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A SPIRIT THAT IS NOT AFRAID • NEWS SINCE 1893
THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2019
VOL. 126 • ISSUE 23 • FIRST COPY FREE THEN 50¢
MARCH 3 TORNADO
‘CATASTROPHIC’ Beauregard neighborhood ripped apart: 23 people died when an EF4 tornado struck. Four of the victims were children Community reaction: Churches, businesses and community organizations gathered supplies, donated blood to help survivors
CHIP BROWNLEE / EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Residents stand together on March 4, 2019, alongside the wreckage of a home destroyed by a tornado that killed 23 people in Beauregard, Alabama, the previous day.
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By CHIP BROWNLEE Editor-in-chief editor@theplainsman.com
A powerful EF4 tornado ripped through Beauregard and other areas of Lee County Sunday, splitting trees, lifting some homes from their foundations while obliterating others and uprooting lives. The tornado, the deadliest in the U.S. since 2013, killed at least 23 people, four of whom were children ages 6, 8, 9 and 10. Ten people from a single family died in the storm. At least four people injured in Sunday’s storm remained in intensive care units at hospitals in Georgia and Alabama as of Wednesday, officials said. After seven or eight people were still missing Tuesday, Sheriff Jay Jones said Wednesday that all have been accounted for. The search and rescue operation has ended with no additions to the death toll, which remained at 23 by midweek. “The situation will now move, as it should, to a recovery,” Jones said.
» See TORNADO, 3
For info, visit the Lee County Emergency Management Agency website, Auburn’s website or The Plainsman’s website. leecoema.com, auburn.edu/tornadorelief or theplainsman.com/tornadodonate
www The Plainsman will continue posting updates about the storm and its aftermath.
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CHIP BROWNLEE / EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
A Coca-Cola truck sits lopsided near a home severely damaged by a tornado that struck southern Lee County on Sunday, March 3, 2019. Crews work March 4, 2019, to clean up debris from homes destroyed .
“Most of us cannot remember anything ever creating this much loss of life.” — Lee County EMA Director Kathrine Carson
COMMUNITY
Jury: Former transit driver guilty of rape, sodomy By CHIP BROWNLEE Editor-in-chief editor@theplainsman.com
Tony Martin Patillo, the man charged with the rape and sodomy of an Auburn University student in fall 2017, has been found guilty on all three charges. The jury convicted Patillo of first-degree rape and first-degree sodomy charges. He was also found guilty of a misdemeanor public lewdness charge. “When we try these cases, any cases, real-
ly, you put so much into it, getting it prepared, getting it read,” said District Attorney Brandon Hughes. “It’s a big relief to be done with it. But to do so, and get as-charged — rape one, sodomy one, two [Class] A felonies — that’s huge.” The jury had the option to consider lesser charges including attempted rape but chose to go with the most severe charges. Prosecutors said Patillo raped the student while on the bus and continued to assault her on the side of the road near Aspen Heights, where witnesses saw them and reported the incident to police.
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The victim took the stand Wednesday. The prosecution questioned several witnesses and presented videos from the bus on which the assault allegedly occurred, but the defense rested without calling any witnesses. Prosecutors said the student, who is not being named by The Plainsman, was intoxicated and unable to consent to any sexual contact. Patillo’s defense attorney, Jon Carlton Taylor, attempted to argue there was no evidence Patillo raped the victim and that any oral sex — for which Patillo faces the sodomy count — was consensual.
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The prosecution refuted the defense’s arguments. The district attorney quoted words from Patillo in one of the video recordings from the bus. In one of the videos, Patillo can be heard saying the victim is “knocked out.” “If somebody is ‘knocked out,’ then they are physically helpless,” Brandon Hughes said. The conviction comes after a week of testimony.
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GUILTY » From 1
The jury deliberated for several hours on Friday and met again Monday morning at 8 a.m. They took about two hours Monday to reach a verdict. The jury had to restart deliberations after one juror was unable to make it to the judicial center because of the tornadoes in Lee County. An alternate took her place. “We were convinced from day one, when we first heard about this case, that rape one and sodomy one were the appropriate charges,” Brandon Hughes said. “While attempted rape was probably considered, if I had to guess based on some of the questions from the jury, at the end of the day, they certainly got it out, and credit to them for sticking it out.” The district attorney said this verdict should be a reassurance to Auburn students that the criminal justice system will work to keep them safe. “The Auburn Police [Division], I cannot overstate the job they did in investigating this case,” Brandon Hughes said. “There was just so much going on
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that could have gotten in the way of solving this case. They were on the scene immediately. Their officers did an absolutely fantastic job when they made contact with the defendant in this case on the side of the road, with not letting him out of his story and just pressing him.” And the verdict is a victory for the rule of law, Brandon Hughes said. “I anticipated this verdict because I feel like the rule of law still means something in Lee County,” Brandon Hughes said. “If you want to engage in this type of behavior or any type of criminal behavior in Lee County, the police are going to get you, we’re going to prosecute you and the jury is going to hold you accountable.” Patillo will be sentenced on April 24 at 4 p.m. in Circuit Judge Christopher Hughes’ courtroom. He faces a minimum of 10 years for the charges. “I’m going to be asking for life sentences on those cases,” the district attorney said. “Without equivocation, that’s what we’re asking for.” James Don Johnson Jr., the driver of the bus accused of being an accomplace, will be tried at a later date, which hasn’t been announced.
NEWS
CHIP BROWNLEE / EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Top: Circuit Judge Christopher Hughes reads the verdict against Tony Martin Patillo, who was found guilty Monday, March 4, 2019, on first-degree rape and first-degree sodomy charges. Bottom: Defendant Tony Martin Patillo walks out of the courtroom after the verdict was read finding him guilty of first-degree rape and first-degree sodomy on Monday, March 4, 2019.
The Auburn Plainsman
THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2019
PAGE 3
TORNADO
CORY BLACKMON / COMMUNITY REPORTER
Johnny Washington stands next to the tree stump that held his home in place when a EF4 tornado passed by on Sunday, March 3, 2019.
‘I can’t believe this’
Stunned residents sift through destruction in Beauregard By EDUARDO MEDINA Enterprise Editor enterprise@theplainsman.com
Citizens of Beauregard are picking up chainsaws, removing tree trunks and sifting through the debris that left their small community stunned. Large trucks and vehicles carrying bulldozers drove through the small roads bordered by uprooted trees Monday. The people in this small town walked up and down the streets and stared at the destruction. On Lee County Road 11, there was a gathering of mournful neighbors. Johnny Washington’s mobile home is located off Lee County Road 11. On Sunday, Washington, 55, was alone in his home and asleep during the storm when he heard his dog barking outside. “I looked outside my window to check on my dog and saw these huge clouds to the east,” Washington said. Then, he realized what he was looking at — an EF4 tornado was tearing through farms across his street. He couldn’t believe it, he said, because this is a small community. It’s a place where farming is a fixture and neighbors are family. And he watched as the tornado threatened to take his. “It’s true when they say tornadoes sound like a train,” Washington said. It was heading his direction. Washington nervously hid beneath his bed. From where he was lying, he could
TORNADO » From 1
Officials said relief workers, volunteers and emergency personnel will now move into helping communities return to some sense of normalcy. Officials believe the death toll is stabilized. “We are still in a standby mode on the outside chance that they find somebody else, which is not likely,” Lee County Coroner Bill Harris said. One tornado was an EF4 with 170 MPH winds, and the other was an EF2 tornado. An Alabama Power official said that at least 116 homes were destroyed or so severely damaged that they couldn’t restore power there. As of Wednesday, one person was in the intensive care unit at East Alabama Medical Center, two were in the ICU at UAB Medical Center in Birmingham and another was in the ICU at Piedmont Columbus Regional Medical Center in Georgia. Jones said Alabama State Trooper Sgt. Robert Burroughs was among those recovering at EAMC after being injured in the storm at his home. “He’s pretty banged up,” Jones said. The Poarch Creek Band of Indians and another company have pledged to pay funeral costs for the families of those killed, the coroner said. Harris had said the day before that two major corporations would fund “most if not all” of the funeral expenses. The Poarch Creek Indi-
see the tornado approaching outside the window. “I was breathing real hard,” Washington said. “I’ll tell you what’s crazy, looking outside, seeing that tornado move right in front of your house.” The tornado roared louder and louder as it approached. Then, it was pitch black, Washington said. He felt his home lift from the ground. “I felt the whole trailer rise a bit,” Washington said. It didn’t feel like reality. He always gets alerts about tornadoes, but nothing ever happens, he said. He closed his eyes while beneath his bed and felt the world shake. “Then, it stopped,” Washington said. The mobile home collapsed from its foundation. It felt like an eternity, but it couldn’t have lasted more than a few minutes, Washington said. The shaking ceased. He stayed beneath the bed in disbelief, then rushed outside to check on his nephew who lives next door. His nephew’s house was unscathed. Washington’s home was broken in half. “We’ve never experienced anything like this,” Washington said. “I can’t believe this.” The tornado was the deadliest in the country since the Moore, Oklahoma, tornado in 2013, which killed 24. At least 23 are dead in Beauregard. Washington said a family member of his is among the victims. He chose to withhold their name. “There’s a lot of death here,” Washington said. “It’s hell.”
ans pledged to pay $50,000 for funeral costs. The other company hasn’t been named. “We have had many other offers for funeral expenses and monies that have already been spent,” Harris said. The East Alabama Medical Center Foundation, a nonprofit organization in the community, has offered to handle and disperse the funds. “There will be no administrative costs whatsoever,” Harris said. Gov. Kay Ivey visited Lee County on Monday and Wednesday to survey damage. President Donald Trump announced he would visit the area Friday after signing a major disaster declaration to open up federal funding for individuals affected by the storm. The destruction left in the storm’s wake, which officials characterized as “catastrophic,” prompted an international response. Pope Francis prayed for the victims Wednesday. “Upon all who are suffering the effects of this calamity, the Holy Father invokes the Lord’s blessing of peace and strength,” Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, said in a telegram to Mobile Archbishop Thomas J. Rodi. The coroner identified the 23 individuals who died in the storm Tuesday. Their remains were released to families for funeral arrangements Monday night. The ages of those who died in the storm range from 6 to 89. A couple in their 80s — Mary Louise Jones and Jimmy Lee Jones — were among the dead. Eight other members of that family died in the storm, too.
“
There’s a lot of death here. It’s
hell. — Johnny Washington
A trampoline about 50 yards from his home was scrunched and carried by the 170 mph winds to the side of his trailer. Whole trunks of trees were split in half, and the insulation from his home was strewn across the road. His mother, Kayla Washington, was there in the morning, comforting her son. “I don’t know what to say,” Kayla Washington said as she looked at the pieces of a former home. “We’ve been here all our lives.” Kelton Love lives near Washington. He said his mother and his brother were in a mobile home on Lee Road 39, an area that suffered the worst of the tornado. Love said his mother’s home was lifted by the tornado while they were inside. “They had bruises all over and knots on their head … but they’re good now,” Love said. He was there to help any way he could. Washington’s niece was beside him when a friend announced that a few children were confirmed dead. Washington turned to his niece. She asked if he now had a story to tell, and Washington, forcing a smile, didn’t reply.
CHIP BROWNLEE / EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones speaks at a press conference at Beauregard High School on March 4, 2019, one day after a tornado killed 23 people in the area.
Six-year-old Armondo “AJ” Hernandez was the youngest victim. “We lost loved ones, classmates, family members,” said Richard LaGrand Sr., a Lee County commissioner and Beauregard High School alumnus. First responders used cadaver-sniffing dogs, unmanned aircraft and other means in their searches. The storm flipped cars and split trees in half. The national weather service said the tor-
nado was on the ground for about 70 miles through Lee County and well into Georgia. It was nearly a mile wide at some points. Beauregard had less than 10 minutes of warning to get out of the way of the fast-approaching storm. More severe weather is expected Saturday, March 9. Most of the state will be under a significant risk of severe weather Saturday night, National Weather Service meteorologist Kevin Laws said Wednesday.
news THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2019
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NEWS
GOVERNOR
Ivey honors tornado victims at State of the State By CHIP BROWNLEE Editor-in-chief
editor@theplainsman.com
Gov. Kay Ivey took time at the beginning of her State of the State address Tuesday to honor the 23 victims who were killed by a pair of tornadoes that hit southern Lee County on Sunday. “Just over 48 hours ago, Mother Nature’s wrath — in the form of vicious and deadly tornadoes — ripped through our state, leaving behind significant devastation,” Ivey said. As of Wednesday, one person was in the intensive care unit at East Alabama Medical Center, two were in the ICU at UAB Medical Center in Birmingham and another was in the ICU at Piedmont Columbus Regional Medical Center in Georgia. Jones said Alabama State Trooper Sgt. Robert Burroughs was among those recovering at EAMC after being injured in the storm at his home. Four of the victims were children. The victims ranged in age from 6 to 89. The governor held a moment of silent prayer for the victims before she pitched her priorities for the 2019 legislative session to lawmakers gathered at the State Capitol Tuesday for her annual speech. “This is a time for all of Alabama – and our entire nation – to rally behind these good people,” Ivey said. “Together, we will bring Lee County back to its feet.” Ivey extended a state of emergency including Lee County after the tornadoes struck, and she requested a federal major disaster declaration. President Donald Trump, who is set to visit Alabama Friday to survey the damage, approved that request Tuesday. The declaration triggers FEMA aid and the release of federal funds to aid in recovery efforts. After mourning the victims, Ivey launched into pitching an ambitious plan that called for a 10-cent increase to the state’s motor fuels tax, teacher and state employee pay raises, the construction of new prisons and a funding increase for higher education. Ivey’s budget proposal would appropriate
CHIP BROWNLEE / EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Gov. Kay Ivey delivers the 2019 state of the state address before a joint session of the Alabama Legislature in the Old House Chambers of the Alabama State Capitol on March 5, 2019.
an additional $75 million for colleges and universities in the state. It would be the second year Ivey has proposed funding increases for higher education since becoming governor. Universities received $1.12 billion in funding last year, a $42 million increase over the previous year. “Alabama’s institutions of higher education are making major research contributions,” Ivey said. “They generate significant revenue for our state. They serve as a major part of our identity in Alabama. Most importantly, they are preparing hundreds of thousands of students to enter the workforce.” While Auburn has received more money from the state in recent years, that funding has yet to reach its pre-Great Recession peaks. In its current budget, Auburn received
about 20 percent — or $263 million — of its revenue from state funding. Tuition and fees make up about 45 percent of revenue. In fiscal year 2008, $337 million in revenue came from state appropriations. That year, state funding made up more of the budget than tuition, which measured in at $251 million. It isn’t clear how much additional funding Auburn is in for under Ivey’s proposal. Her office has not released her full Education Trust Fund budget proposal yet. Ivey also called on legislators to allocate money for a new co-op program for Alabama’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The program is geared toward HBCU students interested in pursuing careers in STEM
fields, the governor said. “It is not only a win for these students; it’s a win for these colleges and universities,” Ivey said. “And it’s a win for our employers who are gaining qualified individuals to strengthen the work of their company.” After her State of the State address, Ivey quickly called a special session of the Alabama Legislature. The move came on the first day of the Legislature’s 2019 regular session, which is now delayed until March 19. Calling the special session allows the governor to force lawmakers to focus on her priority legislation. This year, that’s the 10-cent gas tax hike. Until the special session ends in two weeks, the Education Trust Fund budget will be on hold.
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THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2019
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OPINION
OUR VIEW
Conviction of rapist win for assault survivors EDITORIAL BOARD Spring 2019
This Monday, Tony Patillo was convicted on two counts of rape and sodomy for the assault of an Auburn student on a late-night Tiger Transit bus. In the wake of the trial, The Auburn Plainsman found it necessary to recognize issues surrounding the assault, as many survivors face similar circumstances. The guilty verdict in the trial was a win for sexual assault victims. All too often, intoxication is used as an excuse by rapists to perpetrate their abhorrent crime. In this case, Patillo’s defense attorney, Jon Carlton Taylor, made that excuse for Patillo in the courtroom. In his arguments, Taylor replaced consent with intoxication, trying to justify rape by ultimately using victim-blaming tactics. Intoxication is never an excuse to take advantage of someone. The absence of a “no” from someone is never equitable to permission, particularly when that person is too intoxicated to say anything at all. Though the accused are entitled to a defense, the argument in this case was despicable and disheartening. Watching the trial and hearing the details of the case made it seem nonsensical for the defense to argue that there was consent. Survivors of sexual assault often feel like they will not be believed — because rapists make ar-
guments for themselves like the one Patillo put forward. It was a win for survivors of assault that the jury convicted Patillo on all counts, nullifying his argument. There was something particularly startling with this case. The University’s slow response to notify the student population. It took over a day to send out a campus safety alert that detailed what happened that night, and since that night, the University has been surprisingly silent on the issue of sexual assault. Even as the University made moves forward to add protection for students on the Tiger Ten transit line, it remained silent about sexual assault. Rape is an egregious crime — one that is often hard to talk about because of its inherently evil nature. It is also a crime that is inherently bad for public relations, and one can only assume that the reason for the University’s silence is because it is trying to preserve its image. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 20 to 25 percent of women and 15 percent of men attending college are victims of forced sex. At Auburn, the reported cases of rape and fondling over four years, from 2017 to 2014, are a total of 45. With an average of around 27,000 students enrolled during this time period, 45 reported cases comes out to less than a fraction of one percent of students at Auburn reporting having been sexually assaulted.
It cannot be assumed that Auburn is some magical place where bad things never happen. Sexual assaults and rapes take place at Auburn just like any other college campus. Auburn clearly has a problem with students not reporting their assaults. Auburn could take this time to encourage students to report their assaults, to make survivors feel comfortable, like they will be believed and that their perpetrators will face consequences for their actions. Auburn has a wealth of support systems in place for survivors of sexual assault and resources to prevent assaults from taking place. Auburn has wholeheartedly embraced the
Green Dot program, a bystander awareness program that encourages students to prevent acts of violence, like sexual assault, before they happen. This is the time to let students know what resources the University has available to them. The conviction of Patillo was a win for rape survivors and should be treated as such. Patillo is a rapist who will face the full consequences of his actions and will be sentenced April 24. He faces 10 years to life in prison. This is a time to support survivors of assault, reassuring them that they will be believed and that, in Auburn, rapists receive the punishment they deserve.
POOL PHOTO / EMILY ENFINGER / OPELIKA-AUBURN NEWS
Lee County District Attorney Brandon Hughes points at defendant Tony Patillo during closing statements Friday, March 1, 2019, at the Lee County Justice Center in Opelika.
HIS VIEW
Catastrophic tornadoes give community opportunity to rise By TYLER WARD Community Writer
Alabama is no stranger when it comes to tornadoes. They have ripped families apart and destroyed communities time and time again. The deadly storm that hit Lee County on Sunday was no different. It claimed at least 23 lives, with the youngest being only 6 years old, and flattened whole communities. Crews are hard at work and resources have
begun pouring in to rebuild the areas affected. Though this catastrophy has wreaked havoc on Lee County, it has also been a testament to the strength of this community. Auburn University campus organizations, from the Honors College to the Black Student Union, came together to accept toiletries and necessities, while offering their time to help with with cleanup and repair. Trained volunteers came to cut back debris and provide meals. So many supplies poured in that the Auburn Dream Center had to pause all
intake of donations. This is what community is all about. The world is full of diversity, but it is still sometimes easy to forget that we are all human and have an obligation to help our brothers and sisters when they are in need. The race, religion and sexual orientations of the victims were unknown. The only thing the community knew was that people needed help, and so they helped. No matter how different people are from us, the mission to promote love and humility
is felt throughout this community, as evident through their efforts this week. Two things can happen when tragedies like this occur. A community can separate and fail or come together and rise. Lee County has chosen the latter. Because of this choice, families that have lost everything, including loved ones, can be reminded that in a time of pain and hopelessness, they are surrounded by a community of love and hope that is ready to help them heal. Tyler Ward is a freshman in political science.
HER VIEW
Female characters: What’s likability got to do with it? By CAMILLE MORGAN Contributing Columnist
I am an avid entertainment panel watcher. I don’t currently live in a city where attending panels or talks on upcoming films or television shows is generally an option, so I subscribe to the usual entertainment trades: The Hollywood Reporter and Variety on YouTube along with TimesTalks and the 92nd Street Y. I can’t confidently say that I’ve completed 10,000 viewing hours, but I would assume it’s close. In doing so, I discovered amusing trends that emerge in these talks, particularly ones focused on stories with women at the center, which I’m admittedly more interested in. However, there is one moment that is my favorite because I know it’s coming. The moment in which the Sarah Lawrence educated feature-writer-slash-moderator shifts in her seat in order to segue into the most reliable of questions. She’ll wear all black, her questions printed and folded over and will usually have a forearm tattoo but it all depends.
“So,” the moderator begins, and you can tell she doesn’t want to ask this but cannot resist as she was already resigned to its inclusion the night prior when crafting topics on a half-blank word doc. “In light of the past year,” she’ll continue, but meaning now that the film industry is embarrassed by their complicity in a sexual harassment industrial complex and thus more willing to pass the Bechdel test. “How does it feel to play such an unlikable character?” The actress being interviewed will then launch into a mini-monologue about how men got to make meth and kill people for years on screen and no one ever cared. “Hell yeah,” she’s OK with her character cheating with the next door neighbor whilst in a loveless marriage in her A24-produced indie film. The future is female, baby. Hopefully, mercifully, the conversation moves on before well-meaning attendees begin their more-of-acomment-not-really-a-question line of questions. But, without fail, the question will be asked. I’m actually sympathetic to
the moderator because the storytelling landscape is changing and women are playing more diverse roles that resemble people one might actually encounter opposed to the usual peripheral chess pieces. This is especially true on television. It goes without saying that a moderator has never asked a male actor how he’s coping with playing unlikable men. The burden of monitoring one’s likability is decidedly a female one. The only other realm where the question of a woman’s likability is this forensically interrogated is politics. The Kirsten Gillibrands and Elizabeth Warrens are constantly reminded that audiences don’t like unabashed ambition if it’s not expressed in baritone. But at least female politicians are understood (by most of the population) to be real people. Why are fictional characters held to this same false standard? Once I took notice of the consistency of the question when it came to actresses, I tried to parse out what the question was really asking. I was searching for the original sin of the
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COLUMNS & EDITORIALS The opinions of The Auburn Plainsman staff are restricted to these pages. This editorial is the majority opinion of the Editorial Board and is the official opinion of the newspaper. The opinions expressed in columns and letters represent the views and opinions of their individual authors. These opinions do not necessarily reflect the Auburn University student body, faculty, administration or Board of Trustees.
human, too, which is just a synonym for flawed. We should allow the art that aims to reflect and comment on modern life the room to be more honest. Also, allow the discomfort this honesty causes to rest on the shoulders of the small portion of audiences that are preoccupied with it. Why are they perturbed seeing these characters? But I think panel participants are generally asking the question in earnest. I think they’re asking the question because because of how it feels to play such an unlikable character that is not merely a male director’s two-dimensional rendering or repository. Is it a relief? Is it about time? Is it a non-issue? Is it fine? Please say it’s fine or blink twice so we never have to ask this again, and we can all move on. Or better yet, say “who cares,” because those concerned with an imaginary woman’s likability will need to relinquish their fictitious ideal on their own time. Camille Morgan is a senior in marketing.
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likability paradigm. Was it that actresses were historically subjugated to supporting mother and girlfriend roles that only ever called them to be doting, nurturing, sexy, friendly, mysterious, non-profit attorneys and thus this inclusion of more realistically complicated characters was just jarring? Maybe? But, if you’ve ever had any type of meaningful relationship with a woman, you notice they are as capable of flawed and thorny behavior as anyone. Never has anyone announced to their table at a restaurant, “my friend’s coming, she’s super likable.” Ever! She’s nice, she’s smart, she’s weird, she’s got a wicked sense of humor, she’s in a strange place right now, she’s the best. Even the most magnetic women, with whom we have the most profound friendships, possess nuance, contradiction and even (pardon the inevitable pun) — character flaws. To acknowledge this does not stain your affection for someone, but allows for the friendship itself, which can be a mutually relieving admission in which you agree. Oh, you’re
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University releases 5-year plan Plan says recruitment, student experience will be at the top of the University’s priority list By HANNAH LESTER Campus Writer
Auburn University has crafted its 5-year vision plan for 2019 to 2024 with six achievable goals and seven applicable themes. “As a land-grant institution, Auburn University is dedicated to improving the lives of the people of Alabama, the nation and the world through forward-thinking education, life-enhancing research and scholarship and selfless service,” the plan stated. Auburn wants to educate each student that enters the University and provide opportunities. Additionally, the University is striving to develop more research and scholarship programs. Finally, as part of the mission, Auburn is working toward engagement and outreach. “To be among the best land-grant universities, we must continue to excel in all three responsibilities,” the plan went on. “This requires leveraging the synergy found in the interchange of education, research and service to maximize our impact on Alabama and the world.” As part of the plan, the University is looking to be on the forefront of change in higher education over the next 20 years. The seven goals the plan has created are meant to promote this 20-year vision — a vision that is intent on creating Auburn as a University that stands above the rest. ELEVATED AUBURN EXPERIENCE “Inspire and prepare students for life and careers through delivery of an excellent and supportive experience characterized by distinctive, innovative curricula and engaging student life programs,” the plan said. For students, this means the University wants to focus on skills outside of traditional education — skills necessary to excel in life. Students will be supported through resources such as advising and counseling. “A key differentiator of Auburn University’s on-campus experience is the personal connection between the faculty/administration and students,” the plan said.
To help students following graduation, the University aims to provide opportunities to create sought-after graduates such as professional work or in-the-field experience. Part of this first goal is to change the way learning is conducted at Auburn by promoting active learning and more team-based work. Flipped classrooms, for example, will likely become more common. Preparing students will involve a greater focus on study abroad programs as well. “Student life areas requiring more attention include: accommodating every incoming freshman that desires to live on-campus; providing increased parking; making our campus one of the safest in the country; improving accessibility and enhancing mental-health counseling,” the plan said. TRANSFORMATIVE RESEARCH “Elevate research and scholarly impact to address society’s critical issues and promote economic development in Alabama and beyond,” the plan said. For Auburn’s goal to increase research and reputation, their new designation as an R1 research school is a step in the right direction. Hiring new faculty members will be part of this process as well as taking on more graduate and post-graduate researchers. “Achieving this cross-University excellence requires changing incentives, support mechanisms and organizational structure,” the plan said. “This includes carving out specific time for faculty to conduct research. It also includes ensuring faculty are appropriately recognized and rewarded for their accomplishments. Raising our visibility is critical to changing our research culture and to our ability to recruit.” In addition to the campus itself, the University will prepare to engage in more partnerships as well as producing research that has practical outcomes. IMPACTFUL SERVICE “Expand our land-grant and service capabilities to foster greater innovation and engage-
ment that enhances the quality of life and economic development in Alabama and beyond,” the plan said. Auburn would like to be a “first resource” that is able to provide assistance and service when needed. “First, we will more clearly define Auburn University’s service functions. This includes, one, better definition of the relationship between Outreach and Extension and, two, more differentiation of their respective roles,” the plan said. EXCEPTIONAL, ENGAGED FACULTY “Invest in our outstanding people to advance the university’s mission through recruitment, development, support, recognition, rewards and retention,” the plan said. Auburn is not defined solely by its student population but by those employed through the University, and as Auburn grows, better support for faculty and staff is a primary focus. “Auburn University will more actively encourage and reward professional growth of faculty and staff. This includes, one, a greater investment in professional development and, two, providing more opportunities for professional development,” the plan said. One way the school hopes to attract faculty is through working on a better work-life balance. In addition there will be more support, not only for faculty, but for their family members. “More emphasis will be placed on the concerns of female faculty and staff. Regardless of gender, particular attention will be paid to tuition waivers and remission; childcare and family medical leave,” the plan said. STRATEGIC ENROLLMENT “Achieve a robust and diverse enrollment of students while enhancing access, afford-ability, and academic quality,” the plan said. Auburn is primed to see a decrease in enrollment in the upcoming years due to problems such as a declining high school graduation rate and economic issues. The University, however, is preparing to combat this with-
in the next five years. “This will require us to diversify our portfolio of students and tap less traditional segments,” the plan said. “We must more fully seize opportunities that exist with dual enrollment, transfer students and non-traditional students. To do this, we must overhaul our student recruitment efforts, including how we market to prospective students. We must be more intentional about the way we create academic opportunities, making sure they are inclusive and meet the needs of all types of students.” A major focus is increasing the Auburn African-American student population through improving afford-ability, access and recruitment. OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE “Implement operational efficiency and effectiveness measures that continuously support a culture of high performance at all levels of the university,” the plan said. This goal for operational excellence is focused on practical measures such as reducing costs within the University and increasing sustainability. THEMES The seven themes in the plan are the Auburn spirit, organizational culture, inclusion and diversity, partnerships, technology, marketing and communication as well as accountability and measurability. “Auburn University is a special and welcoming place, offering opportunity and growth to those who choose it,” the plan said. “To experience Auburn is to love it. That affinity for Auburn University is based on a belief in hard work; education; honesty; a sound mind, body and spirit; obedience to law; the human touch and patriotism. These beliefs are integral to the Auburn Spirit. An important aim of the strategic plan is to integrate these beliefs into the strategic plan to ensure that the University’s values are transmitted far beyond campus and to future generations of Auburn University’s students.”
CONSTRUCTION
University unveils housing plan
Construction on new dorms could begin in next two years By MEGAN FERINGA Campus Writer
It’s no secret that Auburn is hitting a growth spurt. If Auburn were a 5-year-old, it’d be jumping up and down by the wood door frame, anxiously awaiting a pencil mark to tell it just how much taller it grew from yesterday. With the Auburn board of trustees’ roughly estimated $232 million budget approved for a slew of capital improvements to campus just weeks ago, Auburn and its students have much to anticipate — including a new central dining facility, culinary science building and new structural testing laboratory for engineering research. Yet, the spurt is far from slowing. According to Senior Vice President of Auburn Student Affairs Bobby Woodard, Auburn still has room to tack on a few more inches. “I think it looks like a ton of growth for us because we’re trying to catch up on the older academic buildings and take care of them,” Woodard said. “But at the same time, we’re looking at how can we be more innovative, and how can we push forward?” While most of the University’s focus on growth has centered on renovating or rebuilding outdated lab facilities and classrooms, Woodard has an additional focus in mind — housing. “I will be the first to admit that housing-wise, we are behind the eight ball,” Woodard said. “We should have done something 10 years ago. I wasn’t here, but everybody that was here tells me they tried, but it didn’t fit in with the plan at that time. Now it does.” Steven Leath, president of Auburn University, made housing a priority in his State of the University address last fall. He said he supported replacing the Hill dormitories. In his position, Woodard is a top advisor to Leath. A palm-thick packet, scribbled and written over in blue and black pen, sits
on Woodard’s busy desk. It’s the first draft of the housing master plan, a 10-year development project of Woodard’s along with Director of Housing Kevin Hoult and Assistant Director of Housing Robert R. McKinnell. The draft outlines a proposal to build new residence halls in an undetermined location. The new buildings will have 1,400 beds, the precise amount needed to replace the beds in the Hill. The rooms will take on a traditional residence hall aesthetic, with both podstyle and semi-suite style rooms available for students to choose from. “We really want to cater toward freshmen,” Woodard said. “We want as many freshmen to live on campus as possible because they have that sense of belonging, and not only that, they feel more connected to the community.” Construction will take place over two phases in a staggered effect. As new buildings are built, the old residence halls of the Hill will be knocked down until the 1,400 beds are replaced. New construction for a separate residence hall will then take place where the Hill currently stands. Though the draft is only in its earliest stages, Woodard hopes to take a plan to the Auburn board of trustees by April and begin moving dirt in the next two years. “I might be a little aggressive here,” Woodard admits with a laugh. “But I hope by talking to the board, putting our case together and making sure the finances work, we can have a new residence hall in two or three years and start getting everything moving.” In four of the five years Woodard has served as the senior vice president of student affairs, the number of incoming freshmen has increased steadily. Housing’s occupancy rate averages at 96 percent, kept below 100 purposefully in case of an emergency in which students on or off campus need a space to live. However, the number of students desiring to live on campus has increased,
“
I will be the first to admit that housing-wise, we are behind the eight ball. — Bobby Woodard often times leaving the housing department to waitlist a substantial number of students. “If the need is there — that’s the biggest thing — but if the need is there, we want to be able to house any freshman who lives on campus,” Woodard said. The 10-year plan not only outlines construction plans for new buildings, but also renovations for existing residence halls, including the Village and Cambridge. “We have a 10-year plan to do it all,” Woodard said. “What we’re most proud of is that it’s not an administration versus the students. We’re advocating for our students, and this is what is needed.” As Auburn continues to expand in residence halls, so too must new research laboratories and classroom buildings, Woodard said. Maintaining the campus environment’s intimacy is a top priority for student life, he added. “We want to be mindful that we don’t want to be Atlanta or Birmingham. We are very conscious of the facilities, and the board looks at the master plan to keep it the Loveliest Village,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean the buildings on campus can’t go vertical; they have to. We’re running out of space.” However, space doesn’t make a village, Woodard said. Like many others advocating for the University and community’s growth, Woodard said it’s all about the people to maintain Auburn’s iconography. “We don’t change Samford Hall, just give it a facelift,” Woodard said. “But if someone says it takes a village to raise, they’re not talking about buildings. They’re talking about people.”
CAMERON BRASHER / PHOTOGRAPHER
Students walking in front of Samford Hall on Wed, Jan. 16, 2019, in Auburn, Ala.
THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2019
The Auburn Plainsman
PAGE 7
SGA
Students should ‘have their voices heard’
Former Sen. Max Zinner reflects on decade of involvement in Student Government Association By TRICE BROWN Campus Reporter
As the Student Government Association welcomed its new senators on Feb. 18, the familiar faces of former senators were giving their last hurrahs and saying goodbye after a year of hard work. One such former senator was Max Zinner, who has represented graduate schools for two years and joined SGA in 2011. Zinner was an extremely active senator, serving as the chair of the Code of Laws Committee his second year and regularly introducing bills and amendments to streamline SGA’s legislation. A common change Zinner introduced to SGA laws was the use of gender-neutral language. While it is a seemingly minor alteration, its inclusion is incredibly important to the LGBT community, a group Zinner has always been passionate about supporting. “I grew up in a very specific bubble of Auburn that was much more accepting,” Zinner said. “To get an idea of that, I actually went to more gay weddings than straight weddings as a kid.” He said it wasn’t until he was 11 or 12 that he realized samesex marriage wasn’t a legally recognized union. For Zinner, same-sex weddings were like every other wedding as a kid — boring. When he came to Auburn as an undergraduate, he joined Spectrum: Auburn University’s Gay-Straight Alliance. He started attending SGA Senate meetings as an invested student following a homophobic incident that occurred in Jordan-Hare Stadium, knowing senators would be talking about the incident. He wanted to know what they had to say. “Once I became political director for Spectrum, [SGA Senate] was one of the first places I turned,” Zinner said. “Because I thought, ‘Well that is where students, at least in theory, are supposed to have their voice heard.’” Zinner began attending Senate meetings weekly, voicing the concerns of the LGBT community during the open-forum time. He spoke to any senator willing to listen and asked for a resolution expressing SGA’s support for more unisex restrooms on campus for the benefit of the LGBT community. Once that resolution was brought to the Senate floor, an hour of debate led to the tabling of the resolution until the next meeting. He said he thought the resolution would have been easy to pass; he didn’t expect much opposition. The next week, Zinner agreed to amend the bill by removing his name and any reference to the LGBT community or gender identity. It passed unanimously. “At this point, I was like, ‘I just want this thing passed, so yes,’” Zinner said. In his later years as an undergraduate, Zinner ran for an atlarge Senate seat, but the votes fell short. However, he had no intention of stopping. Once he was in graduate school, he ran unopposed for the graduate schools’ Senate seat after other candidates dropped out of the running. He served as the graduate school senator for two years, spending the first year on the Inclusion and Diversity Committee and the next with the Code of Laws Committee. During his first term, Zinner sponsored a bill that commended the achievements of the founding members of the Au-
IRELAND DODD / PHOTOGRAPHER
Interview with Max Zinner about his time with Auburn University’s SGA on Feb. 22, 2019, in Auburn, Ala.
burn Gay and Lesbian Association, a once controversial precursor to Spectrum in the early 1990s. During the AIDS epidemic, the group faced overwhelming intolerance from the Auburn community. When the first Auburn student was diagnosed with AIDS, people didn’t know how it was transmitted, Zinner said. The idea that homosexuality was a disease and therefore a public health issue became even more popular. According to Zinner, the group was originally denied a charter from SGA, a decision that was overruled by the University’s president, based on legal precedent. Its founding members were threatened and one AGLA leader was even put in the hospital after he was beaten at a movie theater. “One thing I also brought into the bill was the fact that we are on the Princeton Review’s most LGBT-unfriendly list,” Zinner said. “We’ve been on that list somewhere or another every year for the past five years or so.” Despite this, Zinner said he thinks the general perception toward the LGBT community has changed for the better since he became a student at Auburn in 2011. Nowadays, SGA candidates are much more likely to speak at a Spectrum meeting or mention Spectrum on the debate stage. Daniel Calhoun, one of the presidential candidates in the recent SGA elections, even put it in his platform to give Spectrum a voting seat on Student Senate. Zinner said he believes the administration has also evolved on these issues as a part of a broader national trend toward more discussion of inclusion and diversity, thanks in part to the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and the ramping up of presidential campaigns in 2015. Unity Walker, graduate advisor for Spectrum who identifies as non-binary, said they agreed that Auburn has become more inclusive and diverse since they arrived on campus in 2010. However, they believe that Auburn has taken significant steps toward conservatism since 2016. Walker said the conservative momentum peaked during November 2016 but flared considerably during the campus
CAREER
visits of Milo Yiannopoulos, former editor of Breitbart News, and Richard Spencer, a white nationalist who garnered campus-wide controversy during his visit to campus in April 2017. They said that while the Office of Inclusion and Diversity has served as a counterweight to conservative momentum, the past few years have created a more challenging environment for minorities at Auburn University. “Overall, Auburn is not as conservative of a campus as it was during my arrival,” Walker said. “But it still has a long way to go in terms of creating a safe and supportive environment for LGBT+ students.” When Zinner was Spectrum’s secretary as an undergraduate student, Zinner and Walker were on the forefront of pushing the University to include the terms gender identity and expression in the Auburn Anti-Discrimination Policy. “I sent out an email to all the Spectrum members, letting everybody know,” Zinner said. “That was a pretty happy moment; I remember typing it out.” Looking back over his accomplishments through SGA, Zinner said he was proud of passing the commendation for AGLA and changing the voting system to an instant runoff system. He said he thinks the change to voting would probably be his biggest and longest-lasting impact on Auburn’s SGA. Zinner said he was pretty happy with his successor, Cassandra Grey, and was glad it was a contested race. To him, graduate school senators have to ensure that everybody else doesn’t forget about their constituents. “Everyone else is undergrad, and all too often, people are just thinking about their undergrad lives,” Zinner said. “It is very different, in some ways, being a graduate student.” Zinner said he hopes that the new Senate body will keep a culture of debate and inquiry in the meetings, something he tried to push as a seasoned senator. Zinner is scheduled to finish his master’s thesis on the history of the gay and lesbian student population in Auburn organizing during the 1980s and 1990s. Scheduled to graduate in May, Zinner hopes to work with students in higher education, preferably with LGBT affairs.
CAREER
SGA discusses ticket system, guest passes By TRICE BROWN Campus Reporter
FILE PHOTO
Tim Cook, Apple CEO and Auburn alumnus, walks onto the stage at the Telfair B. Peet Theatre, on Thursday, April 5, 2017, in Auburn, Ala.
Apple may join list of student co-ops By DREW DAWS Campus Writer
As part of a broader initiative to form corporate partnerships, the University is working toward a deal that will provide students with the opportunity to directly work with Apple employees. Bobby Woodard, senior vice president for student affairs, said the University is still in the early planning stages of working out a deal with the tech giant. “Unfortunately, we are so young in these talks that we don’t have anything settled out yet,” he said. “Our next meeting, or brainstorming session, with Apple is in late April.” Steven Leath, Auburn University president, strives to provide real-world experience to students, Woodard said. This includes giving students the opportunity to work with major companies. “Dr. Leath has this whole thing about ‘Innovate, Transform, Inspire,’” Woodard said. “The crux of it is we want to get more corporate industry partnerships.”
Although the University currently has partnerships with other companies, Woodard believes this would be Auburn’s first partnership with a major tech company. “We have big ideas, but we really just haven’t gotten there yet,” he said. “We’ve got a big engineering school, some business analytics and supply-chain management courses. All of that works into what Apple does.” Apple CEO Tim Cook is one of Auburn’s most well-known alumni. The University’s goal is to provide a cooperative education experience to its students, Woodard said. “We want to be able to provide co-ops closer to home,” he said. “It’s hard to send a co-op to California because of the expense to live out there.” Auburn has a variety of co-op opportunities, and one of the University’s largest current corporate partnerships is with Atlanta-based Delta. This provides students with real-world experience rather than solely reading from a textbook. “It helps our students get to know professionals that are currently in
the field and what they’re looking for,” Woodard said. “We can tell you what a book says and what we think they’re looking for, but students tend to listen more when somebody comes in and says, ‘I will hire you if you’ve got A, B and C.’” It is all about theory to practice, he said. While students learn the fundamentals in the classroom, coops with companies like Delta provide students with access to the latest innovations in the field. “A lot of the professors here have the knowledge and the background, but they have been in the classroom for 10 to 15 years,” he said. “When you have a pilot that is still flying, they can teach you about the new stuff, the new technologies,” he said. The invaluable experience students gain from the co-ops proves beneficial for students when they graduate and begin looking for work in professional fields. “The ultimate goal is to get you a job,” Woodard said. “If you can say that you have practical experience in a field, that is going to get you a job much quicker.”
At the SGA Town Hall on athletics and student tickets on Tuesday evening, panelists discussed challenges of perfecting the student-section experience and the problems affecting that experience. Brad Smith, assistant director of student involvement, explained some of the policy decisions made in recent years to improve the student experience at football games. Smith said the option of students transferring their ticket to someone else was eliminated to prevent non-students from taking up seats in the student section. “By eliminating that, we were trying to get that person out of the pot that was just buying to sell,” Smith said. “All of these things just to try to fill the student section with people that want to be at the games and that were Auburn students.” Guest passes were added to satisfy the demand from students to bring guests and to help fill the student section at certain times, Smith said. Derrick Brown, football player and incoming president of the Student Athlete Advisory Committee, said that while it’s nice to see Auburn fans cheering the team on, there’s nothing quite like seeing his peers supporting him during games. “These people you see every single day, they are there supporting you, and they know what you do, and that’s big for me,“ Brown said.
He said it means a lot to be able to go to the student section after a game and see that it’s still full. Other panelists included Evin Beck, associate athletics director for external relations; Monique Holland, senior associate athletics director for student-athlete experience; Samantha Cerio, gymnast and outgoing president of Auburn’s Student Athlete Advisory Committee and Patrick Starr, outgoing executive vice president of programs for SGA. Audience questions followed panel discussion. Smith said keeping the section full was important and selling tickets as a season package was the best way to make sure that it was always filled. He said that if tickets were sold on an individual basis, students would only buy tickets for the few games they wanted to attend and wouldn’t attend the others, which Auburn believes diminishes the student experience. Smith said students cannot get refunds for tickets they return to the ticketing pool because when they purchase the package, they are expected to use those tickets for the whole season. According to Smith, freshman students are the highest attendees, and their demand for tickets cannot be met. When tickets were sold as a full season to freshmen, instead of a six-game package, only 1,000 students out of 4,000 that expressed interest were able to get tickets. Smith said the six-game package allowed the amount of freshman with tickets in their hands to double.
community THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2019
8 THEPLAINSMAN.COM
COMMUNITY
DISASTER
Donations pour in following tornado By ELIZABETH HURLEY Community Editor
Cars circled the Auburn Dream Center as volunteers unloaded donations for tornado relief after storms ripped through Lee County Sunday afternoon. The Dream Center, a storage and staging facility for the outreach programs of the Church of the Highlands, opened at 6 a.m. on Monday following the storms to collect donations such as diapers, water and granola bars. By 10:45 a.m., the warehouse building was packed with supplies while cars continued to circle the building and drop off donations. So many people came to drop off supplies that the center closed at 11 a.m. to assess everything that had already been donated. Cases of water bottles and boxes of granola bars and diapers were stacked throughout the building as volunteers worked to sort through the donations. The community response was large and almost immediate, said Wren Aaron, campus pastor at the Church of the Highlands Auburn. “As the sun came up and stores opened, people began to flood in. It’s incredible,” Aaron said. “We’re a part of an incredible community of people that love serving, love reaching out and helping people that are maybe struggling.” Many other area churches collected toiletries and other supplies. Campus Kitchen began a canned and non-perishable food drive. Opelika Animal Hospital offered free pet boarding, and several University departments hosted their own drives for relief and cleanup supplies. Airbnb activated its Open Homes Program, which recruits local hosts who are willing to provide free temporary lodging for displaced residents and relief workers. At least 37 hosts had opened their homes on Tuesday, according to the company. The Poarch Creek Band of Indians and another company have pledged to pay the funeral costs for the families of those killed, according to Lee County Coroner Bill Harris. The East Alabama Medical Center Foundation offered to handle and disperse the funds. Meanwhile, volunteers are still working on the long job of debris cleanup and recovery. “We would like to thank everyone for their continued support through this difficult time,” the Lee County Sheriff’s Office wrote on Facebook. For more information on where to donate, visit leecoema.com or ThePlainsman.com/tornadodonate.
ELIZABETH HURLEY / COMMUNITY EDITOR
Volunteers at the Auburn Dream Center take donations for tornado victims on March 4, 2019, in Auburn, Ala.
RECREATION
CONTRIBUTED / TAYLOR DUNCAN
An Alternative Baseball League player slides to base during a game.
Teens with autism find fellowship in baseball By MADDIE HAND Community Writer
Taylor Duncan was diagnosed with autism at 4 years old when he began experiencing speech issues, social anxiety and stigmas associated with some of those on the autism spectrum. “I was denied a lot of opportunities growing up,” Taylor Duncan recalled as he stood in the dugout of one of the newly renovated Duck Samford baseball fields in Auburn, Alabama. “Either it was due to developmental delays when I was younger or the social stigma and preconceived ideas from others as I got to be much older,” he said, tapping his polished, wooden bat on the cement. Duncan eventually found sanctuary in a sport that he believes can help bring people with autism together as both a team and a community. He sees it as a quest to overcome some of the social and physical obstructions they face everyday. In addition to developing an extensive knowledge of baseball, Duncan said the social skills he learned while playing in high school and on various travel leagues helped give him the confidence and ability to start the Alternative Baseball League, a baseball league specifically for those with autism. Currently, the Alternative Baseball League has about 30 different teams in 13 states from coast-to-coast, and Duncan is always working to expand the program to more locations. He is currently hoping to bring the program to Auburn by summer 2019 with the help of Evan Crawford, a former player for the Toronto Blue Jays and Auburn University. Crawford said he wanted to get involved with the Alternative Baseball League after
playing in one of their annual all-star games, when current and former baseball professionals play alongside ABL players in multiple games to raise awareness and money for the program. “Baseball is a failure oriented game,” Crawford said. Players learn how to turn shortcomings into improvements, just like in the “game of life,” he said. Players must be 15 or older to join. Duncan said players on the league are “now capable of more” and can “become more productive members of society” through what they learn on the field and through team-provided social interaction. According to Duncan, some of the communities that the Alternative Baseball League are located in have few, if any, resources available for those with special needs or disabilities. The program is meant to reflect the most traditional way of playing baseball — with wooden bats and many of the same rules and regulations — while still providing a safe and accepting environment for those on the autism spectrum. One of the few adjustments of the baseball league is the larger-sized and softer ball, which is used as a safety measure. Duncan and the Alternative Baseball League are soon to be commemorated at an upcoming Braves game for their progressive approach in providing both a social and physical outlet for those on the spectrum. Duncan said he has also been asked to do a Tedx Talk in Atlanta in March 2019 regarding his own story and its impact on the autism community. “We want to focus on what these kids can do, not what they can’t do,” Duncan said.
Pitch in and help those in need following the March 3 tornadoes through the many opportunities on the tornado relief resources website: auburn.edu/tornadorelief As members of the Auburn Family, let's show our support and help rebuild our community! #LeeCountyStrong
From Auburn Student Affairs @AuburnStudents
StudentAffairs.auburn.edu
THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2019 DOWNTOWN
The Auburn Plainsman
PAGE 9
CITY COUNCIL
New Board of Ed. member appointed By CORY BLACKMON Community Reporter
JOSHUA FISHER / PHOTOGRAPHER
Auburn City Manager Jim Buston speaks with The Plainsman on Jan. 31, 2019, in Auburn, Ala.
City to move forward on deck without hotel
The Auburn City Council held a moment of silence and prayer for those afflicted by the tornadoes in Beauregard at the start of this week’s meeting. After the moment of silence, the council nominated two people for the vacancy on the Board of Education. After 21 applications and an extensive interview process, Florence Holland and Kathy Powell were nominated for the vacant spot. In a 5-4 vote, council chose Kathy Powell for the position. The council also decided to table the vote for the Academic Detached Dwelling Units until the April 2 meeting, giving the council a month to revise and discuss the ordinance in whole. Auburn Assistant City Manager Kevin Cowper said that since the last meeting, city staff had reached out to interested parties to come up with some ideas for compromise. “Procedurally, changes can be made by the City Council without it going back to the planning commission,” Cowper said. “Depending on the volume of those changes, we may recommend it go back to the planning commission for their recommendation.” Cowper said a month should be plenty of time to implement any changes to the ordinance. “We know what needs to be done and can make the changes in that time frame,” Cowper said. Auburn City Manager Jim Buston previously told The Plains-
man multiple City Council members had met with city staff over the last two weeks in order to get more information on the ordinance. Auburn Planing Director Forrest Cotten said he had spoken with multiple developers about issues they had with the ordinance, like off-street parking. Cotten also said the city is considering making the ADDU permitted by right in certain districts. “We’ve been requested to look at two districts in particular, and the prospect of permitting this new use type by right,” Cotton said. “One is the neighborhood redevelopment district, which is the ground zero for this in the Frasier-Canton area. The other district is the redevelopment district.” The mayor and City Council also addressed the incident that occurred at Mama Mocha’s on Gay Street where a man shouted Nazi slogans and made aggressive gestures toward customers. “If we are to talk about diversity and inclusion, we have to acknowledge these moments, however ugly they may be, and speak to them directly so this community knows that we’re not going to tolerate that kind of behavior,” said councilmember Bob Parsons. Mayor Anders released an official statement saying that Auburn is a community that includes many different perspectives and views and Auburn citizens respect those differences. “My responsibility as mayor is not to just embrace differences but protect those differences,” Anders said.
By ELIZABETH HURLEY Community Editor
The City of Auburn will move forward with its planned public parking deck after developers could not reach an agreement by the end of February to bring a Southern Living Hotel to North College Street, City Manger Jim Buston told The Plainsman. The City will move forward with a smaller, 300-350 space deck on the land that was previously occupied by the Baptist Student Center on North College Street. The deck will include a space for the Baptist Student Center on the first floor. The parking deck project is already behind schedule, with the project pushed back for months. The City’s initial plans, before the hotel was announced, had the deck opening in August. “The architects will work on the design for that,” Buston said. “We will then put it out to bid and then start construction … We’re probably looking at a start date, if not in the summer, then maybe around September.” The City was already planning to build a parking deck on the Baptist Student Center site when the plans to build a hotel were announced. The city then began working with the developers to build a bigger parking deck to accommodate both public and hotel parking needs. They City agreed to sell their newly acquired land along North College Street for $80,000 in exchange for land near the rear of the property along Wright Street. This new land on Wright Street would have given the City more space to build a larger deck and allow the Southern Living Hotel to have the space along North College Street. These plans included a hotel located along North College Street that stretched from the University Inn to Regions Bank. It would have included Quixotes Bar and Grill, Pita Pit and The Bike Shop. Lifestyle + Hotel Group had been working closely with Godbold Development Partners, the development group that owns that land, to reach an agreement to put the hotel in the heart of downtown Auburn. They reached an impasse earlier in February and informed the City they could not reach an agreement last week. “We’re going to try to move as quickly as possible,” Buston said. “We estimated about nine months before, so six to nine months.” LHG is actively pursuing other locations for a Southern Living hotel in Auburn, CEO and President of LHG Bill Shoaf told The Plainsman earlier this month. While Shoaf said he could not speak to the other developer’s plans, LHG has given Godbold notice of the search. LHG still plans to build a Southern Living hotel in the downtown Auburn area, Shoaf said. “We’ve just run out of time, so we’re actively looking at alternative sites,” Shoaf said. LHG is working to lock down a location soon, Shoaf said. The Southern Living hotel will feature the same amenities as the plans for the North College Street location did regardless of it’s final location. These amenities include a rooftop lounge and a restaurant in coordination with Bo Jackson. “We’ll have all the things we were going to have on College Street, we’re just going to pick all that up and find a new home for it,” Shoaf said.
CORY BLACKMON / COMMUNITY REPORTER
City Council votes for a new Board of Education member by show of hands.
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sports
10
THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2019
THEPLAINSMAN.COM
SPORTS
TORNADO RELIEF
Athletics leaders voice support for tornado victims
MADISON OGLETREE / PHOTO EDITOR
JOSHUA FISHER / PHOTOGRAPHER
FILE PHOTO
Auburn athletic director Allen Greene at Auburn Fan Day on Aug. 11, 2018, in Auburn, Ala.
Coach Gus Malzahn during Auburn Football vs. Ole Miss on Saturday, Oct. 20, 2018, in Oxford, Miss.
Bruce Pearl reads a prayer after the Holocaust Remembrance Walk in Auburn, Ala. on Thursday, April 12, 2018.
Allen Greene
Gus Malzahn
Bruce Pearl
ATHLETIC DIRECTOR
FOOTBALL COACH
MEN’S BASKETBALL COACH
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Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected by the devastation in Lee County.
Saddened by the devastation and loss of life in the nearby communities and regions affected by the tornados.
Auburn Athletics will collaborate with Auburn University leadership and local authorities to ensure that our relief and recovery efforts have maximum impact on those directly affected.
My thoughts and prayers are with everyone impacted.
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I just wanted to give our thoughts and prayers to all the victims of the storm. I know that Auburn and its leadership ... are working diligently to form some action to respond.
Not only short-term, but long-term as — Gus Malzahn well to help our community to rebuild and to heal.
— Allen Greene
— Bruce Pearl
FILE PHOTO
MADISON OGLETREE / PHOTO EDITOR
FILE PHOTO
Butch Thompson speaks during Pearl Jam in Auburn Arena on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2015.
Coach Terri Williams-Flournoy during Auburn Women’s Basketball vs. Mississippi State on Monday, Jan. 14, 2019, in Auburn, Ala.
Head Coach Mickey Dean during Auburn’s second doubleheader game vs. Arkansas on Saturday, April 21, 2018, in Auburn, Ala.
Butch Thompson
Terri Williams-Flournoy
Mickey Dean
BASEBALL COACH
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We’ll be there and organized; we’ll be together in helping. I just offer my prayers to those that have lost life, especially to the ones that are living — their families, first responders, everyone involved in this. I send prayers out on behalf of Auburn athletics and the baseball program. — Butch Thompson
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WOMEN’S BASKETBALL COACH
“ Our hearts are hurting for the victims and their loved ones from this week’s devastating storms here at home in Lee County. My team, coaches and staff are praying for those that are suffering, and we are ready to assist with the recovery efforts ... the community here in Lee County is strong and united, and we are a Team of Excellence ready to stand with everyone affected by this tragedy. — Terri Williams-Flournoy
SOFTBALL COACH
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“ I just want to let people know that they have our thoughts and prayers down in the southeastern part of Lee County — and they’re family.” (via This Week in Auburn Softball podcast) — Mickey Dean
The Auburn Plainsman
THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2019
PAGE 11
FILE PHOTO
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MADISON OGLETREE / PHOTO EDITOR
Gymnastics coach Jeff Graba answers questions from the media on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016, at the McWhorter Center in Auburn, Ala.
Greg Williams speaks at the celebration of Auburn’s fifth equestrian national championship in Auburn, Ala. on Tuesday, April 24, 2018.
Rick Nold, volleyball coach, hands students exam supplies during Crush Finals event on Haley Concourse on Thursday, April 28, 2016.
Jeff Graba
Greg Williams
Rick Nold
GYMNASTICS COACH
EQUESTRIAN COACH
VOLLEYBALL COACH
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Our thoughts and prayers are with our neighbors that have been affected by the terrible storm. We have, and will continue to, look to help in any way we can.
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When working on clearing roads after the storm, my wife and I quickly realized that this was a really bad one, we couldn’t even get to some of our friends places.
The help that came pouring out from — Jeff Graba surrounding communities was impressive, but this area is going to need work and support for a long time to come. — Greg Williams
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We were absolutely devastated by the tornado that has impacted our community. We are continually praying for those who have been impacted and are committed to helping the community heal and rebuild as we move forward. — Rick Nold
MADISON OGLETREE / PHOTO EDITOR
AUBURN ATHLETICS
AUBURN ATHLETICS
Bo Jackson speaks during Bo Bikes Bama 2017 on Saturday, April 29, 2017 in Auburn, Ala.
Auburn women’s golf head coach Melissa Luellen during the Tigers’ 2015 season.
Auburn men’s golf head coach Nick Clinard after Auburn’s SEC Championship victory on May 1, 2018, in St. Simon’s Island, Georgia.
Bo Jackson
Melissa Luellen
Nick Clinard
AUBURN GREAT
WOMEN’S GOLF COACH
MEN’S GOLF COACH
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Our thoughts and prayers are with the city of Beauregard and everyone else in Lee County. THIS is the very reason why we do Bo Bikes Bama. THIS is the very reason why everyone should donate something because you never know when mother nature will visit your town.
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Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected by the recent storms in Lee County.
Life is precious, and we will do everything we can to assist those affected.
It’s a time to mourn, support and help them rebuild. This community has already done and will continue to do amazing things during this difficult time. — Nick Clinard
On behalf of the members of the Auburn women’s golf team and staff, our thoughts and prayers go out to those families who lost loved ones, to the teachers who lost students, and to the children and adults who lost friends.
— Bo Jackson — Melissa Luellen
The Auburn Plainsman
THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2019
PAGE 12
AUBURN ATHLETICS
Auburn Soccer head coach Karen Hoppa is interviewed at the Auburn Soccer Complex on Wedneday, Oct. 7, 2016
Bobby Reynolds during Auburn men’s tennis vs Arkansas on Sunday, April 8, 2018.
Auburn men and women’s track and field head coach Ralph Spry via Twitter photo.
Karen Hoppa
Bobby Reynolds
Ralph Spry
SOCCER COACH
MEN’S TENNIS COACH
TRACK & FIELD COACH
We are all devastated by the loss of life and destruction from the tornadoes last weekend.
My thoughts and prayers are with the families deeply affected by these horrible storms.
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Our thoughts and prayers are with our neighbors, and we stand ready to help in any way possible. In the tough times, we need family the most, and the Auburn family will pull together for our community. — Karen Hoppa
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It’s been difficult for everyone in Lee County and surrounding areas, but especially those in Beauregard ... we have members of our track — Bobby Reynolds and field team from Beauregard and Smiths Station. Fortunately, their families and loved ones are okay, but it will be a long recovery process for their communities. Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone that was impacted and look forward to being able to assist as these areas and families rebuild. — Ralph Spry
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
TORNADO RELIEF
How you can help through Auburn Athletics By NATHAN KING Sports Editor
MADISON OGLETREE / PHOTO EDITOR
Janiah McKay (33) looks to make a pass during Auburn Women’s Basketball vs. Georgia on Sunday, Feb. 3, 2019, in Auburn, Ala.
2 Tigers named All-SEC AUBURN ATHLETICS
Auburn women’s tennis head coach Lauren Spencer via Twitter photo from @AuburnWTennis.
Lauren Spencer WOMEN’S TENNIS COACH
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My heart is broken for the many families whose lives have been devastated by the tornadoes that hit Lee County. To those families and communities, we offer our prayers as you cope with this unimaginable loss. To see people from all walks of life in Lee County and the state of Alabama step up to help their fellow neighbors through donations and volunteering is beyond inspiring. May God bless the victims, survivors, first responders and volunteers as they work to heal and restore their beloved community. — Lauren Spencer
By JAKE WEESE Sports Writer
Auburn women’s basketball had two players receive postseason honors from the Southeastern Conference, the league announced Tuesday. Senior Janiah McKay earned a spot on the All-SEC Second Team and the SEC All-Defensive Team, and freshman Robyn Benton was named to the SEC All-Freshman Team. McKay, a senior from Gainesville, Florida, is Auburn’s leading scorer at 13.8 points per game and leads the team in assists with 4.3 assists per game. She has been the leading scorer in 10 games this season, including six where she reached the 20-point mark. McKay is also one of the Tigers best defensive players with 2.2 steals per game, which ranks her third in the SEC. Benton, a Conyers, Georgia, native, has averaged 6.1 points off the bench in her first season with the Tigers and ranks as one of the top SEC freshmen in scoring. Her season-high of 16 points came in her debut against Grambling State on Nov. 6, and she has scored in double digits three times in SEC play. During Auburn’s comeback win at Vanderbilt on Jan. 17, Benton hit the game-winning shot and free throw with 8.6 seconds left to secure the win; the performance earned her SEC Freshman of the Week honors. McKay is the 28th player for Auburn to earn All-SEC honors and is the fourth All-SEC selection under head coach Terri Williams-Flournoy. McKay joins Hasina Muhammad (2013, second team), Tyrese Tanner (2014, first team) and Katie Frerking (2017, second team). She is the sixth Auburn player to earn All-Defensive Team honors. Benton is Auburn’s 16th player of alltime to receive SEC All-Freshman Team. Auburn is the No. 6 seed in the SEC Tournament, which kicks off this week in Greenville, South Carolina.
The Auburn University athletic department has announced it will be collecting donations of supplies on campus this week as part of the school’s efforts to help tornado relief in the Lee County area. Auburn is collecting supplies at Gate 14 outside Jordan-Hare Stadium and the McWhorter Center parking lot. Donations can be dropped off at both locations Friday from 4-7 p.m. CST and Saturday from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. CST. Auburn athletic director Allen Greene is urging fans attending sporting events on campus this weekend to bring donations. For more additional community outreach opportunities, visit Auburn’s official tornado relief website at Auburn.edu/ tornadorelief. On Sunday, an EF4 tornado ripped through the Beauregard area, less than 10 miles from Auburn’s main campus. Twenty-three people died, making it the deadliest tornado in the U.S. in six years. Auburn Athletics is requesting the following supplies: • Bottled water • Diapers • Baby formula • Baby wipes • Trash bags • Packaged foods • Hygiene products • Work gloves
TORNADO RELIEF
Saban voices support By MAX GAULT Sports Writer
During the halftime festivities of Auburn basketball’s 6660 victory over Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Crimson Tide head football coach Nick Saban voiced his support for Lee County and the victims of the devastating tornadoes that claimed 23 lives Sunday. “We’d like to join everyone in supporting all of the people in Lee County who were affected by the tornado, and I’m sure we will do that here at the University of Alabama,” Saban said. Before tipoff Tuesday, a moment of silence was observed at Coleman Coliseum for the 23 Lee County residents that lost their lives as a result of the EF4 tornado that tore through the Beauregard area, less than 10 miles from Auburn’s main campus. After the April 2011 tornadoes that caused tremendous damage to Tuscaloosa, Auburn University reached out in support by creating the “Toomer’s for Tuscaloosa” campaign.
lifestyle
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THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2019
THEPLAINSMAN.COM
LIFESTYLE
SAFETY
PHILANTHROPY
Safety tips in event of next tornado By MIRANDA SHAFFER Lifestyle Writer
After the recent tragedy that happened in Lee County and the surrounding areas due to the storms on Sunday, it is important to make people aware of how to keep themselves safe during a tornado. Auburn University’s Campus Safety and Security website offers a number of informative tips for students to follow in the event of a tornado or other severe weather conditions. Students should know that if they receive an alert that there is a
tornado warning they should take shelter immediately in designated shelter locations. Shelter locations around Auburn are marked with white and green signs and are identified on building diagrams in building-specific emergency plans. If there is not a shelter center available, students should move to the center and lowest point of their building. Campus safety said to make sure to stay away from windows and doors to prevent injury from glass or other flying objects. Students should cover their heads with any heavy object to protect themselves.
» See SAFETY, 12
CELEBRATION
VIA INSTAGRAM
Senior raises money for tornado relief By LAUREN PIEPER Lifestyle Writer
The tornadoes that swept through Lee County on March 3 left homes destroyed and took the lives of 23 people. Auburn’s community is banding together to help the victims through donations. Natalie Hermes, senior in interdisciplinary studies, is doing her part by donating $14 from every necklace she sells to Saint Michael’s Catholic Church’s tornado relief. Hermes has an online-only shop called She’s Made Precious on Etsy that sells religious medal necklaces. She has been making and selling them since she was a sophomore in college. This is not the first time Hermes has donated proceeds to charity. She said she goes to Catholic conferences to sell her necklaces. Afterwards she donates portions of the money to the cause the conference is supporting. Hermes also donates proceeds to an organization close to her heart. “I give 10 percent of all my proceeds to a nonprofit called Baby Steps,” she said. Baby Steps is an Auburn University organization that aims to empower pregnant students to continue their education by providing housing and support. After seeing the devastation the tornadoes brought to the Auburn community, Hermes began thinking how she could help. “I was going to donate money to Saint Michael’s and give what I could, which is not very much as a college student,” she said. “Then, I started thinking about it, and I thought if I was just going to give $20, I might as well use my small platform to raise more than I could give on my own.” Hermes said she hopes she is inviting those who may not have given or known where to give into this act of service through her jewelry. Hermes hosted a pop-up shop at her house on March 4 to get the word out that for the entire week she will be donating $14 from each purchase made — whether it be on Etsy, at the event or by contacting her to reserve an order. “I posted in GroupMes and on my Instagram to tell people about it,” she said. “Most of the money that was raised was from girls texting me they wanted to get one and to set one aside to pick up.” From Monday’s event, about $300 was raised, and she is continuing to collect throughout the week. Hermes said the idea to do this was very spontaneous. “I was just in class and decided I should do this,” she said. For this week, all Auburn locals who purchase from her get the necklaces at a $20 flat rate. Etsy buyers will not have the same discount, but regardless of the price, the same amount of money will be donated to the victims on all purchases. “Normally my necklaces are $25 to $35, but for the Auburn community, I’m just doing $20 flat so that maybe more people would be inclined to buy one,” she said. Saint Michael’s Catholic Church is doing a cash and gift card drive, which is what these proceeds are going to. “They said that they were going to distribute gift cards to people who lost their homes or those who lost a loved one,” she said. “The money will probably go towards buying gift cards.” Hermes’s necklaces can be found either on her Etsy shop or by messaging her through her Instagram.
CAMERON BRASHER / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Parade float at the Auburn Mardi Gras Parade on Saturday, March 2, 2019, in Auburn, Ala.
Auburn celebrates Mardi Gras By ELLIE FALCONER Community Writer
The gloomy, cloudy weather looming over The Plains didn’t hinder the eccentric and colorful Mardi Gras celebration in downtown Auburn Saturday. The third-annual Mardi Gras parade in Auburn, organized by Krewe de Tigris and hosted by the Auburn Downtown Merchants Association, brought local families and students downtown to watch around 45 floats throw beads and moon pies to the enthusiastic crowd. “My favorite part is all the beads,” Southern Union State Community College student Mia Palmer said. “This was my first time, I’ve never done Mardi Gras before.” Local social and charitable organizations, downtown merchants and businesses participated in the parade by decorating floats with colorful themes. Construction workers in the downtown area put down their tools to watch the festivities. Most floats had people dressed in tiger print throwing goodies to the crowd. Captain Jack Sparrow was even featured on the Auburn Limousine. “It’s a lot of fun. I’ve never been to a Mardi Gras parade,” Auburn alumna Fonda Carter said. “Our favorite part was the beer ambulance.” Parade organizer and Krewe de Tigris member Adris Ludlum said the
Mardi Gras parade was brought to The Plains when a group of friends got together four years ago to start Krewe de Tigris. “After a year of organizing and getting the krewe together, we decided we wanted to put a parade on, to get the town involved” Ludlum said. The parade route made a large rectangular path, starting at the Thach and North College intersection. Ludlum said they are hoping to expand the route farther into the Auburn community in the future. “We really are trying to get people to come and spend time downtown and enjoy downtown, visit the different merchants,” Ludlum said. “Get the discounts and everything that the merchants are doing.” The parade in Auburn is smaller in scale than the celebrations in Mobile and New Orleans, but it is more community-orientated. “We really do encourage this to be a family-friendly event,” Ludlum said. “We want people to come and go to all the businesses downtown and really just have the community come together.” He said his favorite part of the parade is seeing everybody supporting it and coming out to have a great time. “You get a lot more enthusiasm than you do in other [local] parades,” Ludlum said. “The crowd really wants to be involved. There’s a lot of cheering.” Ludlum said he hopes the parade gains popularity each year. “This is our third year, I hope we’re gaining traction,” Ludlum said. “I hope we can be the favorite parade [in Auburn].”
HEALTH
Yerba mate tea may cost your health By LAUREN PIEPER Lifestyle Writer
On the Haley Concourse in February 2019, Auburn University students may have noticed ambassadors of Guayaki passing out an herbal tea called yerba mate. The beverage, free to passing students, is known to be a South-American herbal tea that has many health benefits, but actually has a lesser-known health cost. The Mayo Clinic warns consumers to be aware that the drink is not harmful as long as it is not drank frequently and is at a cool temperature. “Yerba mate isn’t likely to pose a risk for healthy adults who occasionally drink it,” Katherine Zeratsky writes on the Clinic’s website. “However, some studies indicate that people who drink large amounts of yerba mate over prolonged periods may be at increased risk of some types of cancer, such as cancer of the mouth, esophagus and lungs.” She goes on to say that drinking the tea at a hot temperature, 149 degrees Fahrenheit and above, heightens the risk of getting cancer from drinking the beverage. This cancer risk comes from carcinogens found in the product. The carcinogens in yerba mate are the same ones found in cigarettes
and red meats, according to Zeratsky’s post. Guayaki Products responded to questions about if the product is a health hazard. “More recent studies on this topic have linked carcinogenicity to the consumption of very hot beverages where the risk is associated with the temperature at which the beverage is consumed, rather than the type of beverage,” the company said. Abbigail Hickey, Auburn’s coordinator of Nutrition Services, looked into whether the beverage is potentially cancerous. Hickey was unable to give a definite answer on the stance of the beverage’s potential health concerns. “In terms of increasing the risk of cancer, there are a few epidemiological studies that look at the intake of yerba mates,” Hickey said. “In these cultures, the tea is drunk at really high temperatures, which can increase the risk for cancer as it can damage the esophagus.” She noted there may be a variety of factors as to why someone may get cancer from consuming yerba mate, such as not eating a proper diet, smoking cigarettes and living in a rural or urban land area. Hickey said experts warn on the consumption of yearba mate tea and say it should be consumed in moderation; however, there is not definite evidence from recent studies that
fully prove if mate tea causes cancer on a large scale. Guayaki Products provided an attachment to a press release of a study done in 2016 by the World Health Organization on carcinogenicity in coffee, regular tea and yerba mate tea. The release states that “drinking very hot beverages was classified as probably carcinogenic to humans.” It also stated that drinking yerba mate at temperatures that are “not very hot are not classifiable to its carcinogenicity in humans.” Another document sent was from Lancet Oncol from 2016 that further explained the studies. The document noted the traditional consumption of the beverage was at hot temperatures, and in the early 1990s, the carcinogenicity was looked at when it was discovered that drinking hot yerba mate was “probably carcinogenic to humans.” “A pooled analysis of the most available studies showed the risk of esophageal cancer increasing with the quantity of mate consumed,” the document said. “However, the trend was statistically significant only for mate consumed ‘hot’ or ‘very hot.’” It noted that cold yerba mate was not a as-
» See YERBA MATE, 12
The Auburn Plainsman
THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2019
PAGE 14
FEATURE
YERBA MATE » From 11
VIA FACEBOOK
Tyler Findlater, junior in communications, began playing the guitar to address left-sided weakness.
Student turns to music after stroke By SAMANTHA STRUNK Campus Writer
For local country singer and songwriter Tyler Findlater good country music is music that tells a story from the beginning of the song to the end. Findlater, junior in communications, said his story is what led him to music. In Findlater’s second semester at Auburn, he was sitting in class in the Shelby Center when his world went black. “When I came to, I stood up to leave the class, and the left side of my body just didn’t function the right way,” Findlater said. “Kind of like if you step into a hole with the left side of your body.” At 9 years old, Findlater was having a stroke. His boss picked him up and took him to the emergency room. He was then airlifted to UAB Medical Center in Birmingham, was kept there for a few days and was in class again the next week. “The stroke happened on a Wednesday,” Findlater said. “I was back in class again on a Tuesday.” Findlater said he didn’t receive a lot of information during his rehabilitation process. “They didn’t tell me I’d have a bunch of residual effects,” Findlater said. Findlater said he would notice a number of things off about his body. He couldn’t be in rooms with flourescent lighting without his eyes bothering him. Walking was harder than he expected it to be, and he said his left side was unusually weak. That’s when Findlater turned to guitar as a way to strengthen his left hand. “I’d never picked one up before,” Findlater said. “I never even thought about music. I just started playing to rehab my hand, and it helped a lot.” Findlater said he kept doing it, and it’s been his passion ever since.
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Findlater, who received several offers in high school to golf in college, said music gave him a creative outlet he’d never had before. “I was always a country club kid, but I had the stroke and decided I should live a little more,” Findlater said. “I got a couple tattoos, grew my hair out and started playing guitar — a midlife crisis in my early 20s.” Now 22, Findlater has been singing with his guitar for a few years. He said his most significant musical influences are older country artists, such as Don Williams, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. “I think with a lot of the music I play, like the older stuff, it connects people to their past,” Findlater said. “We’re not in the time now you get to turn on the radio and hear people like Don Williams and really good old lyricists like that, lyrics that tell a story.” Findlater said he tries to connect with people through his original work, too. Findlater said one of the major lingering effects post-stroke is depression and anxiety. “I dealt with that hard,” Findlater said. “Another thing that happens, too, is your brain is triggered in weird ways, and you have emotions you wouldn’t normally have.” Findlater said for up to six months after his stroke, he would either laugh or cry at random times with no particular reason. “The depression and stuff was a big time for me, so I write about trying to connect in that way,” Findlater said. “I’m not trying to point out depression, but trying to find ways to give people a little release from stuff like that.” Findlater said he thought depression was particularly prevalent among the college-aged demographic. “Everybody’s kind of depressed a little,” Findlater said. “If you can link to people with stuff like that and give them some kind of relief, that’s the biggest thing for me that I would like to do.”
sociated with this form of cancer from a single study, and a large trend was noticed “with drinking temperature independent of the amount consumed.” Yerba mate tea does have many health benefits as well. “Mate teas may mitigate inflammation, protect against DNA damage and help with DNA repair,” Hickey said. “However, I would be careful as studies such as these are conducted in laboratory settings with high dosages, much higher than may occur if drinking yerba mate one to two times a day or in mice models.” A study done on energy drinks by Sherry Heckman and Meja Gonzalez for Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Safety also found healthy components in yerba mate tea. “Yerba mate possesses anti-inflammatory and antidiabetic properties, as well as acts as an inhibitor to oxidative stress,” the study reads. “Moreover, yerba mate has shown in vitro cytotoxicity to cancer cells and inhibition against topoisomerase II, which plays a role in cell division and therefore works to inhibit cancer cell proliferation; however, in vivo studies are needed.” Also, purchasing yerba mate teas from Guayaki Products does have a charitable factor. “Every purchase of Guayaki Yerba Mate drives rainforest stewardship, indigenous culture resilience, carbon drawdown and regenerative practices at each product life cycle stage,” the company said. While the brand ambassadors have not frequently been on campus passing out the teas, their presence has been noticed along with students drinking the teas they are given for free. Guayaki did not respond to questions on who the ambassadors are or how they are allowed onto campus, but their website has a page on how someone can become an ambassador and what the job entails. “As a University Ambassador (someone who shares and serves yerba mate), you will be actively involved in growing awareness of both yerba mate and the Guayaki brand across your university campus and the social networks that you’re involved in,” the page says.
SAFETY » From 11
Campus safety warned to not go outdoors to see the storm, stating there are trained professionals who will be monitoring the situation. If a person is outside or in a vehicle they should seek shelter in a building, ditch or other safe area. Mobile vehicles and mobile homes are always dangerous during high winds. Report any injury or damages to the 911 dispatcher. Provide them as much information as possible to respond to the emergency. Once the storm has cleared, Campus Safety and Security asks students to notify them of any damages or injuries. JOSHUA FISHER / PHOTOGRAPHER
TIGERMARKET
Abbigail Hickey, Auburn Universitys campusPrint dietitian speaks with The PlainsDeadline: man on Thursday, Aug. 23, 2018 in Auburn, NoonAla. three business days
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Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
ACROSS 1 Cleared (of) 4 Tote bag material 10 Down-to-earth 14 Chemical suffix 15 Even though 16 Wrinkly hybrid fruit 17 Teacher on call 18 John D. Rockefeller’s company 20 Cutlery collection 22 Moo __ gai pan 23 Record 24 Umbrella part 26 Grace word 30 Bilingual “Sesame Street” Muppet 32 Bath sponges 34 Most babbling 37 Bunk 38 Woodland goat-man 41 Arraignment answers 42 Kitchen pests 43 Racing Unsers 44 Preparation period 46 German mathematician Bernhard 48 Softening 52 Calf-length skirts 53 61-Across kingpin __ Fring 56 Subtle shade 57 Glass lip 59 Speed trap equipment 61 #3 on Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time (as of 2016) ... and a hint to what the black squares are doing in four rows of this puzzle 65 Check out 66 “Star Trek” race 67 Mariner’s patron 68 __ Lingus 69 Pineapple center 70 “Mercy me!” 71 Genetic material DOWN 1 One who agrees to a dare
2 “Got me” 3 Ledger entries 4 Italian city whose Royal Palace has been used as a set in two “Star Wars” films 5 Hgts. 6 Net or Knick 7 Starbucks order 8 Give a leg up 9 Antlered animal 10 Ballet great Nureyev 11 Psychoanalysis subject 12 Actor Mahershala __ 13 Rapper __ Jon 19 High-tech worker 21 Affect 25 Pasture cry 27 Pull down 28 Opportunity 29 Former Air France jets 31 Colorado snowboarding mecca 33 “Cotton Comes to Harlem” director Davis 35 Urban Dictionary content
36 Iraq War weapon: Abbr. 38 One to grow on 39 Et __: and others 40 Hand-me-down 42 Group at Asgard 44 Corneareshaping surgery 45 One facing charges? 47 Desert illusion 49 Ready to roll
50 VietnameseAmerican poker star Scotty 51 Biological subdivisions 54 Implored 55 Black 58 Japanese soup 60 Lady of Spain 61 Eng. channel 62 Pal of Piglet 63 Goof up 64 Extreme
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
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