher in the Goldsboro City Schools and bookkeeper for Wayne Auto Salvage for more than 20 years. JOHN ALLEN “BUDDY” YANCEY ’59 of Columbia, S.C., died April 23. He was a school teacher and coach and worked with Horace Mann Insurance Co. for 31 years as regional vice president.

1960s DORIS FAYE ROBBINS BECTON ’60 of Goldsboro died April 25. She taught for 32 years, retiring with the Wayne County Public Schools.

PATRICIA ETHEL BONEY ’67 of Hamlet died Feb. 21. She worked for Carolinas Medical Center for 35 years and was director of nursing for Hamlet Hospital before retiring. ANNE “ANNIE CULBRETH” GAITLEY CHANDLER ’64 of Whispering Pines died March 9. She had a 30-year teaching career at Barium Springs Orphanage and in public schools in Asheboro, Greenville and Charlotte.

JOAN LEE WILLIAMS DEHAAN ’61 of Virginia Beach, Va., died March 13. She taught at Shelton Park Elementary School. ROBERT LINWOOD “BOBBY” GOODSON ’69 of Mount Olive died March 3. He was a school teacher and worked in men’s clothing sales. HERMAN “BUTCH” HARDY ’68 of Cary died April 24. He worked with Adams Products Co. for 38 years, serving as company president for 17 years. JAMES “JIMMY” DIXON KIMBALL JR. ’69 of Sanford died April 24. He taught music in Lee County Schools and was known for playing at the Pinehurst Country Club and other elite clubs around the state. He was organist at St. Thomas Episcopal Church for five years and for 29 years at St. Luke Methodist Church, both in Sanford. JOSEPH ASBURY MARTIN JR. ’63 ’64 ’65 of Red Oak died Feb. 28. He was a surveyor for the U.S. Forest Service in Gulf Port, Miss., for several years and worked at the Shearon Harris Nuclear Plant in the RTP area.

KENNETH RANDALL MASON ’64 of Raleigh died April 1. He retired from Sprint and the N.C. Department of Information Technology Services.

WILSON COOPER MCARTHUR ’65 of Provo,

Utah, died April 5. After 35 years in the nuclear utility industry, he retired from the Tennessee Valley Authority. KIRKLAND RUFFIN ODOM ’66 of Clayton died May 24. At ECU he played football and was a member of Kappa Alpha. He was involved in real estate development and home building in Smithfield as owner of Homecraft Properties. HOLLY MEMORY ROSS ’69 ’74 of Clinton died May 11. She taught school for 30 years in Craven County. Dr. JEAN CAROL SMITH ’64 of Dunn died May 17. She was a professor and basketball coach at Longwood College in Virginia, then became basketball coach for Murray State University in Kentucky and earned her accounting degree. In 1996, she moved back to Dunn to work as an accountant. Col. VITO M. SOLAZZO ’67 of East Scranton, Pa., died May 2. He served for more than 24 years as executive officer of the U.S. Military Enlistment Command at Fort Meade, Md., and as the national officer in charge of recruiting for both enlisted and later officer personnel at Marine Corps Headquarters in Washington, D.C. After retiring from the Marines, he worked for AT&T as an information service agent as well as a manager with the Gallup Organization. NANCY ROSE GRINDSTAFF WALKER ’63 of Newton died March 15. For 26 years, she supervised adult services at Lincoln County Social Services. PATRICIA JOAN TEEL WARNER ’68 ’69 of Clarksville, Tenn., died Feb. 22. She was a mental health therapist for Center Stone in Clarksville.

1970s ROBERT A. AVERY ’75 of Greenville died April 5. He retired after 26 years in the military and taught ROTC at D.H. Conley High School. He later was principal at Jones Jr. High School in Jones County. PATRICIA LEE CASEY ’73 ’78 of Wilson died April 27. She taught in Kinston City/Lenoir County Schools until retiring in 1999. A. LEE CHEEZUM ’73 of Federalsburg, Md., died April 27.

He farmed and worked in real estate. JEANETTE MATTHEWS GIBSON ’75 of New Bern died April 28. She was a bookkeeper and accountant in New Bern and Morehead City and comptroller at Craven Community College. JOHN E. GILCHRIST ’78 ’80 of Dunwoody, Ga., died May 14. A member of Pi Sigma Phi honor fraternity at ECU, he was an attorney in the Atlanta area. NANCY CARSON IPOCK ’72 of Bethel died April 1. She was a schoolteacher with 31 years of service. ROBERT ALMON HART ’77 of Atlanta, Ga., died May 4. LOTA LEIGH HARRISON JOHNSON ’74 of Rocky Mount died Feb. 22. She taught 33 years in the Rocky Mount School System, retiring in 1993. DAVID M. MILLIGAN ’78 ’82 ’84 of Washington died April 11.

He worked at the Washington Daily News from 1952– 1967, was general education director at the Beaufort Technical Institute and was publisher of the Beaufort-

Hyde News in Belhaven. He taught fourth grade at Chocowinity Primary School from 1978 until he retired in 1994. ECU’s Council for Teacher Education presented him with the Outstanding Education Award in 1989. Greenville civic leader Tom Minges ’76 died June 8 of an apparent heart attack. He was 56. He was chairman of the board and chief financial officer for Minges Bottling Co., a Pepsi-Cola bottler that employs 250 people and serves 14 counties in eastern North Carolina. His first cousin, Jeff Minges, who serves as president and CEO of the company, recently announced plans to give $250,000 to eight community colleges in the region served by the bottling company.

The money will provide a full year’s tuition to 144 students. Tom Minges was the son of Dr. Ray Minges, who was the team physician for the football team in the 1960s. Minges is survived by his wife of 37 years, Kay Branton Minges, four daughters, three grandchildren and two sisters. DOROTHY MARKS POWELL ’77 of Ahoskie died April 15. She taught at Ahoskie High School and later at Roanoke-Chowan Community College. LYNN SCARBOROUGH ’76 of Nags Head died April 25. She taught at Manteo High School.

1980s LAURIE ALICE DUNN ’87 of Winterville died Feb. 26. She taught in Wilson and Pitt County schools.

MICHAEL PATRICK MCCAFFREY ’89 of Trent Woods died Feb. 7. VICKI JORDAN MORTON ’80 of Roanoke Rapids died May 4. She was a retired educator. ELIZABETH WARNKE “BETTY” REDDICK ’85 of Williamston died March 17.

She and her husband owned Reddick Fumigants in Williamston. YVONNE DEBORAH WILHITE PEARCE ’82 of Farmville died April 16. She was a supervisor of social workers at Walter B. Jones Drug & Alcohol Center. She was an emeritus member of the ECU Alumni Association Board of Directors and a 1996 recipient of the ECU Alumni Association Distinguished Service Award. ELIZABETH “BETH” LEIGH BROWN SLEDGE ’84 ’91 died Feb. 26. She taught at West Millbrook Middle School in Raleigh.

1990s CLAUDIA B. ARTHUR ’93 ’95 of Wilmington died March 24. She retired from Cherry Hospital in 2005.

CLINTON “CLINT” PAUL CHARLES ’90 of Matthews died May 5. He worked in the hospitality industry. THORAL JOHAN “TJ” FRISLID JR. ’96 of Winston-Salem died April 12. He was a member of TKE fraternity. THURMAN MERCER “TIM” NELSON JR. ’99 of Greenville died May 6. He retired from the N.C. SBI as a criminal specialist in human resources. ANNA MICHELLE LANE SWANSON ’90 of Winston-Salem died May 25.

She was the creator and co-owner of Simplyummy in Reynolda Village.

2000s BLAKE NGUYEN ’08 of Arlington, Va., died April 6. He was the operations lead at the Department of Homeland Security. At ECU, he was president of Phi Kappa Tau Fraternity. PATRICE BARNES WORRELLS ’07 of Goldsboro died March 1.

2010s AMANDA “MANDY” KELLY ’11 of Greenville died March 21. She was a graduate accounting major in the College of Business who worked as a graduate assistant in the Office of Student Transitions and First Year Programs. KIM SIBBACH ’10 of Wilmington died April 28. She worked for P.T’s in Wilmington.

KATHY WEIGEL ’10 of Greenville died May 28. She taught reading recovery at Sadie Salter in Greenville and most recently at H. B. Sugg Elementary in Farmville. CHAISE MCBRIAN WILLIAMS ’10 of Atlanta, Ga., died April 20. He worked for Youth Villages where he helped children with behavioral issues. At ECU, he was an honor student and a member of the ICON Modeling Troop.

FA C U LT Y LENA COLLINS ELLIS of Bowling Green, Ky., died March 19 at 100. A professor emeritus, she taught business at ECU from 1937 to 1964 and retired from teaching at Western Kentucky University.

Dr. RUTH ANN HENRIKSEN of Greenville died April 28. She was an associate professor of biochemistry from 1988–1999.

Dr. EDGAR W. HOOKS JR. of Greenville died April 16. He joined ECU in 1966 as professor of health and physical education and chaired the Department of Health, Physical Education Recreation and Safety from 1971–1980, retiring in 1990. He was the first director of institutional research and architect for the department. He helped establish what is now the ECU Regional Training Center.

EDWARD DOUGLAS CROTTS ’74 ’81 of Greenville died April 13. He was an instructor in the Department of Health Education and Promotion and president of Industrial Hygiene Concerns. He advised the ECO-Pirates, a student group that raises awareness and action about on-campus environmental issues. As an undergraduate, he was a Sigma Phi Epsilon.

F riends EARL LYNN ROBERSON of Conetoe died April 7. A lifelong teacher, he established the Ellis-Roberson Scholarship in the Department of Fine Arts.

59

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

University Archives

From his inaugural address and installation as East Carolina’s first president

East Carolina’s Roaring Twenties In the 13 years since New York landscape architect Louis L. Miller had set foot on the campus he designed, ECTTS had more than doubled in size and was predicted to double again with its impending change to a fouryear college, ECTC. Hired to recommend how to best plan for this growth, Miller returned in 1920, and was surprised by what he saw. The scraggly site he remembered from 1907 as Harrington Hill had been transformed, he wrote, “into as handsome a piece of natural park land as can be found, and surely that no other institution in the South possesses.”

Though there appeared to be plenty of room left for additional buildings on the original 47-acre campus around the Mall, Miller recommended that the school buy the adjoining 42-acre tract to the east. The trustees bought the property for $50,000 in 1922, and a year later the General 60

Assembly appropriated $1,025,000 to start the expansion. By the end of the decade the campus had grown from six buildings on 47 acres to 16 buildings on nearly 90 acres.

On the original part of campus, a wing was added to the west side of Old Austin in 1922. Two new residence halls, Fleming in 1923 and Cotten in 1925, rose beside Jarvis.

A larger, better-equipped infirmary (Student Health Center) was built in 1930 facing the dorms to form the Mall. The original infirmary—where students were hospitalized during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic— was enlarged to become the home economics department (Mamie Jenkins Building).

The school’s first administration building (Spilman), opened in 1930 across from Cotten to line a new road into the enlarged campus (Founders Drive).

On the new tract rose a library (Whichard)

in 1924, the Social-Religious Building (Wright Auditorium) in 1925 and a new classroom building (Maria Graham) in 1929. Behind them were erected an apartment building for faculty members (Ragsdale) in 1923 and a larger teachertraining Practice School (Messick Theater Arts) in 1927. A more robust physical plant opened in 1928 where Bate now stands. That allowed the original dining hall to expand into the space vacated by those facilities (Old Cafeteria Complex).

In 1932 the school implemented Miller’s finishing touch, a circular drive to create a focal point uniting the old and new parts of campus. Despite the hectic nature of the building boom—which progressed in fits and starts caused by the whims of legislative funding—the campus that emerged looked remarkably like Miller’s 1920 vision.

East University Advancement Greenville Centre Mail Stop 301 East Carolina University Greenville, NC 27858-4353

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East Carolina saw a 20 percent rise, to $48.9 million, in research grants and sponsored programs this past year.

Photograph by Forrest Croce