biology students joshua brackett (left) …...jason walle ashley richardson (kreis) ’05 board of...

BIOLOGY STUDENTS JOSHUA BRACKETT (LEFT) AND ARGENIS MERINO-MORALES (RIGHT)

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I N M E M O R Y O F D R . P L A N T | S U M M E R 2 0 1 5

“A tough professor,” “an inspiration,” “a little

unorthodox,” “the most intelligent woman I’ve

ever met,” “intimidating,” “she didn’t put up

with any foolishness,” “she expected the best.” Those were

among the descriptions of Biology Professor Patricia Plant

that were shared during an on-campus memorial service

on March 20, 2015. About 200 colleagues, friends, family,

and current and former students gathered at the McGee

Theatre in the Batte Center to pay tribute to Dr. Plant.

Plant, one of Wingate University’s longest-serving profes-

sors, died in her office in Bridges Building on Feb. 27 at

the age of 76. She had taught biology at WU for 33 years

and held the Marjorie H. Lang Endowed Chair.

Speakers at the memorial service recalled Plant’s passion

for science and her high expectations for both students

and fellow faculty members. In his eulogy, Wingate Phi-

losophy Professor Edwin Bagley said, “There are a couple

of ways to become an icon on campus. One is just to stay

around for a long time. The other is to become a model of

excellence in all of the varied roles that one is asked to fill.

Pat Plant was both, which means we will miss her all the

more.”

Every speaker made special note of Plant’s high standards

that changed lives for the better. Nancy Chapman ’92 of

the Biology Department noted, “Through the many de-

cades that Pat taught, students were encouraged and even

pushed to excel beyond what they, themselves, thought

they could accomplish.” And Dr. Bagley said that the lives

of Plant’s students were “transformed by high expectations

and conscientious support.”Dinene (“Dede”

Klein) Crater

’91 is among

those whose lives

were dramati-

cally changed

because of Plant’s

elevated expec-

tations. Crater

graduated with a

biology degree and was considering a career as a respira-

tory therapist, but Plant wouldn’t hear of it, “She called us

by our last names,” Crater recalled. “And she’d say to me,

‘Klein, that’s a fine career, but you can do more than that.’

She didn’t say that out of meanness, but actually out of the

respect for the potential she saw in us, even if we didn’t see

it ourselves.”

Crater listened to Plant’s advice and earned her Ph.D. in

microbiology from the Wake Forest University School of

Medicine. She is now an associate professor of biology

at High Point University in High Point, North Carolina.

She made a special trip to Wingate to attend the memo-

rial service. “I don’t think I’d be in research or teaching

if it wasn’t for her,” Crater said about Plant. “She saw my

potential and wanted to make sure I reached it. She made

a difference in my life, and now I want to make that same

“Some professors

[like Dr. Plant]...

become life-long influ-

ences to their students...

how we will live and

what we will do for the

remainder of our lives.”

- B I L L C O L E M A N ’ 8 6

difference in the lives of my students.”

Another former Wingate student whose life was transformed by

Plant is Bill Coleman ’86. Coleman wrote a reflection on how Plant

influenced his life, and some of his tribute was read during the

memorial service. Coleman wrote: “It would not be a stretch to say

that most of us were intimidated by Dr. Plant. ... From a distance,

she seemed to have a very hard edge.”

He recalled his sophomore year and the rigorous “baptism by fire

that is the subject of biochemistry.” But Coleman’s impression of

Plant changed over time from “intimidating at first to ultimately

nurturing.” He said he came to realize that “Dr. Plant was not a

professor that expected too much from ill-prepared students, but

was one that was not willing to allow us to fail despite the difficulty

of the material.”

Coleman now has his Ph.D. in biochemistry, is a professor and

director of graduate studies at the University of North Carolina at

Chapel Hill and works in cancer research. He wrote: “Some profes-

sors are rare and special in that they become life-long influences

to their students. Not just what (the students) do in college but an

influence to how we will live and what we will do for the remainder

of our lives.”

Plant’s influence will continue through an endowed scholarship

in her name established by Plant’s sister and brother-in-law. The

Patricia Williams Plant Biology Scholarship will provide financial

assistance to Wingate students in their junior or senior years who

are majoring in biology.

During the memorial service, friends and family described Pat

Plant’s many interests and adventures outside of the classroom.

They told of a woman who relished the Metropolitan Opera and

international travel, yet loved canoeing in the Okeefenokee Swamp

and even wrestled an alligator while conducting field experiments

in Florida’s backwaters.

All of the speakers emphasized Plant’s love for her students and her

love for Wingate University. “Pat was a passionate educator who

had a zest for life and all that surrounds us,” said her niece, Kathy

Paes. “Students mattered to her. And she mattered to her students,”

said Rev. Dane Jordan ’91. Dr. Bagley remarked, “We will grieve

this loss for a very long time.” And Nancy Chapman said, “Wingate

University will not be the same without her.” x

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T h i s c o u l d b e o n e for the Class Notes section: Chuck Gordon ’89 is managing editor in the office of marketing and communications at Wingate University.

Since I was hired in May 2015 I’ve been relearning my way around campus, one story at a time. It’s been an absolute blast.

I’ve written news releases and stories for wingate.edu on the consid-erable achievements of our undergrads and graduates. I’ve written a couple of TV packages for this magazine’s counterpart, also called Wingate Today, on WUTV (check out the show on YouTube.com/WingateUniversity). Marc Duddleson ’04’s slick production makes them watchable.

And of course I’ve been busy writing stories for the magazine. My first day on the job was two days after Commence-ment, so I had a chance to ease into this gig over the sweltering summer.

One thing that struck me soon after I started – aside from the many new build-ings and amenities that weren’t around during the Reagan years – was the amount of research going on here. The science department has grown consider-ably in the past decade, and that growth has spawned a real devotion to research. You can read about several science- and non-science-related research projects in this issue, and there will be more to come in future editions.

Did you know that Wingate students are studying a way to keep breast cancer from spreading to other organs? Or the root causes of bankruptcy among colleges and universities? Or the formation of galaxies? It’s compelling stuff, and many WU students spent their summer break researching just those topics.

Among the newer buildings on campus, check out the Hinson Art Museum, beside the Batte Center, the next time you’re here. It’s got a variety of interesting pieces, including a fresco by the world-renowned painter Ben Long. (You can read all about that inside this issue of Wingate Today.)

There’s a lot more going on at Wingate University too, and we’ll be telling you about it, every quarter. Starting this year, we’re publishing four times a year.

In the meantime, we want to hear about you. Gotten married or engaged recently? Earned a promotion, or moved on to greener pas-tures? Won an award for working with a service organization? Let us know what you’re doing and how Wingate University has helped you succeed so we can tell the University community the good news.

C H U C K G O R D O NWINGATE TODAY [email protected] | 704-233-6647

L E T T E R F R O M T H E E D I T O R | W I N T E R 2 0 1 5

letterEditor

WRITE US!Like something you’ve read in

Wingate Today? Have something to

add about one of the articles?

Please CONTACT me at

[email protected]

or

P.O. Box 159, Campus box 3071

WINGATE, N.C. 28174

We’d love to hear from you and get

your feedback.

Plant put students first

You captured in words the essence of (Pat Plant’s) being at Wingate University (In Memory of Pat Plant, Summer 2015, Vol. 72, No. 2).

When Pat visited in our home, which was her home away from Wingate, she shared her deep feelings about her students being unusually important; and she talked about caring for the Wingate administration, fac-ulty, and staff . As your article clearly shows, she did put students fi rst.

Pat advocated a cleaner environment and inclusive culture for all. She held very high standards for students. Pat worked very, very hard to motivate her students and wanted them to achieve their greatest potential.

Mildred & JohnMildred W. Justus (Pat’s sister) and John Ed Justus


mailto:[email protected]


LETTER FROM THE EDITOR | 0 4 LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT | 0 7MAJOR IN A GREAT LIFE | 2 0BULLDOG NATION | 4 4CLASS NOTES | 4 8

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BEN LONG

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S E E I N G S TA R S — A N D G A L A X I E S

THE ‘GODFATHER’ O F W U S P O RT S I N F O R M AT I O N

ALASKA ALUMNI TRIP

FULBRIGHT WINNER GRACE KRAUSER

GSK WOMEN IN SCIENCE SCHOLARS

MEL OTT BAT

WINGATE GRAD TAKES ON ROLE WITH HYMN SOCIETY

HOMECOMING

HARDSOUL POETS

SOCCER ROY

MEET AND GREET WITH RHETT BROWN

INSIDE THE HINSON ART MUSEUM

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1 2 V I C T I M O F P R O G R E S S Iconic Sanders-Sikes makes way for modern health and wel lness fac i l ity

1 6 T H I N G S A R E L O O K I N G U P WU’s f irst astronomy professor br ings wonder of the universe down to Ear th

2 2 SHOULDER-TO-SHOULDER IN HONDURAS Hendersonv i l le pharmacy student does cl inical rotation in Central Amer ica

2 6 B R I N G I N G B A C K L O S T A R T University’s new ar t museum houses latest Ben Long master piece

3 0 HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION WU students do some serious research over the break

4 0 D R E A M J O B Long-time SID ‘gets paid to go to bal lgames’

O N T H E C O V E R

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S AV E T H E D A T E | W I N T E R 2 0 1 5

C huck G ordon ’89

Jef f AtkinsonSharon FooteC huck G ordon ’89Heather C ampb el l Mi l ler ’01Suzanne B ostic Phi lemon ’09, ’14Vint Ti lson

Dust in Ether idge Sharon Foote C huck G ordon ’89Hug h Patton ’06Dav id Sher wo o d ’85

Darc y DuncanEuropean Space Agenc yDust in Ether idgeC huck G ordon ’89Kristen JohnsonJason Miczek Evan Mof f ittTom Hal lShawn TaylorJason Wal le

Ashle y R ichards on (Kreis) ’05

B oard of TrusteesLuther T. Moore Charlotte , N.C.

B oard of Vis itorsKen Yelton ’82 C oncord, N.C.

Wingate Today (USPS 686-480) Vol . 72 , No. 4 Winter 2015 is publ ished by Wingate Univers ity, Wi lson Street , Wingate, N.C. 28174

S end correspondence to :

Chuck Gordon, EditorWingate Today MagazineP.O. B ox 159Campus B ox 3071Wingate, N.C. [email protected]

EDITOR

EDITORIAL B OARD

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

PHOTO GRAPHY

ART & DESIGN

WINGATE UNIVERSIT Y B OARD CHAIRS

Wingate Today magazine is a magazine for a lumni and f r iends of Wingate Univer-s ity. The magazine’s edito-r ia l s taf f s t r ives to inform, engage and inspire readers through stor ies about the Univers ity ’s contr ibut ions to the world. We encourage you

to send your stor y ideas .

WINTER 2015 | Vol . 72 , No. 4

12

SAVE date

• Fo

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eta

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, v

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win

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•

January 12FIRST DAY OF UNDERGRADUATE CLASSES

January 18MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. HOLIDAY

January 23women’s BasketballAlumni day

January 24Romeo & JulietBatte Center

February 19THE jones family singersBatte Center

February 25university singersand chamber choir home concert

February 25MEET AND GREETWITH RHETT BROWN IN GREENVILLE/SPARTANBURG, SC

February 29wind ensembleconcert

March 5- 13SPRING BREAK

March 10MEET AND GREETWITH RHETT BROWN IN CHARLESTON, SC

March 25-28Easter Holiday

Apri l 6-8WU Presidential inauguration



L E T T E RF R O M T H E

P R E S I D E N T

L E T T E R F R O M T H E P R E S I D E N T | WINTER 2 0 1 5

ONE DAY a few years ago, when I was shuttling my son to baseball practice, he asked me a question that sons often ask their fathers.

“When you were my age, what did you want to be when you grew up?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Probably some type of ball player.”

“Great,” he said with an exasperated sigh. “That means I’ll probably wind up working in an office too.”

My 10-year-old self might see things differently, but I love working in my office. Even more, I like getting out of the office and meeting students, parents, alumni, donors and other friends of Wingate University.

Over the past few months, I’ve met many of you at the series of meet-and-greets we’ve held throughout North Carolina and in Washington, D.C., this fall. (Some of you may recall the story above from one of those events. Sorry.)

I spent some of that time describing my vision for Wingate University. I realize we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. My predecessor, President Emeritus Jerry McGee, left Wingate in won-derful shape. We have a burgeoning student body that is both the largest and most accom-plished in school history. To accommodate our more than 3,100 students on three campuses, we have built several new residence halls in the past few years. And we recently signed a long-term contract to lease space in Henderson County, with an eye on expanding our student population in Western North Carolina.

We have a new art museum and have added a music wing to the Batte Center, and next year we’ll open a state-of-the-art health and wellness center. Like many of you, I have fond memo-ries from my undergraduate days of playing pickup basketball in the now-departed Sanders-Sikes Gymnasium, where the wellness center will be.

Complementing the transforming physical campus is a renewed dedication to being a school of opportunity, not exclusivity. I’m proud of our continued placement among the top 10 “best value” regional colleges and universities in the South. I think that speaks to our mission, one that is evident in the 216 Porter B. Byrum scholars who are now continuing their education on our Wingate campus. When Mr. Byrum donated $20.9 million to the University in 2012, we set aside a chunk of it to fund an endowed-scholarship program that helps academic achiev-ers in need of financial assistance attend the University. Those recipients I’m sure will go on to achieve great things, in their communities and churches, at their places of employment and maybe even on the ballfield.

Many of our alumni have achieved great things as well. Two of our recent graduates were named Fulbright scholars this year. By the end of summer 2014, 95 percent of graduates that May had secured a job or graduate-school placement. And over 95 percent of our School of Pharmacy students pass their national boards on the first try – which is above the national average.

Speaking with many of you over the past few months has reinforced my belief that we’re doing great things as a University. I can’t wait to see what lies ahead.

DR. RHETT BROWNPRESIDENT OF WINGATE UNIVERSITY


/ / 2 0 1 5 A l u m n i & F r i e n d s T r i p

A L A S K A A L U M N I T R I P | W I N T E R 2 0 1 5

> > A O N C E - I N - A - L I F E T I M E T R I P


SPAIN&

PORTUGAL

join us

NEXT YEAR

members of the Wingate Uni-versity community took part in

a once-in-a-lifetime trip through Alaska and the Yukon in June. The trip began in Vancouver, where the travelers boarded a cruise ship to Alaska, making stops in Juneau and Skagway. There they disembarked to begin a seven-day tour through the wilderness of the Yukon, winding up in Fairbanks. They then visited Denali National Park before ending the trip in Anchorage.

Travelers on the third annual alumni-and-friends trip included faculty, staff, alumni, parents and friends of the University.

In July 2016, we will be visiting Spain and Portugal. Follow in the footsteps of the Moors with fellow Wingate travelers. On day one, we will land in Madrid and spend a day of sightseeing with our tour guide. We will take day excursions to Toledo and Granada before departing for Seville. From Seville, the group will embark upon a day excursion to Cordoba as we say farewell to Spain. Three evenings will be spent in Lisbon, Portugal, where we will enjoy sightseeing and meals together.

If you are interested in learning more about the upcoming trip, please visit www.wingate.edu/alumni for a complete itinerary, cost and more. Or contact Suzanne Bostic Philemon at 704-233-8303 or [email protected] for more information. x

T W E N T Y - T W O

A L A S K A A L U M N I T R I P | W I N T E R 2 0 1 5

SPAIN&

PORTUGAL

TRIP ITINERARYwingate.edu/alumni

MORE INFOSuzanne Bostic [email protected]

JULY 2016


http://www.wingate.edu/alumni



race

Krauser ’13

minored

in Spanish at Wing-

ate University, and

she spent her last

semester studying

in Argentina. Since

graduation she’s

worked extensively

teaching English

to native Spanish

speakers.

So, what destination does she fill in on her Fulbright application? Brazil.

It says something about Krauser that she picked the only country in South America where Spanish is not the dominant tongue. She’s always welcomed a challenge.

“Spanish and Portuguese

are very different,” she says. “They look similar, but that’s misleading, because they sound different. It’s challenging for me, but I like challenges.”

Krauser was awarded a Fulbright scholarship in late August. She leaves in February for Brazil, where she will teach English.

Hers is the second Ful-bright Scholar Award for a Wingate University graduate this year. George Boyan ’14 left in September to teach in Turkey.

Each year, about 10,000 Ameri-cans apply for a Fulbright Award, with about 800 being selected. Operated by the U.S. State Depart-ment, the program provides funding for Americans to work abroad

as teachers, researchers or lecturers. The program pays for students’ travel, room and board, and health insurance and will pay them a stipend to cover living expenses.

Aside from the pesky language issue, Brazil is a natural fit for Krauser,

a sociology major at WU. She has

a special interest in social justice – she started an Amnesty International club at her high school, though she admits it was difficult getting students to sign up – and Latin America has long held her fascination. Brazil, the largest country in South America, struggles with poverty issues but is also the economic engine of the continent.

“Brazil is such a huge economic force, and there’s

a lot of inequality there and a big need for English teachers,” Krauser says. “Teaching English could be one of those things that enables people to rise up, go to university and change their lives.”

Krauser came to Wingate

University well prepared, but she says the school changed her life as well. She loved the Global Perspec-tives classes, which teach students about the world through literature, religion, economics and other areas. “These classes make Wing-ate’s education stand out,” she says. “Having a per-spective on international topics is so important.”

Krauser took home a slew of awards during her final semester in 2013. At Com-mencement, she won the C.C. Burris Award, which

“[Grace is] very interested in trying

to ultimately develop policies that

would make structural changes for

women around the world, especially

in Latin America.”

D R . N A N C Y R A N D A L L

F U L B R I G H T W I N N E R K R A U S E R | W I N T E R 2 0 1 5

PRESENTS THE NEXT CHALLENGE FOR

FULBRIGHT WINNER

Krauser


goes to the graduating senior woman who represents the ideals of scholarship, leadership and service. She also earned the Arthur Joseph “Pepper” Geddings, Jr. Award, again for her scholarship, leadership and service, and the C.B. and Beadie Haskins Scholar-Athlete Award, which goes to the athlete with the high-est grade point average. She graduated summa cum laude with a 3.991 GPA, majoring in sociology and minoring in Spanish.

She was also a starter on a WU volleyball team that reached the NCAA Divi-sion II Elite Eight twice (and went an astounding 131-8 during her four years). In 2010, as a sophomore, she became the first South Atlantic Conference athlete to earn the prestigious Elite 89 award, which goes to the contributing player in the finals competition in each NCAA sport who has the highest GPA. In 2012, she became the first volleyball player to win the award

twice. She was also one of 30 final-ists for the NCAA Woman of the Year award.

“She’s an outstand-ing young woman,” says Dr. Nancy Ran-dall, Wingate’s Harry and Frances Cannon professor of sociol-ogy and human ser-vices, who worked with Krauser on her honors research project. “She came to Wingate with a great mind, and she absolutely built on

that here.”

Krauser’s interest in social justice centers on improving living conditions for women.

“She’s very interested in trying to ultimately de-velop policies that would make structural changes for women around the world, especially in Latin America,” Randall says. “She’s not afraid to take on difficult is-sues, even those that would challenge the status quo, and that makes her an unusual young woman.”

Since leav-ing Wingate University in May 2013, Krauser has been trying to figure out her next step. For a year she worked in the admissions of-fice at Spalding University, in her hometown of Louisville, Ken-

tucky. Dr. Steven Hyland, as-sistant professor of history at Wingate University, helped her complete her Fulbright application, and he also talked her into applying for grad school. She is now on a Latin American Social and Public Policy Fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh, earning a master’s degree in international development in the Graduate School for Public and International Affairs.

She still isn’t sure what she ultimately wants to do for a career, and that was some-what problematic during her initial Fulbright interview in Wingate. The panel asked her some tough questions, about U.S. foreign policy and about her comfort level with travel in South America.

But her biggest challenge was related to her career pursuits. “Honestly, I think the most challenging ques-tion was how this fit into my long-term career goals,” she says. “I said I was very passionate about educa-tion. I see it as a tool of empowerment

for disadvantaged groups. I always see myself working in a social-justice way.

“I’m really passionate about education, but I’m not sure where that’s going to lead – doing something with education policy, maybe working for an NGO (non-governmental organization). I don’t know what that’s going to look like. Right now I’m laying the foundation for this career that in my heart I know I’ve always wanted but don’t know what it is.”

Krauser says Wingate Uni-versity prepared her well for the next chapter in her life.

“Wingate gave me an op-portunity to learn about language development firsthand, and that really sparked my interest,” she says. “It gave me an oppor-tunity to walk the streets and interact with grassroots initiatives and learn from an authentic experience. The classroom is great, but really it’s about the opportunity to engage with what you learn on a real-life scale.” x

“She’s not afraid to

take on difficult

issues, even those

that would

challenge the status

quo, and that makes

her an unusual

young woman.”

D R . N A N C Y R A N D A L L

F U L B R I G H T W I N N E R K R A U S E R | W I N T E R 2 0 1 5

Wingate hosts a Brazilian Fulbright winner to teach Wingate’s first-ever Portuguese classes.

> > S E E P G . 2 0


In 1959, Wingate College took a step into the future with a modern indoor athletic facility with a distinctive de-sign: a domed gymnasium supported

by flying buttresses.

“It was a rather imposing building,” says Richard Pipes ’92, who grew up near cam-pus and is now the acquisitions librarian at the Ethel K. Smith Library. “It was a com-mon design among small colleges and high schools, but it was the only one around here.”

These days, single-purpose gyms are far from common anywhere, and Sanders-Sikes Gymnasium had long ago outlived its useful-ness. When students arrived on campus for classes in August, the old gym was gone, its flying buttresses ripped down to make way

for today’s version of the modern indoor athletic facility.

Wingate is getting a new health and wellness center whose purpose will be somewhat different from its predecessor’s. The new center, all 71,610 square feet of it, will have everything the student of today could want.

“We’ve done lots of homework with students, asking them what should be in it,” says Scott Hunsucker ’94, ’99, Wingate’s vice president of operations.

The result will be a multipurpose facility that Hunsucker envisions being the student center of tomorrow. It will, of course, feature a couple of staples of college life: free-play basketball courts and an extensive cardio and weight room. But it will also feature a suspended, three-lane track that extends out over the lobby area, a multipurpose court for soccer, hockey and other sports, two aerobics rooms, two spin-class rooms and racquetball courts. Its huge lobby will feature a Hall of Fame room.

Also part of the building will be a line of athletic department offices wrapping around Cuddy Arena.

The square footage will be more than dou-ble that of Sanders-Sikes. That size will be

useful, since Hunsucker sees the building being used as a meeting place and hangout as well as an exercise facility.

“It’s going to have a community feel to it,” he said. “It’s a place where students will want to hang out at night.”

In its twilight years, Sanders-Sikes was mostly a free-play gym and dry place for athletic teams to practice when it was rain-ing. But in its heyday, the iconic old gym was home to numerous concerts, dances and, of course, basketball and volleyball games. In 1968, Wingate’s men’s basketball team recorded a one-point victory over Gardner-Webb and its 7-foot-2 phenom Artis Gilmore in Sanders-Sikes. Gilmore went on to make several NBA All-Star teams and is in the Naismith Hall of Fame.

The gym was packed for the game – and the crowd got a little testy after the Bulldogs’ big win.

“There was a fracas afterward,” says Pipes, whose mother, Joyce Pipes, taught physical education at Wingate for many years. “It was

one of the few times I’ve seen at this level the floor getting mobbed. There was talk-ing, pushing, shoving.

“I can remember moving up the bleachers trying to get away from it.”

David Sherwood ’85, Wingate’s assistant athletic director for sports information and game operations, also attended the game as a boy.

V I C T I M O F P R O G R E S S | W I N T E R 2 0 1 5


“My dad told me later that he sent me home,” Sherwood says. “They thought there would be a riot.”

The men’s team had an up-and-down record for much of its Sanders-Sikes history, but in 1986 the Bulldogs beat Pembroke State (now

UNC Pembroke) in the district playoffs in the last men’s game in the gym. And by then, the women’s team was becoming a powerhouse. In 1986, the Bulldog women went 26-6 and beat Allentown (Pennsylvania) College in a Bi-District game at Sanders-Sikes to start a run of eight straight trips to the NAIA na-tional tournament.

The gym may or may not have held a true home-court advantage, but it certainly wasn’t a comfortable place to play by today’s standards. Behind the top row of bleachers on either side was a row of windows that had to be opened on game nights, since the gym had no air conditioning.

Having windows so high up might not have seemed safe, but then again neither were the flying buttresses. Jennifer Sutton Smith ’95, whose father was an assistant coach for a time in the 1970s, used to race her little brother, Jay, up and down the buttresses.

“We called them arches,” she said. “It was great fun for us to climb up like monkeys and see who could touch the roof first and then scamper back down. There were a couple of times we came close to falling, but we won’t tell my mom about that. We didn’t break any bones.”

Wayne Shadrick coached the men’s basketball team as Wingate made the transition from two-year to four-year institution. His first impression of Sanders-Sikes was that it was “charming.”

“You could tell what you were looking at, you know? You were looking at a gymnasium,” he says. “And back then that’s what you played in, a gymnasium. You didn’t play in an arena.”

That gymnasium also regularly hosted big-name acts – or soon to be big-name, anyway – along with homecoming dances, May Day celebrations and other big campus events. Jimmy Buffett, Huey Lewis and the News, Blackfoot and the Little River Band were just some of the performers who thrilled crowds of students over the years.

The big acts now play the Batte Center, and the basketball and volleyball games have been Cuddy Arena events for nearly 30 years. But students still need a place to hit the weights, drive to the basket or get in their regular racquetball game. And that’s what the new building will provide.

“A student center these days is much more focused on exercise,” Hunsucker says. “Think of the healthy lifestyle it will create.” x

The New Health and Wellness CenterAMENITIESq A 71,610 SQ. FT. MULTIPURPOSE FACILITY

q FREE-PLAY BASKETBALL COURTS

q AN EXTENSIVE CARDIO AND WEIGHT ROOM

q A SUSPENDED, THREE-LANE TRACK

q A MULTIPURPOSE COURT FOR SOCCER & HOCKEY

q TWO AEROBICS ROOMS

q TWO SPIN-CLASS ROOMS

q RACQUETBALL COURTS

q A HALL OF FAME ROOM

q ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT OFFICES

“My dad told me later that he sent me home,” Sherwood says. “They thought there would be a riot.”

UNC Pembroke) in the district playoffs in the last men’s game in the gym. And by then, the women’s team was becoming a powerhouse. In 1986, the Bulldog women went 26-6 and beat Allentown (Pennsylvania) College in a Bi-District game at Sanders-Sikes to start a run of eight straight trips to the NAIA na-tional tournament.

Wayne Shadrick coached the men’s basketball team as Wingate made the transition from two-year to four-year institution. His first impression of Sanders-Sikes was that it was “charming.”

“You could tell what you were looking at, you know? You were looking at a gymnasium,” he says. “And back then that’s what you played

“It’s going to have a community feel to it. It’s a place where students will want to hang out at night.”S C O T T H U N S U C K E R

V I C T I M O F P R O G R E S S | W I N T E R 2 0 1 5


Veronica Grif-fin remem-bers when science first came alive for her. Her

father, WU’s chemistry-lab manager, Todd Griffin ’84, brought her to Wingate to see a demonstration by Dr. Christopher Dahm, WU professor of chemistry.

“He did this thing where he blew up a hydrogen balloon, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever,” Griffin says. “I was like, ‘Wow! I want to know why it does that.’”

Fast-forward four years, and she’s now majoring in chemistry at the University, and ultimately she wants

to go into pharmaceutical research. She’ll get a leg up in that pursuit through the North Carolina Glaxo-SmithKline Foundation’s Women in Science Scholars program, for which Griffin and fellow student Kaitlyn Brunworth were selected this year.

The program is designed to give women who are study-ing science in colleges and universities a mentor to help them navigate the world of postgraduate science. It also includes a scholarship that helps offset the cost of attending school.

Griffin and Brunworth met their mentors face-to-face in October, and they’ll get back together with them in the

spring. In the meantime, the mentors and students corre-spond primarily via e-mail. Students pump their men-tors for information about working in a lab, getting ahead in a field traditionally dominated by men, making connections and more.

“They teach them how to network,” says Dr. Alison Brown, associate professor of biology. “What they learn from their mentors is how to be professional.”Griffin and Brunworth are both science majors, but they have different pursuits in mind. Griffin enjoys working in a lab, conduct-ing experiments and seeing what happens. Brunworth’s interest is more clinical in nature.

NORTH

CAROLINA

GLAXOSMITHKLINE

FOUNDATIONʼS

WOMEN IN SCIENCE

SCHOLARS PROGRAM is designed to give women who are

studying science in colleges and

universities a mentor to help them

navigate the world of postgraduate

science. It also includes a scholar-

ship that helps offset the cost of

attending school.

G U I D E D A L O N G T H E WAY | W I N T E R 2 0 1 5


KAITLYN BRUNWORTH

VERONICA GRIFFIN

KAITLYN BRUNWORTH

VERONICA GRIFFIN

“I’m going to apply to medi-cal school,” says Brunworth, a junior. “I don’t really want go into industry. I like to talk to more people. That’s why it would be nice to be a doctor: You get to do sci-ence and also get to talk to people.”

Brunworth, whose mother is a doctor, was interested in science from an early age. “I was always doing weird science experiments, grow-ing plants and things,” she

says. “For Christmas and my birthday my mom would give me little models of the body and the eye and the in-ner ear. I was like, ‘Oh, this is awesome!’”

Brunworth is an all-confer-ence midfielder on the Uni-versity soccer team. In high school, her club soccer team organized a drive to collect soccer equipment for chil-dren in South Africa. That turned into a trip to South Africa to conduct camps, and while there Brunworth saw close up the need for doctors and other medical personnel in poorer parts of the world.

Such firsthand experiences have encouraged her to work in clinical settings. She’s mi-

noring in Spanish and even-tually hopes to work with Doctors Without Borders in South America.

Griffin is more interested in lab work.

“I definitely enjoy working in a lab, doing hands-on type of stuff,” she says.

Griffin has had a host of female role models in the science field. Aside from her GSK mentor and the

female science professors at Wingate University, she was encouraged to pursue science as a field of study by her chemistry teacher at Indian Land (South Caro-lina) High School, Beverly Schroth ’04.

“She made it interesting,” Griffin says. “She kept my attention very well, and made me think, OK, maybe science, if I do chemistry, will be fun.”

Now she’s excited to peer in-side the pharmaceutical in-dustry. Being a sophomore, Griffin will most likely get three years of mentorship.

“I expect to get an inside view of just, in general, what it means to be a woman

working in something where there’s not a lot of women, in a field that I guess in a way is dominated by men,” Griffin says. “It will give me a view of all the things I could do in industry, instead of focusing on, OK, I know I want to do research. Instead, it could be a person from research-and-design or from marketing that I could team with and say, ‘OK, maybe I would like to do this.’

“Also through her I can make connections. So OK this isn’t my thing, but she’ll know somebody who is in research, and I can get an internship with them or something like that.”

Griffin says she’s glad she is at WU, because it shortened the odds of her getting into the GSK program.

“If I went to a bigger school the news might have not traveled as easily,” she says. “I feel like it would have been a lot harder to get the scholarship.”

Robyn Pescatore ’15 was among the first Wingate students to earn the Women in Science scholarship. For Pescatore, her mentor was like the starting point for a networking web that eventu-ally led to grad school. Her mentor helped her with her resume and got her an in-ternship, through which she met Dawn Lloyd, a program associate with the North Carolina GlaxoSmithKline Foundation. Lloyd intro-duced her to female scien-tists from different science fields and helped her set up conferences at GlaxoSmith-Kline to present her research projects.

“The internship was the

best one I had ever received, and through it I was able to meet scientists in my field who gave me very helpful informa-tion about what my next steps should be in my career,” says Pescatore, who is working on her doctorate at the University of Florida. “I probably would have never have gotten the internship if it wasn’t for my mentor, since she knew my boss and was able to hand my resume straight to him.”Pescatore also has words of wisdom for Griffin and Brun-worth.

“If you get a mentor who does not have a doctorate or is not even doing lab work, don’t be sad about it,” Pescatore says. “She actually knows a lot more than you think and has a lot of connections that will help you.” Even in science, some-times it comes down to who you know. x

GSK SCHOLARSHIP WINNERS

G U I D E D A L O N G T H E WAY | W I N T E R 2 0 1 5

“I EXPECT TO GET AN INSIDE VIEW OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A WOMAN WORKING IN SOMETHING WHERE THEREʼS NOT A LOT OF WOMEN. IT WILL GIVE ME A VIEW OF ALL THE THINGS I COULD DO IN INDUSTRY.”

- V E R O N I C A G R I F F I N


you still believe the old line about there being nothing new under the sun, you

need to visit the Smith Science Building on a weekday morn-ing or Wednesday after dark. Wingate University now offers an Astronomy class. And stu-dents such as Preston Furr are captivated. “I can honestly say that it’s been my favorite class that I’ve taken,” Furr says.

Furr, a junior, is no life-long science geek. He’s a communi-cation major who says he did not like science as a teenager, hates math and nearly failed both biology and chemistry in high school. He took Astron-omy because he was required to take a science course with a lab to graduate. “I never would have thought in a million years that I would have loved it (astronomy) as much as I did,” Furr says.

Furr says it was the teacher, not the subject, who got him hooked on science. The class is taught by Dr. Grant Thomp-son, now in his second year at Wingate University. “It’s the way that he teaches,” Furr says enthusiastically. “Hands down, Dr. Thompson is my favorite professor now.”

Thompson grew up in a small town in northeastern Missouri with few city lights to wash out the view of the stars. The more he looked at the night sky, the more he wanted to work for NASA. He wanted to be an astronaut.

Instead, he became an astrono-mer. He studied physics and astronomy at the University of Missouri, then earned a Master of Science and a doctorate in astrophysics from the Uni-versity of Kentucky. In addi-tion to teaching Astronomy at Wingate, he also teaches two sections of physics. His wife is

>> Wingate’s first

astronomy professor

sparks students’ curiosity

and child-like wonder

I f

t h i n g s a r e l o o k i n g

BY

SH

AR

ON

FO

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T H I N G S A R E L O O K I N G U P | W I N T E R 2 0 1 5



an astrophysics professor at Davidson College.

With a relaxed manner and a quick smile, Thompson describes himself as “fun, enthusiastic and maybe infatuated with science.” He acknowledges that his face always lights up when he talks about astronomy. His infatuation was on full display at events he’s hosted for the general public since arriving at Wingate Univer-sity: a discussion about, and viewing of, a solar eclipse in October 2014 that he called “When the Moon is Between a Rock and a Hot Place”; and a night of stargazing at University Lake in April 2015, which he says offered “stunning views of Jupiter and Venus.” Thompson had scheduled a third public event, a tour of the night sky and viewing of a lunar eclipse through telescopes at Campus Lake in September, but the party was canceled because of rain and clouds.

Thompson and his students closely followed a series of recent newsworthy astro-nomical events. Thompson calls them “checkpoints to understanding the universe.” In November 2014, the European Space Agency was the first to land a probe on a comet. Thompson says the findings are “totally differ-ent from what we expected.” The chemical makeup of the water just below the surface of comet P-67 is unlike that of the majority of the water we have on Earth. “The chemicals we’ve found on the comet, all I can say is ‘wow,’” Thompson says, his eyes beaming.

Each August, the Earth passes through the debris path left by the huge tail of another comet, Smith-

Tuttle. As that happens, our nighttime sky comes alive with the “shooting stars” of the Perseid meteor shower. Thompson points out that the streaks of light are not stars but sand-sized grains of rock traveling at 130,000 miles per hour that burn up because of friction in the Earth’s atmosphere. Thomp-son describes the August 2015 Perseid meteor shower as a “bit of a flop,” with only about one streaking meteor per minute, but says it was “still a good show.”

Cosmic images from July were far more stunning. NASA’s New Horizons space probe passed within 8,000 miles of Pluto, sending us the first close-up photos of the dwarf planet. Even with our best telescopes, Thomp-son says, all we’d previously seen of Pluto was its “reflect-ed light, not its disc feature.”

“We knew it was there, but now we can actually see it,” he says.

Furr is also impressed by the photos and data received from New Horizons. “I watched it launch (in 2006) when I was in fifth or sixth grade,” he says. “Then nine years later, it resurfaces at Pluto and it was like ‘wow!’ That’s awesome.”

Awe is a major reason that students seem to love Thompson’s Astronomy class. “We have a lot of jaws dropping in my class,” the professor says. “Lots of gasps. Lots of ‘reallys?’ and ‘no ways!’”

Furr describes his fellow students’ reaction in As-tronomy class as “shock and awe nearly every day.” He adds, “You see the stars and think ‘those are so pretty.’

Then you learn about it and it’s absolutely amazing. To think you’re looking at a star and you’re looking two mil-lion years into the past. It’s mindboggling!”

Wingate’s Astronomy students go to class three times a week plus labs. The lab portion is broken into two parts: a two-hour lab one afternoon a week, where students wrestle with math problems, and then a

one-hour lab at 9 p.m. on Wednesdays, where they use telescopes to put astronomy theories and physics equa-tions to the test.

“So you do all these math problems during the two-hour lab,” Furr explains, “and then during the night-time lab you see everything in action. You’re looking through these massive tele-scopes and you see what you did in the math equation. It suddenly all makes sense. You see in real life what you did on a piece of paper. You get to see what you’ve been working on in action.”

According to Furr, students in Thompson’s class are fired up about astronomy because Thompson is excited about it. “Many professors are au-thoritative,” Furr says. “But Dr. Thompson, while being a phenomenal expert, he comes at it with a childlike wonder where he’s excited.”

According to Thompson, college classes should impart both knowledge and wis-dom. He says textbooks

and high-tech software help students gain knowledge about astronomy. For wis-dom, Thompson hopes to pass along his self-described “crazy” sense of wonder, his curiosity and his insatiable passion for discovery. “I want to hook ’em,” he says. And Furr is just one of many students who is hooked.

“This class definitely helped me gain a childlike enthu-siasm back,” Furr says. “It knocked me back into a sense of amazement.”

As students learn about what’s in the heavens, they


gain wisdom about themselves. After all, human cells are made of the same chemical elements as what’s in stars. “We are astronomy,” Thompson says, pointing to his body.

He also wants students to grasp what it means that human beings are “in the middle of the entire scale of what’s big and what’s small.” He says that includes understanding how small something can be, such as an atom. And how big something can be, such as the vast universe we call space. Thompson wants his students to understand that human beings are made up of tiny atoms too small to comprehend while, at the same time, we are part of a universe too large to comprehend. And that everything, big and small, fits together.

Furr describes the concept of what’s big and what’s small this way: “Even if I was king of the world, that wouldn’t be much, compared to the size of the universe. I’d still be Pres-ton. A small, small thing in a small solar system in a pretty big universe. It’s crazy!”

Thompson believes that learning about the universe – and how we fit into it – touches nearly every part of the human experience. “Obviously there’s physics, math and chemistry,” he says. “But astronomy also en-compasses art, history, psychology, sociology, religion and philosophy.”

Students in Thompson’s Astronomy class have varied backgrounds. Some have science-related majors, but just as many are majoring in humanities, fine arts or business. And many of his students play sports. Regard-less of the reason they enrolled in the class, Thompson says, he wants to make sure they never forget it. “Twenty years from now, if someone asks if they took Astronomy, I don’t want them to scratch their heads and say they really don’t remember,” he says.

Why is it important that students remember their Astronomy class? Thompson smiles. “To realize what’s out there,” he says. Because he be-lieves astronomy gives them “a sense of amazement and appreciation about science.”

Furr says that, because of Astronomy, he found out that he “really does like science.” This fall, he’s Thompson’s teaching assistant in Astronomy. And Furr is taking Physics with Thompson as his professor, even though Furr admits that, until Astronomy, he thought he was “awful” at math. “Now I look at the stars with a new light, a new passion,” Furr says. “Because I know what they are. I know how far away they are. I know why stars twin-kle. And to honestly and truly think about how massive the universe is, it’s just crazy to think just how small we are in the scheme of things.”

h o w w e f i t i n t o t h e u n i v e r s e

t o u c h e s n e a r ly e v e r y pa r t o f

t h e h u m a n e x p e r i e n c e .


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Thompson is concerned that many of today’s students and adults spend too much time looking down, often looking at smartphones. He encour-ages his students – and all of us – to look up. To wonder. To be willing to be amazed and surprised. To look into an indescribably huge, amaz-ing, evolving universe and, in the process, find our place in it. x

>> Grant Thompson

>> Preston Furr


For students in the Wingate University

School of Pharmacy (WUSOP), real-world experience doesn’t come only in a retail or hospital setting.

In October, students and fac-ulty from WUSOP in Hender-sonville took the skills they’d learned in class to Camp Blue Skies in western North Carolina to make a differ-ence in the lives of adults with disabilities. They made sure that campers got their daily medications in a safe and secure manner.

Camp Blue Skies Health Di-rector Kit Sluder describes the WUSOP student volunteers as “amazing” and says, “It was a great pleasure to have them join us.”

Camp Blue Skies provides enriching activities for adults with Down syndrome, autism and other cognitive and developmental disabilities. Campers go fishing, hiking and zip lining, ride horses, play basketball and sleep in cabins. Held at a YMCA camp in Boomer, North Carolina, Camp Blue Skies is between North Wilkesboro and Hick-ory, about a two-hour drive from Hendersonville.

Volunteers from Wingate’s campus in Hendersonville were pharmacy students Katherine Brooks, Rebecca English, Annalisa Fong and Evan Moffitt and pharmacy professors Dr. Michelle De-Geeter and Dr. Shawn Taylor.As the 63 adults arrived at

the camp on Oct. 10, family members gave the camp staff all of the medications the adult campers would need for the next five days. Wingate University pharmacy students and faculty advisers repack-aged and relabeled all of the medications for each camper for each day so the medica-tions could be easily and cor-rectly administered by nurses at the camp.

The WUSOP volunteers also developed a medication re-cord to make sure the medica-tions in the packages matched the medications brought in by each family.

Sluder says the pharmacy students’ coordination of the medications helped more than just the campers.

“Our camp provides much needed respite for the par-ents and caregivers (of the campers),” she says. “Wingate students were a big part of making that possible and put-ting their minds at ease.”

Third-year pharmacy student Fong said she “really enjoyed interacting with the camp-ers, their families and other volunteers at Blue Skies.” This was WUSOP’s second year as-sisting with Camp Blue Skies, and Fong volunteered both times.

Dr. Bobbie Williamson, an as-sistant professor and regional practice experience director for WUSOP Hendersonville, says this is more than just a service project.

“I think Camp Blue Skies exposes students to a unique patient population that they

C A M P B L U E S K I E S | W I N T E R 2 0 1 5

may not frequently encoun-ter,” she says. “Through verifying and relabeling each patient’s medication, students are able to apply the information learned both on rotation and in the class-room setting.”

Sluder says everyone seems to benefit. “This partnership (between Camp Blue Skies and Wingate University) is a real treasure,” she says, “and I’m grateful for it!” x


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WUSOP GRADS SET THE BAR HIGH

Wingate University’s 2015 pharmacy school grads are an accomplished bunch. The group set a record for the School of Pharmacy (WUSOP) by having 20 graduates accept offers from postgraduate year-one train-ing programs accredited by the American Society of Health System Pharmacists. And 10 WUSOP grads from 2014 are in postgraduate year-two pro-grams.

The ninety-one 2015 graduates also scored well above aver-age on their national boards. The group recorded an average score of 97.7% on NAPLEX, the national pharmacist-licensing exam. That lofty figure compares with an average of 93.71% for all North Carolina pharmacy-school graduates and 93.86% for all pharmacy-school grads nationwide. x

FRIDAY NIGHT SPOTLIGHT

Wingate University’s name recognition among high school students and parents in North and South Carolina took a (Lambeau) leap this fall. For 36 regular-season games, plus other playoff and championship games, WU was the sole spon-sor of Time Warner Cable’s high school football coverage.

This summer, Wingate Univer-sity produced five 60-second commercials, which ran during games broadcast on Time War-ner Cable. Many of the games were rebroadcast, and Wingate commercials got 528 minutes of airtime in total.

WU also sponsored a Game of the Week, at which the Admis-sions Office set up booths and gave away Wingate University merchandise and information. x

PORTUGUESE-SPEAKING FULBRIGHT WINNER TEACHES AT WINGATE

This year, two Wingate University graduates have been awarded Fulbright scholarships to teach abroad. But the Fulbright program is a two-way street, and the University is benefiting from it in the form of a visiting instructor.

Valderes da Silva, a native of Brazil, is spending the 2015-16 school year at WU, teaching Wingate’s first-ever Portuguese classes and taking a couple of courses him-self.

Da Silva is one of more than 400 students who will travel to the United States this year as part of the Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant program. The FLTA program is designed to contribute to U.S. students’ foreign-language acquisition.

Da Silva joins Grace Krauser ’13 and George Boyan ’14 as Fulbright scholars with a connection to Wingate. Krauser leaves in February to teach English in da Silva’s home country, while Boyan left in September to teach English in Turkey.

During his university days, da Silva spent a year studying abroad in Portugal. But com-ing to the United States, he says, is critical for an English teacher.

“I have always dreamt of coming to the U.S., because when you are an English teacher, it is essential to live in this culture,” he says.x


“I HOPE [THE

PRAYER

LABYRINTH

IS] A PLACE

WHERE

[STUDENTS]

CAN WALK

WITH THEIR

BURDENS

AND RELEASE

THEM, STAND

IN THE

PRESENCE OF

GOD.”

- BLYTHE TAYLOR

WU A TOP WORKPLACE IN CHARLOTTE AREA

Wingate University isn’t just a great place to learn – it’s also a pretty nice place to work. In September, The Charlotte Observ-er and survey firm WorkplaceDynamics named the University one of the top places to work in Greater Charlotte.

Wingate ranked fourth among large companies in the region. The article pointed out the picturesque campus, the importance of the school’s mission, and advancement opportunities as key reasons employees like working at the University.

“When you see a student walk across the stage and graduate, and you feel you have a small part in that, it is really gratifying,” the article quotes WU President Rhett Brown as saying.

Working in conjunction with Workplace Dynamics, The Observer sent question-naires to employees at all participating companies. The employees ranked state-ments such as “New ideas are encouraged at my company” and “My pay is fair for the work I do.”

Wingate University ranked ahead of such companies as OrthoCarolina, Lowe’s and Snyder’s-Lance. Red Ventures, a private digital-data firm based in Indian Land, S.C., topped the large-companies category. x

M A J O R I N A G R E A T L I F E | W I N T E R 2 0 1 5

PRAYER LABYRINTH HONORS TAYLORS

Blythe Taylor has high hopes that the prayer labyrinth she has had installed on campus will be used by students to find some clarity during a busy time in their lives.

Taylor, a success coach at Wingate University for five years, has donated a prayer labyrinth in honor of her parents, Chuck and Carol Taylor. Chuck Taylor is a former execu-tive vice president and chief financial officer of the Univer-sity, serving from 2000 to 2011, a time of immense growth at the institution.

The labyrinth, which was dedicated on Sept. 14, is a path-way of stones leading to a central point and back out again. It is designed to encourage prayer and meditation.

Wingate University’s labyrinth is located just outside Aus-tin Auditorium.

Blythe Taylor believes it can bring students some calmness and peace. “I hope,” she said, “that it’s a place where they can walk with their burdens and release them, stand in the presence of God and then walk out with a new mission, a new purpose, a new sense of renewal and then ultimately a sense of peace that maybe will change the world, just because of a little walk.”

Fifteen years ago, Blythe’s parents donated a prayer laby-rinth to Meredith College in Raleigh, where Chuck Taylor worked before coming to Wingate University and from where the Taylors’ three daughters graduated. Chuck Tay-lor says that by design prayer labyrinths promote inward reflection and prayer, because as you step you must look down, with your head bowed toward your heart.

Still, to some a prayer labyrinth might seem like an odd choice of structure for an institution founded by Baptists.

“I come out of a Baptist tradition, where sometimes I stand at the front as minister and speak and everyone listens, or we sing together,” said Dr. Edwin Bagley, C.C. Dickson professor of ethics and professor of philosophy. “But this is another aspect of spiritual life that complements these other aspects of religious life.” x

I N A G R E AT L I F E


Village clinic provides a ‘humbling’ and ‘enlightening’ experience for Hendersonville pharmacy student

B Y S H A R O N F O O T E


“I NCREDIBLE.”

T H A T ’ S H O W E V A N

M O F F I T T D E S C R I B E S

H E R N I N E D AY S O F

S E R V I C E L A S T S U M -

M E R A T A S M A L L

C L I N I C I N R U R A L

H O N D U R A S .

Moffitt is in her fourth and final year of pharmacy school. The Franklin, North Carolina, native attended the campus in Wingate for the first three years, but this school year she made Wing-ate’s Hendersonville campus her home base because many of her rotations have been in western North Carolina. Al-though her clinical rotations have been varied, including stints in retail pharmacy and hospital internal medicine, she says her nine days in the village of Guachipilincito were the most memorable.

“This rotation was so unique,” Moffitt says. “It teaches you so much about indigent care and global health, two things not usu-ally taught from a textbook.”

All Wingate University School of Pharmacy (WU-SOP) students must complete nine clinical rotations and are encouraged to diversify their experiences. One of the most diverse types of rota-tions Wingate offers fourth-year students is working in a clinic in the Central Ameri-can nation of Honduras.

“No other rotation at Wing-ate that I’m aware of offers you an opportunity to work in an environment where ba-sic resources are unavailable, such as many medications, supplies or air condition-ing,” Moffitt says. “You have to be creative with what you have. And this was the first time I have worked with an indigent population, some of whom were surviving only on bananas and tree roots.”

The clinic in Guachipilin-cito is operated by Shoulder to Shoulder, a nonprofit, nongovernmental organi-zation established in 1990 to make health care more

accessible to residents of rural Honduras. Shoulder to Shoulder operates nearly two dozen health centers and clinics in Honduras, includ-ing the one in Guachipilin-cito. Short-term volunteers provide much of the direct care. Since 1990, more than 4,000 volunteers have as-sisted Shoulder to Shoulder, including several students and faculty members from Wingate University.

Moffitt was part of a nine-person health-care “brigade” that served at the Guachipi-

lincito clinic Aug. 1-9, 2015. Also in that group was one of Moffitt’s instructors, Dr. Shawn Riser Taylor, an as-sistant professor of phar-macy and one of the original faculty members at Wingate’s Hendersonville campus.

Moffitt and Taylor were the only pharmacy personnel in the brigade, which included physicians, medical students and a physical therapist from three different states. Moffitt says she was thankful for three Spanish-language translators, because neither she nor Taylor speaks Span-ish.

When they arrived in the vil-lage of about 500 residents, Moffitt and Taylor conducted inventory in the clinic pharmacy. Over the next two days, about 110 school children came to the clinic, with Moffitt and Taylor giv-ing them multivitamins and teaching them about healthy living. That included Mof-fitt’s being “Diego Dental,” using a dinosaur puppet to teach the children how to properly brush their teeth.

Moffitt and Taylor then provided care for about 140

adults. Most were healthy enough to come to the clinic, but home visits were con-ducted as well. Many of the adults needed help manag-ing chronic diseases, such as diabetes, asthma, high blood pressure and depression. In addition to dispensing medications prescribed by physicians, Moffitt met one-on-one with each patient, educating them about their medical condition and the medication they were receiv-ing.

Moffitt says she particu-larly enjoyed the home visits, since she got to see where the patients lived. She says there are no cars in Guachi-pilincito, and most residents travel on foot or by mule. A few homes have electricity, but most do not have indoor plumbing. Moffitt says that although some villagers’ liv-ing conditions were “hum-bling,” she was impressed by the residents’ “hospitality during the home visits to complete strangers and their continuous gratitude for the small provisions we were able to provide.”

All patients received stan-dard counseling. But as part of a new research project led by Wingate University, an additional technique called “teach back” was used with about 20 of the adult pa-tients. The goal is to deter-mine how well each patient understands his or her chronic condition and the medications used to treat it.

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" T H I S R OT A T I O N WA S S O U N I Q U E . I T T E A C H E S YO U S O

M U C H A B O U T I N D I G E N T C A R E A N D G LO B A L H E A LT H , T WO

T H I N G S N OT U S U A L LY T A U G H T F R O M A T E X T B O O K . "


After Moffitt educated each pa-tient about his or her treatment plan, the patient had to “teach” Moffitt what she had just taught them. As the patients repeated the information, Moffitt was able to gauge how much each person had remembered and could correct any misinforma-tion.

In February 2016, Dr. Robert Ashworth, another Wingate assistant professor of pharmacy, will accompany two more WU-SOP students and a pharmacy resident to Guachipilincito as part of another brigade. They will meet with those same 20 patients to see how much of the August counseling the patients have retained.

Taylor initiated Wingate University’s involvement with Shoulder to Shoulder several years ago. Now she and Ash-worth make frequent trips to the clinic in Guachipilincito. In February 2015, Ashworth and WUSOP student Kelly Camp-

bell did a rotation at the same clinic. Campbell graduated with her doctorate of pharmacy a few months later.

The students pay the roughly $2,000 cost of doing a clinical rotation in Honduras, which is not included in WUSOP’s tuition. Taylor says she would “love to establish a scholar-ship” to cover some or all of the

costs for students to serve at the clinic in Honduras but has not been able to do so yet. Wingate University does provide finan-cial support for faculty mem-bers who travel to Honduras to assist students with clinical rotations.

Taylor believes the cost is worth it. “Evan and I returned to the U.S. with a greater understand-ing of health care in Guachipil-incito, a deeper empathy for the people who live in that com-munity and a wealth of ideas to improve the way volunteers care for patients at the clinic,” the professor says .

Moffitt agrees. “Having a clini-cal rotation outside the normal setting is a great opportunity to learn,” she says. “It was defi-nitely rewarding, being part of a team providing care to those who do not have resources.”

Moffitt also says Wingate’s School of Pharmacy prepared her well for the challenges she

encountered in Honduras. “WU-SOP’s education helps you think critically and think through your lim-ited options,” she says. “Interdisci-plinary teamwork is something else WUSOP advocates for. I felt prepared to be flexible with

the (health care) team, fulfill-ing tasks where I needed to and effectively communicating with the team throughout the week.”

After graduating in May 2016, Moffitt hopes to secure a resi-dency and ultimately work as a pharmacist in an ambulatory-care setting. x

S H O U L D E R TO

S H O U L D E R

is a nonprofit, nongovern-mental organization estab-

lished in 1990 to make health care more accessible to

residents of rural Honduras. Shoulder to Shoulder operates

nearly two dozen health cen-ters and clinics in Honduras.

Short-term volunteers provide much of the direct care. Since 1990, more than 4,000 volun-teers have assisted Shoulder to Shoulder, including several students and faculty members

from Wingate University.

For more information visit, shouldertoshoulder.org.

“IT WAS DEFINITELY REWARDING, BEING PART OF A TEAM PROVIDING CARE TO THOSE WHO DO NOT HAVE RESOURCES.”E VA N M O F F I T T

S H O U L D E R T O S H O U L D E R | W I N T E R 2 0 1 5


In the mid-1930s, the National League’s most feared power hit-ter, Mel Ott, ran a

baseball camp on the Wingate Col-

lege campus. Ott was at

the peak of his

Hall of Fame career, lead-ing the NL in home runs five times in the ’30s, despitestanding an underwhelming 5-foot-9 and 170 pounds.

Ott was a hard worker, and he rewarded another hard worker, the camp’s most im-proved player, with a signed bat and ball. That player was Wingate College student Ra-eford Helms Davis, a pastor’s son called “Raisin’ Hell Davis” by his buddies. For the rest of his life Davis kept the ball on a shelf in his dining room.

But the bat perpetually leaned in a corner of his clothes closet. It was too important a possession for public display.

“He looked at the bat every day

of his life,” David Davis ’66, Raeford’s son, wrote to Wing-ate Today in a story he titled “The Bat and the Bricks.” “It represented his love of life, discipline, hard work.”

David Davis has given the bat to Wingate University, and Bill Nash, director of the Bulldog Club, hopes to eventually find a permanent place to display it. He said that right now it is available for showings.

“I think it’s just a great piece of the history

of Wingate,” Nash said. “Being a

baseball fan myself,

the

fact that Mel Ott was on this campus is amazing.”

Raeford was awarded the bat during an inter-esting time in the life of the University and the Davis fam-ily. The institution was strug-gling because of the Great Depression, and the adminis-tration building had burned to the ground five years earlier.

Hard work and dedication – traits shared by Ott and Raeford Davis – put Wing-ate College back on solid footing.

When Raeford Davis entered first grade, his father, who had dropped out of school to help

support the family, re-en-tered fifth grade. The father, Wesley Davis, dreamed of becoming a minister.

Eventually, nearly a decade apart, they each found their way to Wingate College. According to David Davis, Wesley was the president of the senior class at Wingate in 1929.

Raeford Davis worked several jobs – mowing grass, caddy-ing, working at a dairy – to send himself and his father through college. He ultimately became an engineer and worked for NASA in Hunts-ville, Alabama.

When his son was born, Raeford let his wife name him David. “He didn’t want a

‘Raisin’ Hell Junior,’” David wrote.

Raeford also used baseball

to impart important

life

les-sons. David Davis wrote: “Raeford’s encouraging ‘isms’ were always instruc-tions for life: ‘Stay on your toes.’ ‘Keep your head up.’ ‘Just meet the ball.’ ‘Watch the ball get caught in the glove.’ ‘Don’t let anyone out-think you, not even yourself.’”

David Davis’s son, Steward Davis, also attended Wingate College, as did Steward’s wife, Kim Banks Davis ’94. David Davis went on to become a nurse anesthetist. He is now semiretired and lives in Charleston, South Carolina, where he co-founded a charity called Disaster Anesthesia.

The bat his father left him has been authenticated and would fetch a decent amount at auction. David Davis has gifted it to Wingate because, he said, he wanted “to send it back home.”

For four generations of Davises, he wrote, “Wingate has formed us and made us men.” x

every day – traits shared by Ott and Raeford Davis – put Wing-ate College back on solid footing.

> At the 2014 WU Hall of Fame banquet, Bill Nash holds a bat signed by Mel Ott during a baseball camp at Wingate College in the 1930s. The bat’s owner, David Davis, has given it to the University as a gift.


lostb r i n g i n g

b a c k

Ben Long brings fresco painting to WU’s new art museum

B R I N G I N G B A C K L O S T A R T | W I N T E R 2 0 1 5

“I want the students to know that

the creative spirit never dies.”

C H A R L E N E B R E G I E R

BY

CH

UC

K G

OR

DO

N


To paraphrase Thomas Edison, art is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. At least it appears that way, if you watch a fresco being produced.

Pigment is ground, colors are mixed, plaster is ap-plied. And reapplied. And then the painter paints for hours on end. All of this happens day after day, for weeks. It’s an arduous process, one that has resulted in a pipedream-turned-reality in Wing-ate University’s Hinson Art Museum: a Ben Long fresco.

The fresco, titled True Art is to Conceal Art, was officially unveiled in September during a museum dedication attended by University patrons and donors. The museum is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday. It is open when Univer-sity class is in session and is closed on University holidays.

What visitors see upon entering the museum is a seven- by 10-foot mural depicting scenes from history in which art is lost, found or doomed for millennia of isolation from civilization: great texts being burned in the library at Alexandria, Egypt; a statue being unearthed in Italy as Michelangelo looks on; the creation of the Lascaux cave paint-ings in France.

What they don’t see are the months of work that went into it, the craftsmanship and care that creat-ed a work of art that will undoubtedly bring people to the University’s campus for years to come.

“It might be a hollow sound in a deep hole right now, but we still hang onto things that are done well, or attempted to be done well,” the 70-year-old Long says.

That work ethic and attention to detail can be traced back to Long’s apprenticeship with one of the 20th Century’s masters of the art of fresco painting, Pietro Annigoni. Long apprenticed with Annigoni off and on for seven years in the 1970s, learning the ancient and difficult art of fresco painting from a dedicated realist.

annigoni ’s manifestoIn 1947, a group of seven Italian painters, includ-ing Annigoni, signed the “Modern Realist Paint-ers” manifesto, denouncing post-impressionist and abstract art, which had gradually pushed realist art to the sidelines in the preceding few decades. The manifesto was scathing in its attack on modern art.

“We are neither interested nor moved by the so-called ‘abstract’ or ‘pure’ painting, procreated by a decaying society, which is empty of any human contents and has retreated into itself, in the vain hope of finding a substance in itself,” they wrote.

Annigoni most definitely lived those words, even if he downplayed the manifesto as an insignifi-cant event in his life. As well as painting portraits of famous people – a young Queen Elizabeth, Pope John XXIII, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson among them – Annigoni mastered a form of painting that stretched back to antiquity: buon fresco.

Now, nearly 70 years after the manifesto was released, Long continues that tradition. His words are not nearly so sharp, but his dedication to the realist tradition is clear.

“We live in a time when photographs and basi-cally everything we see and know – it’s billboards, it’s movies, it’s television, it’s everything; it’s even digital imagination – is now taking over from what used to be something that was a learning process,” he says.

Dr. Louise Napier ’63, who served as an art professor at the University for 50 years, has visited Long’s studio in Asheville and says it’s like taking a trip back in time.

“It feels like I’m in a Renaissance art-ist’s studio,” she says. “Heavy velvet


>> The Hinson Art Museum is next door to the Batte Center. For more on the museum, see p. 46.


drapes and all kind of shelves of books, ea-sels with paintings started on them. It really has a feel of a traditional artist studio.”

Long’s dedication to the process has made him one of North Carolina’s most cel-ebrated artists. With frescoes appearing throughout the western part of the state and Charlotte, Long has spawned a cottage industry: the Ben Long Fresco Trail. Thou-sands of tourists visit the area each year just to see the frescoes he’s painted in churches, police stations, auditoriums and banks.

He also has a fresco in the historic Abbey de Montecassino in Italy – the only non-Italian represented there – and has painted other frescoes in Italy and France. In 1976 he was awarded the prestigious Leonardo da Vinci International Art Award.

the wingate frescoIt was something of a coup for Wingate University to get Long to produce his latest work on campus. The Hinson Art Mu-seum was built to show off the University’s impressive collection of works by North Carolina artists, along with several interna-tional pieces. During the planning process, then University President Jerry McGee and Napier conspired to find a cherry to go on top.

“I asked her (Napier) one day, ‘Who is the ultimate in North Carolina? Who is the North Carolina artist that is a real stretch for us?’ and she said, ‘Gosh, of course Ben Long,’” McGee says.

So they set about wooing Long and find-ing the funding – the ultimate total cost, McGee says, is about $150,000 – to realize their vision. For the latter, up stepped Win-dell ’60 and Judy Talley ’87. Windell runs a large poultry operation in Stanly County, and Judy was eager to get Long’s work on campus.

“We loved his early work in the churches in the mountains, and since that time he has become world famous,” Judy Talley says. “It didn’t take a great deal of convincing for us to become a part of the effort.”

Then Wingate officials had to get Long to agree.

“Convincing him was a challenge, because he has a lot of work, and he’s not the young-est artist anymore and he’s a little reluctant to take on really big projects,” McGee says. “We agreed on a modest project by his dimensions.”

For much of the month of June, the Hinson foyer served as an artist’s work space. Pig-ment, paint brushes, notebooks and other tools of the trade lined several long tables, upon which assistants matched colors and ground pigment.

Fresco painting takes more than skill; it takes a team, and it takes time. Before any painting begins, Long and his benefactors must come to an agreement on a theme, a process that can take months. Once his initial sketches have been OK’d, he draws “cartoons” – sketches that are the actual size of the wall and will serve as a guide. Tiny pin pricks are poked along key lines on the sketches, and the sketches are hung over the wall. One of Long’s assistants then presses bags of pigment onto the cartoons to create the outlines on the wall that Long will work from.

Once painting starts, each day Long’s as-sistants arrive onsite hours before the artist does, grinding pigment and preparing plaster for the day’s work. Roger Nelson, a longtime Long assistant and accomplished fresco artist in his own right, spreads the plaster carefully with a trowel, smooth-ing it out and adding more plaster on top. Long then sits or stands for hours, painting directly onto the wet plaster. As the plaster dries, the paint becomes part of the wall itself.

Long had four assistants working with him most days while painting in Wingate. It would be impossible to complete even a section of the fresco without the help of several people. “Unless you’re Super-man,” said his assistant John Dempsey, who served as Long’s color specialist on this project.

And things go wrong. “It’s like trying to plan chaos,” Nelson said.

For the Hinson fresco, the sand used to produce the plaster contained a high concentration of mica, a silvery mineral that tends to rise to the surface when the plaster is applied. Before the team returned

to Wingate in August to touch up the fresco, the glittery mica was easy to spot through-out the top part of the painting, which was painted before the team started using ordinary “sandbox”

sand to create the plaster. After painting the head of Michelangelo – perhaps the most intricate part of the entire mural – Long was unhappy with the amount of mica shin-ing through.

“It was starting to become a problem, and I think it overwhelmed the head the first time I did it,” Long said.

So Nelson cut that section out, and a couple of days later Long painted it all over again. Watching Long redo the head, with all its intricate detail, was inspiring to his as-sistants.

“It’s great experience to watch him paint the head like that,” Dempsey says. “He (Mi-chelangelo) was not a beautiful person, but there’s a lot of expression in his face.”

“the imagery i s from elements

in history that have actually

happened and have been lost . ”

B E N L O N G



long’s early daysLong learned much of his attention to detail, dedication to perfec-tion and persistence in the face of adversity while apprenticing with Annigoni. Long enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1969 as a preemptive measure to avoid being conscripted into the Army; he was also interested in becoming a member of the Marine Corps Combat Artist program. After two tours of duty in Vietnam, he was finally chosen for the program, and he surprised his superiors by choosing Florence, Italy, as his initial posting. While there, he sought out Annigoni, who told him to return once he’d finished his military service.

While learning from Annigoni, Long yearned to produce his own frescos in his home state, but the art form was relatively unknown at the time. In 1972, Long got connected with Father Faulton Hodge, a young Anglican priest serving a parish in Ashe County, North Carolina. Long offered to paint a fresco in St. Mary’s Church, near West Jefferson.

“He was a very jolly kind of priest and was very enthusiastic and said, ‘Absolutely!’” Long says. “And then he said, ‘What is it?’”

The fresco of Mary with child, painted in 1974, led to another Long fresco in St. Mary’s in 1977 and eventually to a painting of the Last Supper in another church in the parish, Holy Trinity.

Long, who spends much of his time painting portraits and landscapes, is now perhaps the best-known fresco painter in the United States. He lives part of the year in Europe, and his five sons were all brought up at least partially on the Continent. He has been commissioned to paint a variety of portraits, including of former Gov. Jim Hunt, former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, musician Boz Scaggs and author Danielle Steele.

As with frescoes around the world, many of the frescoes Long has painted have religious themes – at least those in churches do. He has also painted frescoes in municipal buildings, such as the

CMPD Law Enforcement Cen-ter in Charlotte, the Statesville Civic Center and the Morgan-ton Municipal Auditorium.

Most famous, perhaps, is his mural in the lobby of the Bank of America building in uptown Charlotte.

Each of those has a more secular theme. For the Wingate fresco, Long was given no pa-rameters. “We just said for him to think about it,” Napier says. “As a college, as an institution of learning, what would be the type of information or subject that he would want to come through?”

Long decided upon a history lesson of sorts. “The stories are interesting, and they’re all basically … the imagery is from elements in history that have actually happened and have been lost,” he says.

Judy Talley is impressed with the result. “I was hoping he would do something much like he did,” she says. “It is in the historical that he really excels.”

And the style, of course, is traditional.

“It’s more in the Renaissance tradition,” Napier says. “And that was a period of developing all kinds of ways to be as realistic as possible. Ben is still using those techniques that were developed during the Renaissance.

“And certainly the color scheme: He’s still working with the color palette that moved on into the Baroque, the warmer colors. That’s part of what makes his work connect so well to a previous period and culture.”

But what is he saying about lost and found art?

“I think it should be ambiguous,” Long says. “I mean, that’s the best way to see it. I think if you’re an optimist, you’re going to think it looks better, but some people think that this is a waste of time, so … we have to see.”

The thousands of tourists who travel the Ben Long Trail each year certainly don’t think it’s a waste of time.

“We can talk about each area of the fresco and what it means, but what I want the students to know is that the creative spirit never dies,” says Charlene Bregier, director of the Hinson Art Museum. “I know once it hits the North Carolina tourist books and people hear about it, that’s when we’ll start to see those visitors, those fans of Ben Long.

“Even if you’re just shopping for colleges, you’re going to want to stop by to see the Ben Long fresco. … I think we’re worth the drive.” x



H O W I S P E N T M Y S U M M E R VA C A T I O N | W I N T E R 2 0 1 5

B Y C H U C K G O R D O N

Summer Research at WU could bene� t society in many ways

SPENT

Photos: Roman Kanyuka (below) studied the effects

of oil prices on the economy. Elliott Draughn (right) researched cancer cells.


Nearly every morning last summer, Elliott Draughn entered room 220 in Bridges Hall with a small amount of trepidation.

“Any time you’re working with living things, it’s uncontrollable,” he says. “Each morning you kind of hope your cells are still alive.”

Luckily for Draughn, they were – every day. That enabled the Wingate University junior to continue his Summer Research project: determin-ing whether the diabetes drug Metfor-min can keep breast-cancer cells from metastasizing.

Draughn, under the direction of Dr. Melissa Fox, assistant professor of biology, is one of six students who completed research projects at WU this summer. The projects covered a variety of subjects: biology, finance, economics, psychology and astro-physics. From microscopic cells to massive galaxies.

The best part is that they were unique science, not just busy work. Most of the research done on campus this summer will be presented at national conferences or submitted for publica-tion.

“I don’t want it to just be a student-level project; I want it to be a next-level project,” says Dr. Lisa Schwartz, professor of finance, who, along with senior Roman Kanyuka, spent much of her summer studying the effects of oil prices on the economy. “I want them to learn to do a project that has academic value, and not just at an undergraduate level.”

The Summer Research program has been a staple of the University’s post-Commencement break since 1994, when a grant from the Jesse Ball duPont Fund enabled the school to team up teachers and students to collaborate on research that is more extensive than projects undertaken as part of class assignments. Initially, students were given $1,800 to cover living expenses and $500 for travel re-lated to the project. Faculty members received a $2,500 stipend.

In 2006, WU beefed up the program as part of its Quality Enhancement Plan. The students involved are now given a $1,000 stipend for travel related to the project and $2,500 to cover living expenses. They are also housed for the summer and receive funding to pay for software, books and other materials needed to com-plete the project. Faculty members get a $3,500 stipend.

Students and faculty members submit a joint application stating how the research will affect each of them. Stu-dents also must present their findings during a lyceum event in the fall and participate in a research symposium in the spring.

Along the way, they learn firsthand how the research process works.“Sometimes the projects don’t work out the way they thought they would. That’s part of the research process,” says Marisa Ciesluk, director of spe-cial academic programs, whose office organizes and funds the program. “They’re navigating unchartered waters.”

That’s the beauty of research projects: They take classroom learning and put it in a real-world context. Schwartz, who has participated in Summer Research three times, says research projects and other “high-impact practices” – such as study-abroad programs and internships – improve student engagement and retention.

She and Dr. Kristin Stowe, associate professor of economics and finance, have been studying undergraduate research and made a presentation on the subject at a conference in Septem-ber.

“It’s something we have both been in-volved in and find beneficial, and we want to go spread the word,” she says.

Nearly every discipline has been covered in the program’s two decades. Because of the nature of research, the traditional sciences have been well represented. But over the years stu-dents and professors have teamed up to look deeper into history, English, political science and even music.

The projects tend to piggyback off of research already conducted by the instructor, but usually they represent avenues of that research that have not been explored before. That’s the case with the research being conducted by Draughn and Fox. Fox became interested in Metformin’s effect on breast cancer while in graduate school at the University of Connecticut, and Draughn’s project is an offshoot of research Fox conducted while gaining her doctorate.

UConn even donated the breast-can-cer cells that Draughn and Gabrielle Valles, a WU student who informally participated in the project this sum-mer, treated so much like newborns.Draughn, Valles and Fox studied whether the use of Metformin could keep breast cancer from spreading to bones, the liver or the brain. It’s the type of research that is difficult to do during the school year.

“Summer is very important,” Fox says. “It’s the one time of year that my students and I are completely focused on research. Rather than two hundred students needing me at office hours, I have two.”

Draughn and Valles couldn’t just dive into the research. First, they had to do some baseline experiments simply to become competent using the Uni-versity’s new subculture equipment. They also had to get the cells, which had been cryogenically frozen and shipped from Connecticut to North Carolina, back to a normal state.Once they got down to business, they found that they were pretty much in charge on a day-to-day basis – a stark change from classroom work.



“It’s a lot more rigorous, a lot more self-directed,” Draughn said in late July, near the end of the project. “I’m still shocked at how much I’ve learned in the past month and a half.”

“I’m having them consult with me to make sure everything checks out right, but they’re being more independent in that regard,” Fox says. “With cell cul-tures, you could do something 10 ways and come out with the same result, so I let them figure out how to make it work for them.”

Kimberly Williams also took charge of her research project, into how perceived stress in affluent adolescent girls affects their health.

In the past, Dr. Terese Lund, assistant professor of psychology, worked with a former mentor to research stress in affluent girls. Williams took that data, examined it and focused on two tracks:

the health of girls who report feel-ing burdened by their parents’ undue expectations, and how girls who have a dependable, protective friend react to stress. This summer, Williams and Lund wrote two manuscripts – one on each of these topics. “We’ve pushed the envelope a little bit this summer,” Lund says. Lund has applied to present the research at a conference in Baltimore in the spring.

The task has been time-consuming and far more in-depth than anything Wil-liams has done in a class setting. But Williams plans to one day work with adolescent populations as a counselor, so she was quick to volunteer for the project.“When I heard Dr. Lund was doing this research, when she talked about it on the first day of her classes, I came to her office and I said, ‘You don’t know me, but I’m really interested in what you’re

doing. And I’d love to be a part of it,” Williams says.

She’s more than just a part of it. Lund says the effort has been very much a collaborative effort.

“She’s going to be first author on some of these papers,” Lund says of Williams. “She’s very much taken the lead.”

The hard work has not dimmed Wil-liams’ enthusiasm for research. In fact, just the opposite.

“I still want to go into counseling eventually, but I used to think that there would be no way you could get me to do research once I was out of school,” Williams says. “But since I’ve been working with Dr. Lund, I’ve realized I really enjoy figuring things out and getting the opportunity to present my ideas and find that it either backs it up or it doesn’t. I definitely still want to go

into counseling, but research isn’t totally off the table forever anymore.”

David Komasara, who alongside Stowe stud-ied the closures of 96 colleges and universi-ties between the start

of 2000 and June 2015, wasn’t sure what he would find when he started crunch-ing the numbers.

“In my head I kind of figured that these schools that were closing had an outra-geous amount of debt and they’re get-ting foreclosed on, but that’s not really the case,” he says.

Instead, he says the data points to mis-management. Such changes of direction are common in Summer Research.

“I see a lot of student growth in under-standing how to tackle a problem where there’s no predetermined outcome, there’s no clear-cut path. It’s trial and error,” Stowe says.

Komasara and Stowe decided to look at external factors when researching the school closures – “the location of the school, how the demographics of the

area affect it, the income of the area” – and found surprises there too.

“We did a lot of analysis and used some good mapping software and found that there isn’t really a lot of correlation between demographics and closures,” he says. “A lot of scholars were saying small, rural colleges are doing a lot of the closing, and we found that that wasn’t really a factor.”

Kanyuka and Schwartz also delved into finance and economics, in arguably the largest industry in the world: oil. Kanyuka, who is Russian and trans-ferred to Wingate University in 2014 as a swim-team recruit, wasn’t thinking of research as such a daunting process – until this summer. He and Schwartz studied how the precipitous drop in oil prices over the past two years affected global markets.

He always had an interest in the oil and gas industry – “maybe because I’m from Russia, and oil and gas is such a major industry there,” he says – and he thought finding information and synthesizing it would be fairly straight-forward.

Then he encountered an industry that operates in some tight-lipped parts of the world.

“I thought it was going to be easier,” Kanyuka says. “The industry is huge. The information is everywhere. But then you actually go in, you’re look-ing for something specific and you can’t find it and you’re like, ‘I’ve got to change it right now and talk about something else.’ This is the hard part of it.”


"I’m still shocked at how much I’ve learned in the past month and a half."E L L I O T T D R A U G H N



In his quest for data, Kanyuka traveled to Houston to meet executives with Weath-erford International, one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies. “They helped me to find answers I couldn’t find online,” he says.

But the production-cost figures they gave him still might not make it into his paper. “I asked them if I could refer to them,” Kanyuka says. “They didn’t say yes. They didn’t say no.”

Kanyuka has such a keen interest in the oil industry that Schwartz agreed to col-laborate with him even though he was not taking senior-level finance courses. “He impressed me enough in a princi-ples-level class to take a chance on him,” Schwartz says.

Toward the end of the summer, Kanyuka encountered one of the hardest parts of doing research: Finding a stopping point. Summer Research is a 10-week program, and even though the more data points a researcher has the better the research will be, it would be easy to just continue collecting data ad infinitum.

“We’re trying to bring it into a cohesive package,” Schwartz said toward the end of the project. “It’s a long and rambling story right now.”

Stories don’t get much longer or more rambling than the formation of the uni-verse, and that’s what Dr. Grant Thomp-son, assistant professor of chemistry and physics, and WU senior Alex Manze-

witsch studied over the summer. Well, the formation of galaxies, anyway.

Thompson and Manzewitsch examined the rate of star formation in the four types of “active” galaxies, to give us a clue as to how galaxies evolve. In doing so, they never set foot near a telescope.“Astronomy’s changed considerably,” Thompson says. “In the past, the advisor and the student went out to the telescope to collect their data. Here, number one, we’re using a space telescope. Number two, it’s archived data, so it’s already been taken.

“So, astronomy that used to be done at night, when it was really cold, now you just sit in front of your computer. It’s not as hands-on as you’d like anymore. But you can still go out and enjoy the views at night.”

Manzewitsch admits that, for him, the number crunching was a little mundane. But putting all the pieces together made it worthwhile.

“Some days it’s a lot of repetition. Just copy, paste, enter equation. Next sheet,” he says. “But when you get down to the wire, actually analyzing the data, that’s when you have to really turn on your creative juices and think, Now what does this all mean? What are some pos-sibilities that could have created some of these results? I’ve enjoyed that part, being that cosmic detective about what’s going on in the universe.”

Manzewitsch had to read through more than 80 sources to find information, but once he started figuring out how the data fit together, he found that he enjoyed the process. And he may have a newfound love for gazing at the heavens.

“When I came to Wingate I was a scared freshman just trying to pass Chemistry 101,” he says. “I wasn’t thinking about research at all. As I adjusted, I didn’t really think about astronomy at all, but now that I’ve taken the opportunity, it’s quite wonderful.”

Carly Lewallen’s summer research

project was one of the few that took her out into the field – specifically, fields of kudzu. Over the summer, the WU senior and Dr. Erika Scocco Niland ’04, assistant professor of biology, studied the kudzu bug, a tiny pest that has a big appetite for kudzu (not so bad) and soybeans (not so good).

Niland has been studying the bug for years. Over the summer, she and Lewal-len collected bugs from kudzu patches and studied their DNA to see what they’d been eating. They were trying to deter-mine at what point each summer the bugs move from kudzu to soybeans, so they can warn farmers.

They also studied soil samples, trying to find the right kind of fungi to use as a pesticide.

Lewallen enjoyed the independent na-ture of much of the work.

“I’ve learned what you need to do, rather than the professor guiding you on the next step you need to take,” she says. “I make the schedules.”

But if something went awry, Niland was there as a fallback.

“Troubleshooting is where they learn,” Niland says. “She might say, ‘Let’s try this,’ and I’ll interject and tell her maybe that’s not a good idea.”

Generally, though, the Summer Research students made impressive headway in their fields of study – and, perhaps most important, learned how to apply what they learned in class in a practical way.

“I have my results, but what does it tell me? That’s an applicable skill,” David Komasara says. “You’re going to get a job somewhere, and it’s going to be, ‘Hey, figure this out.’” x

"I’ve learned what you need to do,

rather than the Professor guiding you

on the next step you need to take."C A R LY L E WA L L E N


F L O O D R E L I E F | W I N T E R 2 0 1 5

" [THE FLOOD DAMAGE] IS

MUCH MORE DEVASTATING

IN PERSON, TO SEE HOW

MUCH THIS HAS IMPACTED

PEOPLE’S LIVES."

K A T I E W I L L I A M S

WU students donate t ime and money af ter f looding

FLOODR E L I E F

W H E N F L O O D W A T E R S over-whelmed much of South Carolina in October, Wing-ate University students stepped in to help. Two groups of WU students – a dozen service volunteers and a group of Doctor of Physical Therapy students – helped people who were struggling to recover from damage caused by the record-setting rainfall.

Twelve Wingate University students spent Oct. 17 vol-unteering in Sumter, South Carolina, about 40 miles east of Columbia. Sumter received 19.98 inches of rain from Oct. 1 through Oct. 5, with floodwater destroying 600 homes in Sumter and damaging hun-dreds more.

The Wingate Univer-sity volunteers arrived in Sumter early in the morn-ing. They spent the day unloading trucks filled with donated supplies; packing bags of food, bottled water and cleaning supplies for flood victims; and hauling away flood-damaged furni-ture from homes.

“You see (the flood dam-age) on TV,” Wingate

student Katie Williams said. “It’s much more devastating in person, to see how much this has impacted people’s lives.”

The day-long effort was organized by Wingate’s Uni-versity Community Assis-tance Network, or UCAN, a student-led community service organization. An-other flood-relief volunteer was Wingate MBA student and Campus Ministries intern Jen Nelson, whose hometown is Sumter. Nel-son coordinated the UCAN volunteers from Wingate, working with Alice Drive Baptist Church and United Ministries of Sumter. “This effort came full circle for me,” she said. “I was able to take fellow students from my university to the place where I grew up. It was very rewarding.”

Wingate University’s De-partment of Physical Ther-apy also pitched in. Wing-ate DPT students learned

about Robyn Culbertson, a physical therapy student who attends the Univer-sity of South Carolina in Columbia. Culbertson and her husband, Chip, had lost their cars and most of their belongings in the flood, and their house was heavily damaged. Wingate DPT students contributed $228

to an account for Culbert-son and her husband. The GoFundMe effort called “Robyn & Chip’s Fight the Flood Fund” has raised more than $12,000 for the

Culbertsons in 13 days.

With the donation, Wing-ate DPT sent this message: “The faculty, staff and students of the Wingate University Department of Physical Therapy would like to offer this monetary con-tribution to a fellow DPT student and her family.” The

director of Wingate Univer-sity’s Depart-ment of Physical Therapy, Dr. Kevin Brueilly, told his fac-ulty and students, “This makes

me a very proud member of this family. Thank you everyone for your generous support of a fellow student in need.” x


brian Hehn ’10 often takes a somewhat unorthodox approach to the music side of

worship. In workshops around the country, and as the music director of a church in Texas, he sometimes breaks out con-gas, djembes and other Afro-Caribbean drums to get people in a spiritual mood.

“They love it,” Hehn says. “There’s something primal about drumming, about hitting something with your hands that makes a big thud.”

Since September he has been helping others explore new avenues in music worship throughout North America. Hehn is the founding director of the Center for Congrega-tional Song (CCS), a resource for music directors that has been established by the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada.

Established in 1922, the Hymn Society has deep roots in the church-music community. The group’s distinguished member-ship makes his new appoint-ment “humbling and daunting at the same time,” he says.

“The society is made up of some of the who’s who of church music,” Hehn says. “Almost all church-music professors across the country are part of it.”

Hehn became involved with the Hymn Society in 2009 when the organization held a workshop on the Wingate Uni-versity campus. He quickly be-came active in the society, and, despite being just 27 years old, he has already been a member of the Hymn Society’s execu-tive board for three years.

“They wanted a young voice to help move them into the future,” he says.

He’ll get to do just that as the director of the CCS. At its annual conference a few years ago, the Hymn Society held what it called “dreaming sessions,” in which it asked its members to spell out what they thought the organization should be doing. Suggestions included text- and tune-writer retreats, hymn festivals, and conferences to help pastors of smaller, lower-resource churches handle the music side of worship services. Hehn’s job now is to implement as many of the programs as possible.

Dr. Ron Bostic, recently retired professor of music at Wing-ate University, arranged an internship for Hehn at Wing-ate Baptist Church during his University days. He says Hehn is a strong hire for the Hymn Society.

“Brian is a real Renaissance man,” Bostic says. “He’s in-terested in Christianity in the world context. And he’s an ex-cellent musician.” Hehn plays the piano and sings but says he’s primarily a choral leader – “My passion is leading groups of people in song, which is what led me to being a song-enlivener for the church” – and that often includes breaking out the drums. He started drumming during worship ser-vices while at Wingate Univer-sity, and his use of percussion has grown ever since.

After getting a music-edu-cation degree from Wingate, Hehn went on to earn a Master of Sacred Music from Perkins School of Theology. Besides his part-time job as music director at Arapaho United Methodist Church in Rich-ardson, Texas, last school year he taught music at a public elementary school. He is continuing as Arapaho UMC’s

music director.Hehn says Wingate University helped prepare him for his life in church music. He character-izes the music faculty as “very talented.”

“They work together and re-spect each other as colleagues,” he says. “They created a cul-ture of mutual respect.

“And they don’t squash your love of music. A lot of people come into a university and love music and say they want to be a music major. I’ve seen people whose love of music kind of gets lost. That doesn’t happen at Wingate.”

In addition to serving on the Hymn Society board, teaching kindergarten music and coor-dinating the music at Arapaho, Hehn has also written a drum-ming-worship activity book. All Hands In: Drumming the Biblical Narrative, published by the Choristers Guild, teaches 10 foundational Bible stories using percussive rhythms.

Hehn and his wife, Eve, and son, Jakob, live in suburban Dallas, Texas. x

H Y M N S O C I E T Y | W I N T E R 2 0 1 5

- B R I A N H E H N


‘15


The overtime loss to Carson-Newman aside, Homecoming weekend 2015 was

a rousing success. The jam-packed weekend included a couple of out-of-the-norm events on Friday night – the lacrosse-field dedica-tion and the Hardsoul Poets concert – that gave an extra flair to the proceedings. The golf tournament, clam-bake, 5k run, alumni breakfast and volleyball and soccer games all made for a memorable weekend.

And the football game was thrilling, despite the outcome. x

‘15


After tossing around the idea for five years, Hardsoul Poets

reunited in April. The band, which formed at Wingate College in the late ’80s and counts five Wingate grads among its members, played a show in front of a big crowd April 25 at the Visulite Theater in Charlotte.

“It felt like coming home,” guitar-ist Chris Michael ’86 says. “Seeing the same faces in the crowd was honestly enough to make you get choked up.”

“I was worried we’d be rusty and have trouble re-creating the feel of the old days,” guitarist/bassist Reid Mansell ’92 says, “but we were tight from the get-go.”

It turns out that the April show was just the start of a second life for the band. On Oct. 23 Hardsoul Poets played the Visulite again – this time as an official part of Wingate Uni-versity’s Homecoming 2015 – and in 2016 and 2017 the band will play on campus during Homecoming weekend.

And the day after the April show, Michael, Mansell and John Crooke ’90 were having breakfast when Michael threw out the idea of re-cording some new material.

“I was surprised but happy to con-sider it,” Mansell said.

The result is “True Great Geog-raphy,” the first collection of new songs from the band in over two decades. Michael and Mansell both say it’s the band’s best material ever. The CD was released Dec. 4.

Hardsoul Poets started life as the Beatnics at Wingate College in the late ’80s. After Mansell joined Crooke, Michael and drummer Brannon Helms ’93, the band changed its name and started play-ing regularly in Charlotte and tour-ing along the East Coast, opening for Hootie and the Blowfish, Faith No More, Southern Culture on the Skids and more.

Michael and Helms eventually dropped out to concentrate on their careers, and Mike Kenerley

’94 and Mike Mitschele joined. A later version of the band, Jolene, eventually signed with Sire Records and toured with Hootie and the Blowfish and others.

Rhett Brown, who had recently been tapped to replace Jerry McGee as Wingate University’s president, attended the April gig, in which both versions of the band played separately. Soon after, he floated the idea of having the band play during Homecoming weekend.

So on Oct. 23, again at the Visulite, the band spent two hours playing its early ’90s songs and new mate-rial, this time as a more cohesive unit, with members swapping instruments throughout.

The new songs were penned by four band members – Crooke, Man-sell, Michael and Mitschele – and recorded in bits and pieces, since Crooke lives in Los Angeles (the other members live in the Charlotte area).

“The hardest part was figuring out who could record and when,” Mi-chael said. “All of our schedules are very different, and with John being on West Coast time the wheels turned slowly at first.”

They soon picked up steam, though, and the band encountered some eerie coincidences along the way. Crooke wrote “Goodnight Ocean” on the plane ride back from the April show. Meanwhile, Michael penned a song titled “Ocean.” Both are on the new CD.

And Mansell dreamed the chorus of his song “I Never Needed Drugs (Until Now)” – in his dream, it was being played by the band Weezer at a concert.

“I woke up, miraculously remem-bered the melody and words to the chorus and wrote the entire song in about 20 minutes,” Mansell said.

The new songs are available via all the main digital outlets – iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, etc. Hard copies are available by mail order; see the band’s Facebook page for details. x

R E U N I T E D

H A R D S O U LP O E T S

R O C K

H O M E C O M I N G

A L U M N I A W A R D

W I N N E R S

D I S T I N G U I S H E D A L U M N I A W A R D

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Y O U N G A L U M N I A W A R D

A N D R E W S M A RT ’ 0 1N E A L H O L LY ’ 0 0S T E P HA N I E S TA R N E S T R AY N HA M ’ 0 6

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H O M E C O M I N G 2 015 | W I N T E R 2 0 1 5


You’d be hard pressed to find someone who personifies Wingate University’s spirit as much as David Sherwood ’85. The soft-spoken 52-year-old seemingly has Wingate in his DNA, and he bleeds blue and gold. His father, Har-

ry, was a longtime administrator for the University, and Sherwood practically grew up on campus. So coming to Wingate as a student seemed like a natural step.

Ever the fan of Wingate University athletics, Sherwood managed to turn a job as a student worker into a 30-year (and counting) career at the University. “I did some sports-info work as a student, and I thought that might be something I want to do with my career,” Sherwood says.

The summer after Sherwood graduated in 1985, Bill Connell, the athletic director at the time, approached him about becoming the school’s first full-time sports information director (SID). Sherwood didn’t hesitate. “I said yes, and I’ve been here ever since,” he says.

Sherwood’s new beginning as a graduate came at a time when the University’s football program was in its infancy, and he attributes his job appointment to divine intervention. “The University added football the summer that I graduated, in 1985,” he says. “That was providential. You have to have a full-time SID if you’re going to do things the right way, especially when you have football and those kinds of things.”

So although his official title is assistant athletic director for sports information and game operations, if you ask Sherwood what he does he’ll tell you, “I get paid to go to ball games.” It’s a role Sher-wood has worked tirelessly to see success in. Vice president and director of athletics Steve Poston says of Sherwood: “David is the ‘godfather’ of the Bulldog sports information department. There was no sports information department before David.”

CELEBRATING THE STUDENT-ATHLETE

He has shaped the position to be much more than just a repository of facts and

figures. If Sherwood’s tenure is known for anything, it is for his tireless promotion of student success.

“Wingate in my opin-ion has always been really progressive. We want to be out front when things happen. We have added op-

portunities for stu-dents to get an ed-

ucation and

to play athletics,” Sherwood says. “The student-athlete, the student part is first, and there’s a reason for that. I feel like it’s part of my job to be sure that if we have student-athletes that are achieving academically that they be recognized.”

That ethos has paid off. Since Jan. 1, 2000, Wingate University has produced 77 Academic All-Americans, the most of any NCAA Di-vision II school. Since then, Wingate also has the most Academic All-America honorees in North Carolina; Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill are Nos. 2 and 3.

Poston says none of this would be possible without Sherwood’s efforts. “It is an absolute fact that this would not have happened without the excellent work David has done behind the scenes to promote deserving student-athletes,” Poston says.

Women’s basketball coach Ann Hancock ’92 has experienced first-hand the fruits of Sherwood’s labors. Before she began coaching basketball on the collegiate level, she played here. “I am on the re-ceiving end of his hard work,” Hancock says. “He nominated me and sent in forms and letters for awards I never even knew exist-ed. The work he does often goes unrecognized for him personally but is seen in the awards of our student-athletes.”

Sherwood is always quick to dismiss the praise and says the stu-dents are the ones who deserve the acclaim. “We should celebrate what these students are doing, not only in the athletic arena, but in all the places that they’re having success,” he says.

ROLLING WITH THE CHANGESAnd that means celebrating them on all types of platforms. Sher-wood has been willing – albeit somewhat reluctantly – to embrace changes in technology. He quietly waxes poetic about the days of typewriters and hand-written awards submissions. “Some of us were brought into the technology cycle kicking and screaming,” he says.

He smiles and acknowledges the role technology plays in sports and how it has shaped the world of Wingate University athletics. “Obviously, the Internet and the technological revolutions have benefited our profession for the good,” he says. “We’ve evolved into a 24/7 website. Instagram, Face-book, Twitter, video streaming – the whole bit.”

He’s also quick to give credit to his staff when it comes to seeing many of the day-to-day tasks to fruition. “We have four people that work in the office,” he says. “I certainly don’t do this by myself.”

BUILDING COMMUNITY AND BOLSTERING SUCCESSThirty years is a long time to be in one place, and Sherwood knows that

better than anyone. “I’ve tried to keep sight of the fact that

it’s fun,” he says. “I think it’s important that you

build relationships.”

D R E A M J O B | W I N T E R 2 0 1 5

“DAVID IS THE

‘GODFATHER’ OF

THE BULLD O G

SPORTS

INFORMATION

DEPARTMENT.

THERE WAS

NO SPORTS

INFORMATION

DEPARTMENT

BEFORE DAVID.”

S T E V E P O S T O N


D R E A M J O B | W I N T E R 2 0 1 5

And that’s exactly what he’s done throughout his career at Wing-ate University. “I’ve had great bosses – Bill Connell, John Thur-ston, Beth Murray, Steve Poston – and I consider all of them friends,” he says. “That’s rare.”

What are even rarer, perhaps, are the relationships Sherwood has forged beyond the train tracks at Wingate. John Karrs, Sher-wood’s counterpart at Lenoir-Rhyne University, met Sherwood when Karrs was a student assistant at Lenoir-Rhyne in the late 1990s. “After I took over as sports information director at LR in 2002, not only did we become close colleagues, we’ve become close friends,” Karrs says. “You won’t find a more genuine person than David.” High praise indeed, and from a staff member at one of Wingate’s rivals, no less.

Hancock regards Sherwood as a pillar of the Wingate University community, calling him “one of the constants at this institution.” And he keeps up with former students. “He has sent numerous notes, called or emailed just to stay in touch and let you know he is thinking of you and has not forgotten you,” Hancock says fondly. “I think this is one of the things that is truly special about David. He knows so many people, remembers their names and keeps in contact with them.”

Although Sherwood has had a positive impact on numerous stu-dent-athletes, he insists that his success can only be attributed to those he has surrounded himself with for 30 years. “I have always been put in a position where I can be successful,” he says. “I’ve had support from administration, from coaches, from student-athletes. If you don’t have that, it’s hard. You’ve got to have that to be successful. I’ve always been very fortunate in that regard.”

Sherwood’s own humble opinions aside, perhaps Poston says it best: “David represents the very best in intercollegiate athletics and has earned much deserved accolades from his colleagues in the sports information profession.”

STAYING GROUNDEDSo, what’s next for Sherwood? When asked this question, the soft-spoken SID smiles and sighs quietly. He looks through the glass of the press box and surveys the empty football stadium. “I tell people that I’m still not sure what I want to do when I grow up,” he says.

With that sentiment he smiles again and says, “I’m 52 years old, so the cycle is starting to catch up to me. There are some things I’d like to do with my life that aren’t nec-essarily athletically related, but I have a very great job. I could see myself doing this a few more years.”

And then the mild-mannered Sherwood glances at a worn and well-read daily devotional on his desk. “God will put something in my path,” he says. No stranger to faith, Sherwood discusses his upbringing briefly. “My dad made sure that we were at church, and God plays a big role in my life,” he says. “I think faith keeps us grounded – knowing that everything does happen because God’s already got it all planned out.”

So at first glance, the “what’s next” might have appeared to rattle Sherwood, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. “I believe fervently that everything happens for a reason,” he says.

It’s that belief that David Sherwood has clung to his en-tire life. It’s what got him to enroll at Wingate College, rather than his second choice, Appalachian State University. It’s what opened the door for him to work here once he graduated. It’s what has driven him to celebrate the successes of countless stu-dent-athletes. And it’s what has firmly cemented his legacy in the history books of Wingate University athletics. x

“I GET PAID TO GO TO BALL GAMES.”

D AV I D S H E R W O O D

>> Sherwood’s sports-information roots first took hold during his days as a Wingate student. Here he keeps score at a men’s soccer match in the early ’80s.


Gary Curneen ’03, ’09 and his wife, Erin, spent three long

weeks at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles last year. Their son, Roy, was born Dec. 3, 2014, with a right diaphragmatic hernia, and for three weeks, while he was hooked up to an ECMO machine, Gary and Erin read to him.

“We couldn’t nurse Roy, couldn’t hold him or feed him,” Gary says. “The only thing we could do to get a connection to him was to read to him. Five or six times a day we’d read him stories and look for reac-tions. That’s when we were closest to him.”

The ECMO machine – which pumps blood and oxygen for the

body, enabling the

heart and lungs to rest – was designed to build up Roy’s strength to the point where he could have surgery, but by Christmas Eve his body had had enough. Roy died on Dec. 24, 2014.

Two things got Gary and Erin through the ordeal. The first was the support of the staff at Children’s Hospital LA. The second was an idea Gary hit upon while spending those hours reading to Roy.

“I turned into a children’s-book critic,” he says. “One time I read a book and said, ‘I could write better than this.’”

Gary, the head women’s soccer coach at California State University, Bakersfield, and a former coach and player at Wingate University, had written a couple of soccer-coaching books already. So he and Erin tried their hand at a children’s book, to

honor Roy’s memory and to raise money for the hos-pital. The result is First Touch,

the first book in the “Soccer Roy” series.

With bright, engaging illustrations by Garth Bruner, First Touch tells

the story of Roy’s introduc-tion to soccer and how the sport helps him learn to share.

The book came out in mid-July, and by mid-August it had sold a couple of thousand copies, about halfway to the Curneens’ goal.

All proceeds go to Children’s Hospital LA, whose staff Gary praises.

“The nurses, the things they said, the way they said it was just inspirational,” Gary says. “It just felt like we were in the right place the whole time. It seemed, from a medical point of view, from a spiri-tual point of view, that these people were a gift from God almost.”

The Curneens are already writ-ing the second installment in the “Soccer Roy” series. They plan to publish at least seven books, with a different message in each and the main character evolving along the way.

“It’s something we want to put our heart and energy into, not just a one-off project,” Gary says. x

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C O P E W I T H L O S S | W I N T E R 2 0 1 5


lumni, parents, donors and friends were given the op-portunity to meet, or recon-nect, with President Rhett Brown during the Meet & Greet Tour held in the fall. Nine different locations,

mostly within North Carolina, were set up to accommodate Wingate University family members as they mingled with Brown and others. Hundreds of people ventured out to meet the new president.

Receptions were held in Union, Meck-lenburg, Wake, Anson, Stanly, Forsyth and Cabarrus counties in North Caro-lina. Additionally, alumni and friends gathered at a tailgate before Wingate’s football game at Lenoir-Rhyne Oct. 17. A reception was also hosted for those in the Washington, D.C., area.

More opportunities to meet and greet Brown will be available in the spring as we venture out to locations along the East Coast. Invitations will be in mail-boxes soon! x

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B U L L D O G N A T I O N | W I N T E R 2 0 1 5

Recent grad recognized off the field

Christina Matheny ’15 was all-conference and all-region and is Wingate University’s first women’s track and field All-American. But one honor she earned earlier this year stands above them all.

In early September she was named one of the 30 finalists for the NCAA Woman of the Year award. The list was pared down to 10 in late September, and the award was presented at a ceremony Oct. 18.

“To me, this honor is more meaningful than any All-American trophy or scholar-athlete award,” Matheny says. “It not only represents athletic and academic ability, but also character.”

On the field, Matheny earned second-team indoor honors as a high jumper at the 2015 NCAA indoor meet. She then tied her personal-best outdoor leap (1.73 meters) on the way to first-team outdoor All-American laurels in May. A four-time All-Region performer in the high jump,

Matheny was the USTFCCCA Southeast Region Field Athlete of the Year during the 2015 NCAA indoor and outdoor seasons.

Matheny is a two-time South Atlantic Conference high-jump cham-pion. The four-time Wingate Field Performer of the Year earned a

bronze medal in the 2015 SAC long-jump competition. She holds Wingate’s high-jump and heptathlon records.

Combine those feats with her 3.72 GPA and numerous service proj-ects and it’s easy to see why Matheny was selected out of 480 WOTY

nominees. Her campus and community involvement includes stints as president and Make-A-Wish chair for Wingate’s Student-Athlete Advisory

Committee (SAAC). Wingate Athletics raised more than $8,000 for Make-A-Wish during Matheny’s junior and senior years. She was an intern at the United Way of Central Carolinas in 2014.

A group leader for a March 2014 Wingate Alternative Spring Break (ASB) trip, Ma-theny took a group of students and University employees to build a house in Mari-anna, Florida. She also participated in ASB trips to Florida and Alabama, respectively, during her freshman and sophomore years, and she served as an admissions tour guide, a campus-safety student worker, a note taker for the disabled and a peer men-tor as well.

Matheny, a human services major, graduated magna cum laude at Commencement in May. She earned the Arthur Joseph “Pepper” Geddings, Jr. Award for best overall student-athlete at Wingate’s 2015 WUSPYS athletic awards celebration. She also re-ceived the Wingate Student-Athlete Advisory Committee Leadership Award.

“As I reflect on this NCAA Woman of the Year Award top 30 recognition, I feel it nec-essary to thank the most important woman in my life, my mother (Cindy),” Matheny says. “When I was 6, she suddenly had cardiac arrest. As a result, she had a traumatic brain injury and a loss of her memory – ABCs and everything. She never gained her memory back.

“With strength and persistence, she overcame several obstacles, and to this day she is still improving,” Matheny says. “Although she wasn’t one to teach me through her words, she did so with her actions. For this, I am forever grateful. No matter the pain or frustration she goes through every day, she still walks around with a smile on her face. I hope I lead in the same way she does – by example – and that I can truly make this world a happier place by doing so.”

Matheny’s next adventure involves service to others. She left Sept. 10 to serve as a team leader for AmeriCorps NCCC, leading a team of eight to 12 people. Matheny’s group is performing community service and leading disaster-relief efforts throughout the West Coast. x

"Thi s honor i s more meaningful

than any All-American trophy or

scholar-athlete award. It not only

represents athletic and academic

ability, but also character."

C H R I S T I N A M A T H E N Y


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Soccer teams get $1.5 million field house

“Wow! This is unbelievable.” That is Gary Hamill’s (’94, ’08) take on Wingate University’s new $1.5 million soccer field house.

The 8,200-square-foot, two-story building, built into a berm on the northwest end of the University soccer field, opened over the summer. It boasts a large conference room, coaches’ offices, a workout area, and a players’ lounge.

Hamill has been in training fa-cilities for clubs large and small, and he was still floored by the Bulldogs’ new home.

“I’ve been around the world, seen a lot of professional orga-nizations, and they don’t come close to what we have in there,” Hamill says.

The facility will serve two teams that have experienced sustained success during Hamill’s tenure. Hamill is 273-143-23 in 23 seasons as men’s coach, includ-ing five South Atlantic Con-ference regular-season titles, two SAC tournament crowns and six NCAA tournament berths. In 2012, the team won the NCAA Southeast Regional tournament. Chip Wiggins ’96, a former player under Hamill, has coached the women’s team to a 29-6-8 record the past two seasons, including two SAC tournament titles and a South-east Regional title as well.

Wiggins praises the leader-ship of Dr. Jerry McGee, who recently retired as University president, in getting the facility built. “Everybody has dreams; everybody has aspirations,” he says. “But it takes someone spe-cial to actually put it together, and this building is part of that.”

“This is certainly an impressive facility, and one that will go a long way toward making our program truly one of the top ones in the country,” says Steve Poston, Wingate University vice president and athletic director. x

Football Field Day special for all involved

For Wingate’s football team, one of the most rewarding days of the season oc-curs before the first kickoff.

The program hosted its 12th annual Special Olympics Football Field Day at Irwin Belk Stadium on Aug. 29. Men and women of all ages came out to participate in positional drills, while members of the football team cheered for them. The players also connected with the Olympians on a personal level.

“Our program is meant to be a part of the educational experience here at Wingate, and we take that very seriously,” head coach Joe Reich says. “Wingate football is all about giving back to the community. It has become very eye-opening for the players and coaches involved.” Participants visited three interac-tive stations to test key football skills: quarterback throwing accuracy, running-back footwork and speed, and defensive tackling.

Upperclass Wingate players stood with the field-day participants as they engaged in the activities, keeping them excited. The freshman football players spent the event standing in the visitors’ bleachers, embracing their role as the “hype team” for the men and women taking part in the stations and drills. Occasionally, the participants would run over to the freshman section to dance or cheer in front of them.

The event served as something of a celebration at the end of preseason camp. It was a humbling experience for team members just as they were getting their minds right for the season opener a week later. “There is more to life than just what we are wrapped up in,” Reich says. “We believe this day gives our team a look at life outside our sport.”

Senior linebacker Eric Mapoles had a great time at the event. “It’s always a fun day,” Mapoles says. “Just to come out and see those guys smiling. The team always enjoys it, so it’s a great day.” x

First D-II program on ESPN3

This fall, Wingate University athletics moved into the national limelight.

Under an agreement signed with ESPN3, 28 Bulldog home sporting events will be shown live nationwide on ESPN3. The deal – a first for exclusive national stream-ing rights for a Division II school – began with the Uni-versity’s exhibition volleyball match against the Italian Junior National Team Sept. 2 in Cuddy Arena.

“This move supports our commitment to provide our student-athletes with maximum national exposure,” says Steve Poston, Wingate University vice president and director of athletics. “We look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship with ESPN.”

Bulldog fans can watch Wingate athletics on ESPN3 on-line at WatchESPN.com or on smartphones and tablets via the WatchESPN app. They can also stream Bulldog events on televisions through Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick, Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, Xbox 360 or Xbox One. ESPN3 is available in more than 99 million households at no additional cost to fans with an affili-ated Internet or video provider, including Time Warner Cable, DirecTV and Dish Network.

“The agreement with ESPN is a new, exciting challenge that we are very much looking forward to this year,” says Ryan Brown, the University’s director of broadcasting and video productions. “It gives our student-athletes a first-class platform and much larger audience to show-case the great success Wingate has achieved.

“It also continues to offer students excellent opportu-nities to work in a professional production that will prepare them for their future in the media and broadcast

field.”

The Wingate Sports Network will con-tinue to produce all of its

on-campus events. Brown is leading the production crew while continuing to fulfill on-air duties. Jake Levy, graduate assistant for broadcasting, also helps produce events and handles play-by-play duties. Other positions, including technical directors, replay technicians, graph-ics operators and camera operators, will continue to be filled by Wingate students.

The men’s soccer team had the first regular-season Bull-dog game delivered on ESPN3, hosting Barton on Sept. 3. All five home football games were carried on ESPN3.

Both men’s and women’s basketball teams will be heav-ily featured on ESPN3 during the 2015-16 season. The men’s and women’s swimming teams will also be on ESPN3 during the season, including their 2016 BMC Championship meet. The Wingate Sports Network will continue its coverage on ESPN3 of baseball, softball, lacrosse, tennis, golf and track in the spring. x

"It gives our student-athletes a

first-class platform and much larger

audience to showcase the great

success Wingate has achieved."

R YA N B R O W N

WINGATE ATHLETES

INDUCTED INTO HALL

OF FAME.

>> SEE PG. 49


"ART

SHOULD

EVOKE EMOTION."C H A R L E N E B R E G I E R

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4 D A Y SB Y S P O O N

A C R O B A G B Y J O H N L I T T L E T O N A N D K A T E V O G E L

M R . R E D S O C K SBY J U A N A DA RO F R A N C I S C O

F A Y E T T E V I L L E S T .B Y M I C A H M U L L E N


For years, Wingate University presidents have been collecting art. Pieces from the collection have been

on show in the Batte Center’s Helms Gallery for several years, but

much of it has remained in storage.

This fall, the collection finally found a perma-nent, freestanding home. The Hinson Art Museum officially opened in late

September with a VIP dedication that centered on

world-renowned artist and North Caro-

lina native Ben Long and his latest fresco, True Art is to

Conceal Art, which was custom

made for the museum.

But the art tastefully presented in the sleek and stylish Hinson Art Museum would be worthy of a visit even had Long not been persuaded to produce his latest work on the Wingate campus.

There’s a little something for everyone in the museum. A Salvador Dali wood engraving, Rembrandt etchings and a Dale Chihuly sculpture highlight the national and international artists featured. The collection is heavy on works by North Carolina artists, includ-ing Claude Howell lithographs, a sculpture by Bob Trotman and pottery by Marshville artist Andy Smith. There are wire sculptures, quilts, blown glass and mixed-media pieces.

“Art should evoke emotion,” says Charlene Bregier, director of the museum. “We want to have a collection that’s diverse enough that you can find a piece in here that you want to stand and look at and know more about the artist.”

Included are pieces by Marilyn Hartness, Wingate Uni-versity associate professor of art, and Louise Napier, who retired as an art professor in May after 51 years at WU. Napier was a relatively new instructor when former President Budd Smith first began collecting art for the college in the ’60s. She says the new museum is impressive.

“I just assumed it would be part of the Batte Center, a wing of it, so I am just thrilled at this freestanding museum,” she says.

In the 1970s, Charlotte businessman Harry Dalton donated 15 pieces to the school, and the collection has continued growing steadily.

Now there’s a place to showcase it – a modern, well-lighted space to house an eclectic collection. x

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T H E H I N S O N A R T M U S E U M

D O N Q U I X O T EB Y R U D Y K E H K L A

>> Find out about the museum’s signature piece on pg. 26.

G O - G E T T E RB Y B O B T R O T M A N

T A L L V A S EB Y A N D Y S M I T H

TRUE ART IS TO CONCEAL ARTB Y B E N L O N G


40s

50s

60s

70s

Dr. Donald Douglass ’45 received Wingate University’s 2015 Distin-guished Alumni Award.

Barbara Raye Hollifield ’59 received Wingate University’s 2015 Service Award.

Carolyn Faye Hollifield ’59 received Wingate University’s 2015 Service Award.

Sen. Stan Bingham ’66 received Wing-ate University’s 2015 Distinguished Alumni Award.

Tom Pruett ’75 received Wingate University’s 2015 Distinguished Alumni Award.

Bruce Benfield ’76 was inducted into the Wingate University Sports Hall of Fame in November. Benfield, a baseball player, won the Geddings Award as Wingate’s best overall student-athlete in 1976. He is part owner of Joyner Ben-field Distinctive Land and Waterscapes in Charlotte, North Carolina.

80s

90s

Diane Sheppard Hill ’84 has been selected as the principal of the year by the Rocking-ham County Schools. Hill has been principal of Rockingham Early College High School since 2011.

Michael Taylor ’84 received Wingate Uni-versity’s 2015 Distinguished Alumni Award.

Truett Smith ’86 was elected president-elect of the North Carolina Academy of Physician Assistants. The NCAPA is the professional organization that represents the 6,000 PAs of the state of North Carolina.

Jeff Hadley ’88 is an implementation man-ager with Wells Fargo Advisors.

John Crooke ’90 received Wingate Univer-sity’s 2015 Distinguished Alumni Award.

Chris Odom ’90 is executive director of Dress for Success Winston-Salem, a not-for-profit that helps disadvantaged women advance their careers.

Jeff Foster ’91 is an agent in the Mount Pleasant, S.C., office of Agent-Owned Re-alty.

Eric Horvath ’96 is director of credit and collections at AT&T in Johnson City, Ten-nessee. He is also chairman of the board of directors for the United Way of Washing-ton County, Tennessee.

In June, Amber Burgess Cox ’96 gradu-ated from the Western North Carolina Law Enforcement Leadership Academy. Burgess is a corporal with the Henderson County Sheriff ’s Office in Hendersonville.

Trey Cameron ’97 received Wingate Univer-sity’s 2015 Distinguished Alumni Award.

Shane Griffin ’98 is the head football coach and a physical education teacher at Central Academy of Technology and the Arts in Monroe.

Accomplishments

Class Notes

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00s 10sNeal Holly ’00 received Wingate University’s 2015 Young Alumni Award.

Andrew Smart ’01 received Wingate Uni-versity’s 2015 Young Alumni Award.

Lorinza “Junior” Harrington ’02 was inducted into the Wingate University Sports Hall of Fame in November. Harrington has 13 years of professional basketball experi-ence, including stints with three NBA teams. Harrington, an All-American as a senior, played the 2014-15 season in Colombia.

Liz Rogers Biggerstaff ’02, ’06 was in-ducted into the Wingate University Sports Hall of Fame in November. She was all-South Atlantic Conference in soccer (three times) and basketball and as a senior won the Joyce Gragg Pipes Award as the school’s top female athlete. Rogers Biggerstaff is the associate athletic director for compliance at Wingate University and is married to Patrick Biggerstaff ’00, ’06, WU’s director of operations.

David Yount ’04 was inducted into the Wingate University Sports Hall of Fame in November. A baseball player, Yount was a second team Rawlings/ABCA All-American in 2004. He has a Master of Science in Sport Administration from Appalachian State and a Master of Physical Therapy from Western Carolina. Yount is the center manager for Carolinas Rehabilitation in Huntersville.

John Bowman ’05 was inducted into the Wingate University Sports Hall of Fame in November. Bowman was a Don Hansen’s Football Gazette All-American following the 2003 season. Bowman plays for the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. The team has won two Grey Cups during his time with the club.

Laura Stinson ’03 has launched Designed by Laura, an art and design studio specializ-ing in high-quality web and identity design for entrepreneurs, small businesses and nonprofits.

Claire St. Cyr ’05 is a real estate agent with Underdown, Ball & Associates in Elkin, North Carolina. She is also the director of operations for real-estate development com-pany the Bonanza Group.

Stephanie Starnes Traynham ’06 received Wingate University’s 2015 Young Alumni Award.

Mike Shaw ’11 is the multimedia producer for Wake Forest University’s Office of Com-munications and External Relations.

Scott Muri ’11 (Ed.D.) is superintendent of schools for the Spring Branch Independent School District in Houston, Texas.

Carrie Tulbert ’12 (Ed.D.) is principal at Concord Middle School in Concord, North Carolina.

Hannah Travis ’14 and David Wilkins ’15 are engaged to be married.

Births

Candace Donald Furr ’03 and Seth Furr ’06, a girl, Mia Lynn, on June 14, 2015.

Anna Rogers Murphy ’11 and Ben Murphy ’12, a girl, Lilly, on July 24, 2015.

Regina Gunn Arndt ’05 and Kevin Arndt, a girl, Faith Elise, on May 26, 2015.

Mandy Brown Matney ’04 and Lucas Matney, a girl, Ila Jean Patrice, Aug. 1, 2015.

/ /Murphy

//Furr



More than a year after her death from cancer in August 2014 at the age of 42,

Christa Helms Austin is still very much a part of the lives of people in her community.

Less than a month after Austin’s death, New Salem (N.C.) Elementary, one of two schools where Austin had been named Teacher of the Year, dedicated a spirit rock in her name. In September 2014, a golf tournament was held in her memory. And a scholarship for children to attend Camp Thunderbird has been set up in her name.

This year, Antioch Baptist Church is reno-vating a space to be called the Christa Helms Austin Memorial Youth/Children Room.

Before moving to New Salem Elementary, Austin taught at Aquadale Elementary, in Norwood, North Carolina. There, she taught Tyler Howard ’15. Howard wrote that “when others overlooked me, she was the one who taught me to never give up and to show not others but myself that I am capable of any-thing I set my mind to.”

At New Salem, she brought out the best in Garrett Griffin.

“I drive by New Salem regularly and see her memorial and it touches me every time,” Garrett’s father, Mike Griffin, wrote on the Facebook page of Austin’s sister, Monty Helms Coleman ’87. “I first met her when she taught my son Garrett, who started col-lege this year. He was a bit of a handful and we were worried about him being a distrac-tion in class. Christa recognized right away that it wasn’t a behavior problem but that he was just bored. She gave him above-grade work and it was like a switch went on. She saw his potential and helped reach it! Gar-rett loved her for that and we loved her for unlocking his gifts!” x

Marriages

Ashley Clayton ’11 and Lee Tillery were married on April 4, 2015.

Jessica Buchanan ’12 and Taylor Parsons were married on July 4, 2015.

Jonathan Lacher ’11 and Meagan Balsom ’12 were married on Dec. 27, 2014.

Marlena Lawson ’12 and Matthew Jones ’12 were married on July 4, 2015.

April Danielle Stimpson ’15 and Justin Surber were married on June 27, 2015.

Michael H. Billips ’90 and Suzanne M. Billips ’90 celebrated 25 years of marriage Dec. 1, 2015.

/ /Lacher / /Jones

//Ti l lery

/ /Parsons

In Memoriam

Christa Helms Austin ’94 Frank Davis

The Wingate University fam-ily lost a dear friend in late

summer. Frank Davis, former vice president of the University, died on Aug. 24 after a short ill-ness. He was 70 years old.

Davis served the University for six years, first as executive as-sistant to former President Jerry McGee and then as senior vice president for external affairs. He left the University to lead The Cannon Foundation, a signifi-cant University benefactor, as its executive director. He worked with the foundation for nearly 17 years.

“Higher education benefited greatly from Frank’s dedica-tion and service,” said Wing-ate University President Rhett Brown. “He had quite an impact on the University as an employee and also as head of the Cannon Foundation.”

Davis served in higher education for nearly 30 years, working in development, public relations and admissions. He started his career in Rome, Georgia, as an English teacher. He then worked for four institutions of higher education – Mercer University, the University of Alabama, Bre-vard College and Berry College, his alma mater – before coming to Wingate.

Davis received an honorary doc-torate from Wingate University during Commencement exercises in 2013. x



biology students joshua brackett (left) …...jason walle ashley richardson (kreis) ’05 board of...

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