[New] Southern student Hayden Kobza discovers photos from the 1930s-40s

Kathy Zelidon Reporter

On Oct. 15, Hayden Kobza, a freshman film major, opened a green, wooden box in Dodson Dig Co., an antique store in South Carolina, where he found envelopes filled with hundreds of negatives from the 1930s-40s. On an impulse, Kobza decided to buy them, unaware of the story and photographer he had just discovered.

“When I saw that box, I was just like, ‘This is amazing,’” Kobza said. “[There are] thousands of negatives here, and maybe no one's ever seen these before besides the photographer. I thought that maybe this is some discovery that no one knows about.”

The envelopes held the negatives of Allen Morris, the owner of a large road maintenance company called Allen Road Maintainers. Mor- ris primarily took photos of his family, travels and work. In his photographs, there are photos of children playing, Americana landscapes, his family enjoying Christmas and ordinary people living their lives.

In a time characterized by the Great Depression, World War II and the Dust Bowl, Kobza acknowledges the stark contrast between Morris’ photographs and the typical photographs from that decade.

“You have some photographers who were hired by the United States to take photographs of the Depression era. Yet all of his photographs are about family and having fun. It's just showing American life in a small town,” Kobza said. “When I first looked at them all, it seemed like a grand time, just kind of nostalgic.”

Although Morris was not a photographer by profession, Kobza praised his work for its design and composition. The photographs share common design and artistic elements. Morris was able to capture not only moments of his life but also made them an artistic portrayal of the time period.

“I have just grown to really appreciate his work and to see he did have an eye for composition. Not every single one of his photographs are amazing, just because he did it more as a hobby, but I started to see that this is somebody who was an artist.” Kobza said about Morris’ talent. “He was thinking about composition. He was thinking about how to model these things, which is really a unique perspective. Morris knew what he was doing.”

While uncovering the photographs happened by chance, Kobza’s journey to find the identity of the photographer did not. Kobza said that he spent months searching through the photographs and internet for the identity of the family in the photos.

“The whole point of the case was who the photographer was,” Kobza said. “I wanted to know who this guy was; I didn't want to just end up [with] some cool photographs. I wanted to have a story here.”

The envelopes in the wooden box had nicknames of his family members and the name of Morris’ road maintenance company. With only a patent, the name of a road maintenance company and the internet, Kobza was able to track down a family member of the now deceased Morris. The family member was able to confirm that Allen Morris was the photographer of the photos he had spent hours developing.

“I kind of got attached to the project, I guess,” Kobza said. ”Because you're just tapping into somebody's life that maybe never wanted me to find it. It was just something that was amazing, like I could have just missed out on it if I didn't go to that antique store that day.” of what's going on at Southern," the account manager said of his decision to post the sexual assault allegations.. “... I just don't want us to [continue] with this culture of not talking about it, or going to the school and not going to the police. I want these voices to be heard, and I want something to actually be done.”

But, while the account was influential in bringing a case forward, Moore, of the Title IX office, expressed concern over the way incidents were revealed on the platform.

“I think sau_confession is unfortunate, because anybody can go on there and say anything about anybody, and all of a sudden they're guilty,” Moore said. “And then, a bunch of people gang up on one person and have a vendetta against them, and then everybody starts trashing that person. So it's kind of trial by fire, but there's no proof.”

In addition to the messages detailing sexual assault encounters, some anonymous individuals who posted on the account accused the Title IX office of mishandling, and even ignoring, student reports of sexual assault. In response to such accusations, Dennis Negrón, vice president for Student Development and Title IX coordinator, said the safety of students comes before the reputation of the university in these cases.

“I can't comment as to what may have happened before I became coordinator,” Negrón said. “I take every case very seriously, and my team will tell you that I do not put the reputation of the university before students. We attempt to be transparent. That's why I put the [Title IX Report] out.”

According to the university’s 2022 Title IX Report, the number of reported Title IX incidents, which include sexual harrasment, stalking, inappropriate touch/ grouping, rape, voyeurism, dating and domestic violence, have almost doubled since 2019. A total of 42 reports were made in 2022; however, 36 of those cases were dropped by the complainant. Of the six that went forward, four were rape cases, one sexual harassment and one inappropriate touch.

“The reason our numbers are going up is because we're finally getting people to come forward,” Moore said. “ … I think part of our culture, or Adventist culture, is: ‘Don't ask, don't tell’; [it’s] taboo to talk about it. I think that's why our numbers have been so low.”

According to Negrón, Title IX is a federal civil rights law and outlines situations in which the university can take action. Both Negrón and Moore voiced frustrations over recent changes to Title IX. One such change excludes cases that occur off Southern’s campus from the jurisdiction of Title IX.

“[Off-campus cases] is the most frustrating aspect of Title IX, not only for me, but for students,” Negrón said. “The federal government is quite clear. If it didn't happen on your campus, the students should be going to the police and not to us. That said, I do have some type of recourse. I can send it to Student Conduct, the Dean of Students office, and say, ‘This person allegedly has not been living by our community standards, by our Code of Conduct, so you handle it.’ And we've actually been able to dismiss students in the past by doing that.”

In addition, the university cannot take action if the accused is not a student. However, according to Negrón, the university can put a ban on said individual, restricting their access to campus.

In an interview with the Accent, Assistant Chief of Police Jamie Heath advised students to contact the police as soon as possible with reports of sexual misconduct.

“What makes it difficult for us is when we get accusations that are months and months old,” Heath said. “As far as timeframe goes for the college, whether [it’s] an accusation from the semester before or from the school year before, if we don't get it when it happens, there's no physical evidence. A conviction or anything like that is going to be extremely difficult and nearly impossible to get in order to get that person help.”

Heath, who has served the Collegedale community for over twenty years, stated that the Collegedale Police Department has had issues with the way Southern has dealt with Title IX cases in the past. However, there have been no complaints about the most recent administration.

“In those previous administrations, there have been frustrations on how things are handled,” Heath said. “I can tell you, though, in this current administration, with Dr. Ken Shaw, with our cooperation with Kevin Penrod, Sean Haas, Campus Safety, our good working relationship with Dennis Negrón and opening up a seat on the Chief”s Roundtable Advisory Committee to a member of Southern staff – those concerns no longer exist. This current administration has been very open, very cooperative with us. Not only cooperative, but has reached out for our input, for our inclusion.”

Despite the diminishing of evidence over time, Heath stated that it is never too late for a survivor of sexual violence to come forward.

“It is never too late to tell anybody what's happened to you,” he said. “It's not only good to document things on paper, just from a legal standpoint, but it helps that person mentally.”

Regarding the posts on sau_confession, Negrón stated that in order to take action, students need to come forward with information.