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Community discusses presidential debateGage JohnsonEditor-in-Chiefgjohnson17@murraystate.edu

As the genera l e l ec t ion on Nov. 3 approaches, the citizens of Murray voiced their opin-ions on the first 2020 Presiden-tial Debate on a Facebook post from The Murray State News.

The debate garnered national attention, as Democratic candi-date and former Sen. Joe Biden a n d w h i l e R e p u b l i c a n c a n -didate and current Pres ident Donald Trump went back forth throwing jabs at one another and tackling major issues such as e lec t ion integr i t y, c l imate change, racial justice, taxes, job creat ion, COVID-19, health-care and the Supreme Cour t .

Mul t ip l e peop le ac ros s the Murray, Kentucky, community showed their appreciation for Biden, including Robert Dun-can who made it clear that he’s for the democratic candidate.

“ B i d e n h a d s o m e s p e e c h d i f f i c u l t i e s , w h i c h w e a l -r e a d y k n e w a b o u t , ” D u n -can said. “O veral l , I think he did wel l . Trump was his usu-al nasty self, a bully. Biden by a long shot in what amount-ed to a midd le school debate on the playground. Vote blue.”

However, Jason Cummings—who studied psychology at Mur-ray State—feels that Trump is much more qualified to run the countr y af ter the fi rst debate.

“ B i d e n b l a m e d Tr u m p f o r COVID’s racism against black people,” Cummings said. “Per-haps misstated, he’s incoherent and he and his sons are nation-al t ra i tors . As wel l as Bernie, C l i n t o n , a n d O b a m a . B i d e n has no c lue how to r un any-th i n g , muc h l e s s a coun t r y. ”

S o m e f e l t a s t h o u g h t h e moderator—Fox ’s Chr is Wal-l a c e — d i d a l e s s t h a n a d e -quate job handling the debate.

“President Trump had to debate Biden and Wallace,” said Debbie Vance. “Wallace was very biased.”

Murray resident Vanessa Ly-ons was impartial when refer-r ing to a favorite candidate in her eyes a f ter the debate and was quite frank that there was no rea l w inner in the deba te

“I don’t know who won, but A m e r i c a l o s t , ” L y o n s s a i d .

T h e t w o c a n d i d a t e s w i l l m e e t i n M i a m i , F l o r i d a , f o r the nex t p re s ident i a l deba te , set for 8 p.m. CT on Oct. 15. Mike Pence and Kamala Har-ris will face off in the vice-pres-idential debate a week prior on Oct. 7 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Biden VS. Trump

Mike Boozer“Biden didn’t get the time to speak that Trump’s party agreed to period. It was wrong, this was not moderatedwell they should have cut o� Trump’s microphonewhen he repeatedly spoke out of turn. BIDEN 2020.”

Vanessa Ervin Lyons“I don’t know who won, but America lost.”

Jill Dearing Kaylor“Biden 100%. Without having a microphone kill-switch, there wasn’t much Wallace could do to stop Trump’s constant childish outbursts.”

Debbie Vance“President Trump had to debate Biden and Wallace. Wallace was very biased.”

Comments from The News Facebook pageBrooklyn Burnett/ The News

Photo courtesy of the Chicago Sun-Times

Photo courtesy of NBC News

Presidential Debates

Vice-Presidential Debate

When: Oct. 15, 8 p.m. CT.Where: Miami, Florida

When: Oct. 22, 8 p.m. CT.Where: Nashville, Tennessee

When: Oct. 7, 8 p.m. CT.Where: Salt Lake City, Utah

NewsSportsFeatures

page 2page 4page 6

Murray State dining partners with Grubhub

page 2

NCAA makes it mandatory for

student athletes to have Election Day off

Alumnus named Paducah assistant

principal

page 4 page 6

News2 Oct. 1, 2020

9/10

Police Beat is compiled with material from the Murray State Crime and Fire Log.

Not all dispatched calls are listed.

Colton Colglazier/The News

9/29 1:12 P.M.Hester College

Theft was reported after two bicycles were stolen on Aug. 15.

6:48 P.M.College CourtsA fire was reported after an accidental stove fire occurred.

10:23 A.M.Fraternity HouseProperty was damaged at a fraternity house. Subject was referred to other police jurisdictions.

9/25

12:30 A.M.Hester CollegeAssault was reported after an individual was shoved by another person. Prosecution was declined.

9/16 10:35 P.M.

Wellness CenterTheft was reported after a wallet was stolen. The wallet was later located.

7:40 P.M.Residential CollegeRape was reported after unwanted sexual contact occured on March 29. No criminal complaint was received.

9/13

9/11

6:15 P.M.Residential CollegeRape was reported after unwanted sexual contact occured on Feb. 29. No criminal complaint was received.

5:39 P.M.Elizabeth CollegePossession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia were reported. The subject received a citation.

2:15 A.M.Off CampusRape was reported after unwanted sexual contact occured. Subject was referred to other police jurisdictions.

9/17

Mason GalemoreContributing Writermgalemore@murraystate.edu

To save time and help social distancing, Murray State has partnered with the popular app Grubhub, joining 300,000 oth-er dining services and restau-rants in partnership with the app.

General Dining Staff Manag-er Jim Halcombe is in charge of the Grubhub-Murray partnership.

“Racer Dining wanted to bring a mobile ordering solution to campus for the convenience of our guests,” Halcombe said. “Particu-larly in the current COVID-19 climate, we felt it was import-ant to provide an option that would allow for touchless pay-ment while minimizing contact and improving speed of service.”

Grubhub was the only avail-able platform approved by Chick-fil-A, so that is what Racer Din-ing chose for its retail locations.

“We worked with our Univer-sity partners as well as Grub-hub to plan the implementation process,” Halcombe said. “ We determined which locations we wanted to feature on Grubhub.”

Once that was decided, Hal-combe and his staff sent in menus and hours of operation for each location, installed hardware, in-tegrated the Grubhub ordering platform with the RacerCard system and tested transactions.

They first launched Grubhub at Chick-fil-A, which was fol-lowed by Einstein Bros Bagels, Starbucks, Steak ‘n Shake, Tres Habaneros and Subconnection.

To use the app, you must fol-low a few simple steps. F irst, download the app. Then, set up an account and l ink i t to

your RacerCard. Select the lo-cat ion you would l ike to or-der from, put your meal in the cart and checkout. Finally, go to the store to pick up your meal.

For Chick-fil-A, students can check in when they arrive; for the other locations, no check in is necessar y. In the mean-time, Grubhub sends that or-der to the kitchen of which-ever re s taurant was se l ec ted and the s t a f f f i l l the o rde r.

M a n y s t u d e n t s b e l i e v e t h i s n e w a d d i t i o n i s c o n -v e n i e n t a n d u s e r f r i e n d l y.

“ I u s e Gr ubh u b f r equ en t -ly,” said freshman Hayden Ter-ry. “It allows me to get my food faster and more efficiently, es-pecially when I am in a rush.”

T h e r e w e r e f e w s t u d e n t s w h o h a d a n y t h i n g b a d t o s a y a b o u t t h e a p p. M o s t o f them p r a i s ed the app’s ve r -sati l i ty and user fr iend liness.

“I use Grubhub ever ytime I eat at Chick-il-A,” said soph-omore Meagan Pratt. “The app seems flawless and I never have any problems when using it . ”

H a l c o m b e i s o p t i m i s t i c abou t the ne w d in ing app s .

“ T h e f e e d b a c k f o r G r u b -hub has been mostly positive, from students as well as facul-ty and staff,” Halcombe said. “ We a re t h r i l l e d t h a t m a ny students, faculty and staff are c u r r e n t l y u s i n g t h e G r u b -hub app, and we hope to grow tha t number in the fu tu re . ”

T h e d i n i n g s t a f f w i l l b e r u n n i n g p r o m o t i o n s i n t h e next few weeks of fer ing dis-counts to those ut i l iz ing the app; s tudents can s tay tuned to the i r soc ia l media out le t s @ R a c e r D i n i n g f o r u p d a t e s .

Murray State dining partners with Grubhub

Paige Bold/The NewsStudents can now use Grubhub to order their meals in advance.

3Oct. 1, 2020 News

Sarah MeadStaff Writersmead@murraystate.edu

Murray State is holding a Di-versity, Equity and Inclusion Vir-tual Symposium on Friday, Oct. 2.

The event will serve to educate students, faculty, staff, alumni and members of Murray’s community on issues related to race and ethnicity. The symposium begins at 9:30 a.m. with welcoming remarks by Uni-versity officials. Aaron Thompson, president of the Kentucky Coun-cil on Postsecondary Education, will begin his keynote address at 10 a.m. After lunch, two conversation panels will be available for public viewing at 1 p.m. and at 2:30 p.m.

The symposium will serve as a part of President Bob Jack-son’s agenda to advance diversity and inclusion on campus.

“At Murray State University we value diversity, equity and inclu-sion and strive to have a commu-nity where our students feel wel-come, safe and supported,” Jackson said in an email to students. “We have worked to promote these im-portant tenets and realize that we still have more work to do.”

Subtitled “Grand Conversa-tions,” the symposium is designed to endorse discussion. State and na-tional leaders in education and di-versity have been invited to speak at the symposium. Many of the panelists are alumni of Murray State, including current Regents Leon Owens and Don Tharpe. Students and faculty are invited to attend the two discussions to hear their advice on these topics.

Coordinated by Don Robertson, vice president of Student Affairs, and S.G. Carthell, executive direc-tor of Multicultural Initiatives, the symposium will provide students with a safe environment to en-gage in positive cross-cultural and cross-racial dialogue. The sympo-sium is guided by Jackson and the University’s seven guiding principles to promote and celebrate diversity: champion inclusion, enhance oppor-tunities, increase cultural opportu-nities, increase cultural competence, encourage involvement, understand history and endorse discussion.

The University is already planning for future diversity symposiums and is hoping to have the event available to an in-person audience next fall.

Students can register at TheNews.org to receive additional informa-tion on the virtual symposium and access to additional resources rel-ative to diversity, equity and in-clusion. The keynote and Grand Conversations will be livestreamed. The link for the livestream can also be found at TheNews.org.

‘Grand Conversations’

Staff Report

M u r r a y S t a t e m o v e d i n t o the s e cond pha s e o f v i s i t a -tion guidelines detailed in the Racer Res ta r t In i t i a t i ve , a l -lowing hal l to hal l visitation.

As of 8 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 29, students living in the residen-tial halls are now allowed to visit residents in other halls on cam-pus. With the new phase comes additional restrictions to help re-duce the spread of COVID-19.

If a student chooses to invite a guest from another residential hall into their room, the guest will be required to swipe their Murray State ID card to con-firm their on-campus residency.

Similar to past visitation reg-ulations, once their on-campus l iv ing ass ignment is ver i fied,

the guest and resident of the hall have to complete the guest check-in process and leave their ID cards at the front desk. Vis-itors must also be escorted by their hosts at al l t imes while checked into the residential hall.

Un l ike p re v iou s v i s i t a t i on gu i de l i n e s , v i s i t a t i on hou r s will begin at 8 a.m. and end at midnight, requiring al l guests t o l e a v e b y m i d n i g h t e a c h night. Additional ly, residents can only check in one resident at a t ime, rather than two as they were allowed in the past.

As the University administra-tion monitors the reported cas-es on campus, the new visita-tion policy could be revoked in the future if deemed necessary.

For the full list of visitation guidelines, visit TheNews.org.

Jill Rush/The News Students are now able to check in other students who reside in on-campus housing.

On-campus students allowed to visit other Residential Colleges

Murray State to hold diversity talk

At Murray State

University we value diversity, equity

and inclusion and strive to have a

commumnity where our students feel

welcome, safe and supported. We have worked to promote

these important tenets and realize that we still have more work to do.

- President Bob Jackson

4 Oct. 1, 2020SportS

Jakob MilaniContributing Writerjmilani@murraystate.edu

Voting has been the focal point of conversations among many ath-letes at the professional level, and now the NCAA is giving college athletes their chance to go vote and make their voices heard.

In a recent decision, the NCAA mandated that all Division I ath-letic programs give their student athletes Election Day, Nov. 3, off. Programs will not be allowed to hold any practices or competitions on Election Day.

The decision goes into effect this year and will continue for years to come. Murray State is one school that is affected by the recent de-cision and had already declared Election Day as a holiday for the University.

The University is one of many OVC universities to do this, hop-ing that not just the student ath-letes but all college students will go out to exercise their right to vote.

Murray State Athletic Director Kevin Saal talked about the re-cent decision and his beliefs on the matter.

“We believe strongly in devel-oping the young people in our program ‘The Racer Way’... as students, persons, players and eventually professionals,” Saal said. “As tomorrow’s leaders, we encour-age our Racers to use their voice and exercise their right to vote on Nov. 3.”

In addition to this recent deci-sion, Murray State coaches and administrative staff will educate student athletes on the process

of becoming a voter. The CFSB Center will be one four polling

locations in Calloway County for Election Day, providing plenty of

room for social distancing during the current pandemic.

College athletes voices to be heardNCAA makes it mandatory for student athletes to have Election Day off

Photo courtesy of the CFSB Center/FacebookThe CFSB Center will be one of four polling locations in Calloway County on Election Day.

Photo courtesy of the OVCThe OVC is one of many conferences across the country to encourage its student athletes to vote.

5Oct. 1, 2020 SportS

Simon ElfrinkStaff Writerselfrink@murraystate.edu

Murray State baseball maintains competition with intrasquad scrim-mages for the second weekend in a row.

Since the OVC has discouraged any competitive play for fall sports, the Racers have to improvise to find a way to simulate the scrimmages they would usually play against other teams in the fall. Head Coach Dan Skirka’s solution was to pit his players against each other in scrimmages where the upperclass-men take on their younger teammates.

After just five scrimmages, Skir-ka was pleased with how far his team has come in the two weeks the Racers have been scrimmaging. Skirka admit-ted his team is still in the early stag-es of “breaking the rust off,” but he is pleased with the improvement in such a short time.

“Compared to the first weekend, you can see our hitters’ timing is better and our pitchers were around the strike zone more,” Skirka said. “Most of our guys haven’t played since we got shut down in March.”

The upperclassmen’s squad, dubbed the Old Dudes, took both games of the weekend over the underclassmen’s squad, or Young Guns, winning 7-4 and 15-8, respectively.

The Old Dudes struck first in the second inning when redshirt junior catcher Tanner Booth scored two on a single to shallow center field.

The Young Guns answered with a pair of runs in the fourth after redshirt junior catcher Alex Crump got a base hit with the bases loaded.

The first game was tied 4-4 going into the top of the seventh inning. Graduate outfielder Jake Slunder led off with a single to center followed by a pair of walks to load the bases. Slun-der scored on a fielder’s choice. Red-shirt senior outfielder Brock Anderson scored an additional run with a sacri-fice fly to right field. The Old Dudes scored the final run of the first game

on a wild pitch making the final score 7-4.

The Old Dudes’ pitching featured redshirt sophomore left-hander Shane Burns with the start, striking out a bat-ter for each of his three innings and allowing only one hit. Graduate righty Alec Whaley picked up two innings on the hill, striking out a pair of batters and setting the stage for redshirt junior right hander Conner Holden to close the game with two no-hit innings and four strikes.

Redshirt freshman Ryan Fender started on the bump for the Young Guns, going two innings and allowing only a single hit and one earned run, striking out three batters. Freshman Adam Weihe picked up a pair of in-nings, striking out a pair of batters and giving up one hit and one run. Red-shirt freshman Malik Pogue pitched for two and one-third innings, allow-ing two runs and two hits, striking out one batter in the process. Redshirt freshman Jordan Naranjo took the last two and two-third innings, striking out four batters in that span.

The second game of the weekend se-ries featured a lot more offense as the Old Dudes tallied four runs in quick succession in the top of the first inning. Redshirt senior infielder Jordan Cozart hit a two-run double, followed shortly by a two-run homer from Anderson.

The scoring never stopped for the Old Dudes, picking the bats up in the second inning to earn six more runs, four of which came from a grand slam from Perkins. Redshirt junior catcher Jonah Brannon hit a homerun in the fourth as well.

The Young Guns’ offense was a lit-tle slower, scoring only one run in the first five innings thanks to a sacrifice fly from redshirt freshman Jacob Pen-nington. However, the bats came alive for the Young Guns in the sixth inning when they put up six runs. They put up another run in the seventh for a final score of 15-8 in favor of the upper-classmen.

Skirka was pleased with how his older players are carrying themselves during the scrimmages, setting the tone for the whole team as they pre-pare for the new season.

“Some of these guys have been here

four and five years now, and three of those years with me,” Skirka said. “Day to day they know how we should go about our business. Now they’re bring-ing the young guys with them which is awesome to see.”

Photo courtesy of Racer AthleticsJunior catcher Jonah Brannon swings at a pitch in Murray State baseball’s second weekend of intrasquad scrimmages

Photo courtesy of Racer AthleticsMurray State baseball held multiple intrasquad scrimmages between the Old Dudes & the Young Guns.

Baseball prepares for upcoming seasonMurray State holds two weekends of instrasquad scrimmages

Features

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Editorial Board Gage Johnson Cady Stribling Dr. Stephanie Anderson Editor-in-Chief FeaturesEditor FacultyAdvisergjohnson17@murraystate.edu cstribling1@murraystate.edusanderson37@murraystate.edu

Jenna Carnes Allison Manning Jillian Rush Contact UsChiefCopyEditor AdSalesManager PhotoEditor 2609 University Stationjcarnes2@murraystate.edu amanning4@murraystate.edu jrush4@murraystate.edu MurrayStateUniversity Murray,Kentucky42071-3301Kalea Anderson Elizabeth Erwin John O’Neill TheNews.org ChiefVideographer PublicRelationsManager OnlineManager kanderson29@murraystate.edueerwin1@murraystate.edu joneill4@murraystate.edu

to the diversity symposium this week. We need it more now than ever. Be sure to attend!

&JEERSJEERS

JEERS

CHEERSto the first presidential debate...if that is what that was. Looked more like a spat between kindergarteners!

CHEERS.... JEERS....

6 Oct. 1, 2020

Ciara BenhamStaff Writercbenham@murraystate.edu

While simultaneously running for state representative, a Murray State graduate has been named as-sistant principal at Paducah’s new Career and Technical Education Center.

Corbin Snardon, who received his master’s degrees in school counsel-ing and education administration from Murray State, earned the as-sistant principal position at the Pa-ducah Innovation Hub.

The Innovation Hub is a tech-nical center that offers immersive education in technology, trades, healthcare, river industry and more to public, homeschool and private high school students in Paducah, McCracken County, Graves Coun-ty and Livingston County.

Snardon has been teaching in Pa-ducah since his arrival in the city in 2011. After graduating with his bachelor of science in social studies from Western Kentucky University, Snardon came to Paducah for the first time.

“A large part of what brought me here was that my scholarship di-rector had very close personal ties to Paducah, and they were active-ly recruiting candidates of color,” Snardon said. “I had never been to Paducah before, but I am so glad that I made the decision to move to a wonderful system.”

Af ter teaching a t Paducah Middle School for nine years, Snardon took an interim position as assistant principal at the mid-dle school. According to Snar-don, the interim position helped him “learn the ropes of adminis-tration” that led him to his new position.

In July 2020, Snardon took his new position as assistant princi-pal at the Innovation Hub. Snar-don credits his success to his own determination but also to those who helped him along the way.

“Hard work, a lot of prayer and multiple doses of humility got me where I am today,” Snardon said. “I take my career very seriously and fortunately for me I have had some fantastic mentors along the way who have helped develop me and push me in education.”

Snardon was “super excited” to receive this new position and continue working with students in western Kentucky. Snardon said that he loves working with kids and young people because he gets to watch them grow.

“My favorite part of teaching is the energy that kids give off and the potential they possess,” Snar-don said. “I love seeing kids learn new things and grow.”

Alongside his passion for educa-tion, Snardon is seeking to make a change by running for state rep-resentative of District 3. Snardon said he balances running a cam-paign very carefully with being an administrator.

“I make a very clear distinction between Corbin Snardon, assistant principal, and Corbin Snardon, District 3 candidate for Kentucky State House of Representatives,” Snardon said. “It ’s a delicate bal-ancing act but also an exciting one.”

Snardon was inspired to run for office because he wanted to repre-sent Paducah and diversify Ken-tucky Legislature. He also thinks it is important to give a voice to edu-cation concerns.

“I want to see a change,” Snar-don said. “I want to make sure that my city is properly invested in and growing. I want to make sure that District 3 isn’t left out of the im-portant conversations. Frankfort needs people that look like the populations they serve. Frankly, there are too few diverse candi-dates in the legislature. I, also as a public educator, want to make sure that students and education staff are represented at the highest state levels.”

Snardon plans to keep his posi-tion as assistant principal even if he wins the election. He will be able to maintain this balance because state representatives do not meet year round, only when the Legislature is in session, in committee or special called sessions.

Snardon served on the Maid-en Alley Cinema Board, previ-ously Site Based Decision Mak-ing Council, for Paducah Middle School from 2012 to 2015 and is currently an Executive board mem-ber of the Paducah McCracken Co. NAACP.

Snardon has also received sev-eral awards throughout his ca-reer including the 2018 NAACP NEXTGEN Leadership Develop-ment Program Graduate (Inaugural Class) Leadership Paducah Class #32 Graduate, the 2018 Paducah McCracken County NAACP Member of the Year Award and was a finalist for the 2015 Ashland Inc. Kentucky Teacher of the Year.

In a final statement, Snardon en-couraged Murray State students to “register to vote by the voter dead-line and vote in this year’s election.”

Alumnus named Paducah assistant principal

Photo courtesy of Corbin SnardonAlumus Corbin Snardon was named assistant principal at Career and Technical Education Center.

7Oct. 1, 2020 Features

Cady StriblingFeatures Editorcstribling1@murraystate.edu

Iris SnappContributing Writerisnapp@murraystate.edu

Alumnus and professor of history Brian Clardy recently had his arti-cle “Blood at the Root: A Historio-graphical Commentary on Lynching in America” published in “The Jour-nal of the Jackson Purchase Histor-ical Society.” With a history of its own, the scholarly article has been in the making for over 20 years with influences originating from Clardy’s time as a graduate student.

At Southern Illinois University, Clardy said he was a graduate assis-tant for Julius Thompson, a professor who was doing research on the age of lynching in Mississippi. Clardy often gathered sources for Thompson, but even as a graduate student, Clardy said he was uncomfortable dealing with the topic of lynching as it was very painful for him.

“I wanted to do something on lynching as a historian,” Clardy said. “I am a diplomatic historian by training, that’s true, but I’m also an African American male and I’m also a southerner. For me to ignore that history and not to at least help to contribute to the public’s under-standing of that, I would have felt like a coward honestly.”

Growing up, Clardy had heard of various lynchings or stories of racial violence in the past from areas close to him. Particularly, he had heard of a lynching that happened in the 1930s in a town fairly close by in Tennessee. Clardy had seen photographs of the victims that were ritualistically tak-en at the lynchings, and Clardy said these photographs—and seeing the mobs standing around the victims as if they’d done something great—were very disturbing.

But mustering the energy to re-ally focus on lynchings as a histori-cal act, Clardy said, happened a few years ago after learning about the lynching museum in Montgomery,

Alabama. Clardy and his church vis-ited the museum around the time that Clardy’s pastor asked him for a favor.

“He texted me one day and asked me if I would lead a discussion over James Collins’ classic work of ‘The Cross and the Lynching Tree,’” Clardy said. “Oh, I’m not going to turn my priest down, so I told him I would and I got the book.”

Around the same time, Clardy left for the lynching museum.

“It was a very gripping monument,” Clardy said. “That and the Lega-cy Museum. Going on that trip for the first time gave me a whole lot of voice. It gave me my voice basically to really talk about and wrestle with the question of lynching.”

Clardy soon returned to the mu-seums with Murray State students during Spring Break in 2019. He said the museums still had the power to shock him and get him thinking about the legacy of racial violence.

Clardy chose to deal with lynching through a historical lens by focusing on case studies in western Kentucky that had happened. He said he want-ed to give the Jackson Purchase read-ers a digest of why and how lynch-ings happened, how they impacted western Kentucky and what the prac-tical implications are for racial vio-lence today.

Clardy chose his title “Blood at the Root” from the Billie Holiday song “Strange Fruit,” which he used as a guide as he worked through the article.

He began his research by looking at two local lynchings: the 1908 racial-ly-motivated murder of the Walker family in Hickman, Kentucky, and the 1931 murder of George Smith in Union City, Tennessee. Clardy heard about these murders growing up.

“The first thing I did was look at the literature,” Clardy said. “I looked at the historical literature on lynch-ing and looked at the popular works on it. There was a work done in the 1980s by a man who actually sur-vived an attempted lynching named James Cameron. He wrote about his particular experiences in Marion,

Indiana, in the 1930s called ‘Time of Terror.’”

Clardy examined works from well-known and unknown authors, news-paper accounts and reports from the Equal Justice Initiative and the NAACP. Clardy said he even looked at various maps of where different lynchings happened, trying to find something that connected them.

“I did find that there were some common threads among them,” Clardy said. “This view was that the person who was lynched had vio-lated some social norm, that they were considered uppity, that they had committed an imagined crime or maybe even a real crime and were not given the benefit of due process.”

The cases made Clardy feel more inclined to write a commentary on the history of lynching when he re-alized the people who had been at-tacked did not get their due process.

These literatures and prima-ry sources gave Clardy the idea on how best to construct the narrative he wanted to tell. Clardy took the research and information he found from the past and compared it to the racial implications it has today.

“As it turned out, I did all of this long before George Floyd,” Clardy

said. “It was so interesting that George Floyd’s murder happened as I was in the process of revising this thing, and the parallels are very, very striking. What happened with Bre-onna Taylor and what happened with Ahmuad Arbery, all of this is hap-pening as I’m finishing up the proj-ect. You talk about serendipity.”

A struggle that went back over a quarter of a century, Clardy said he was glad he carried out the project for public reading and is glad that it’s a part of his scholarship record.

As an addition to his research, Clardy gave presentations at the Calloway County Public Library and the history department research forum.

Clardy said he does not enjoy studying racism, but it is a history that we need to understand.

“The reality is that it does exist, so to be able to study and exam-ine how and why there has always been this racialized element with-in American society [is import-ant],” Clardy said. “We’re still going through that, but if there’s going to be any hope for America to become a truly multiracial and inclusive so-ciety, that is a history we need to wrestle with.”

Professor publishes article years in the making

Photo courtesy of Brian ClardyAlum and professor Brian Clardy’s historiographical commentary took over 20 years in the making.

Ben OverbyContributing Writerboverby2@murraystate.edu

Buddhist monk Tsering Phuntsok visited Murray State on Monday, Sept. 28, to speak about compassion and Buddhism.

Phuntsok has been a Tibetan Buddhist monk for 34 years and has been visiting Murray State for 11 years. He works and resides in Dharamsala, India, the exiled home of the Dalai Lama. Phuntsok is an instructor in the monastery where he trained and worked on projects to help Tibetan refugees.

In the last few years, he has also acted as a guide for students who come to Dharamsala to volunteer with local non governmental agen-cies to improve the lives of Tibetan refugees.

He partners with American uni-versities for study abroad opportu-nities and to advocate for Tibet-an people in exile. Phuntsok also speaks at various universities in the U.S. and Europe.

Phuntsok began his speech with a short healing ritual. It consisted of a chant as well as the use of many spiritual objects. Phuntsok said the type of healing the ritual focuses on is called Chöd.

“Chöd means to take out your ego, take out your pride, take out your ignorance and take out your jealou-sy,” Phuntsok said.

He said these spiritual poisons, along with hatred and anger, need to be shed to gain wisdom. All of the other poisons stem from ignorance.

“There are 84,000 poisons within us and Buddha focused on taking these out through chantings, med-itations, mantras and all different kinds of practices,” Phuntsok said.

Phuntsok spoke about the Bud-dhist perspective of compassion. He said everyone, regardless of their re-ligious views or lack thereof, prac-tices limited compassion in different ways. Phuntsok added that animals and perhaps even spirits practice compassion in the same manner.

“Buddha introduced that we can practice compassion in an unlim-ited way,” Phuntsok said. “He said that genuine compassion is prac-ticed without bias. This is the bigger compassion.”

He talked about a story in Bud-dhist scripture that demonstrates this supreme compassion. Phuntsok said a former life of Buddha gave his body to feed a starving moth-er tiger with five cubs. The mother tiger was too weak to eat him and Buddha had to scratch himself with a branch so the tiger could lick up his blood. Phuntsok said this is a very uncommon compassion that has no ego.

Phuntsok also mentioned his observances of compassion in the modern day. He talked about young climate activist Greta Thunberg as

an example of a single person mak-ing change in the world. He also spoke about the importance of peo-ple showing compassion for animals and their suffering.

Phuntsok pointed out the Bud-dhist notion of compassion to the sun. Just as the sun shines on every-one without bias, people should act with compassion in the same un-wavering manner.

Phuntsok talked about the dif-ferent functions of monks in mon-asteries. While the chant he per-formed only lasted minutes, he said there are chants that last weeks or

even months. He explained that there are ritual sections of the mon-astery that spend the whole day chanting.

“In our monastery they wake up at five in the morning. They are chant-ing a lot. They also go into the vil-lage as a social worker when there is physical or mental sickness to heal and perform blessings,” Phuntsok said.

It is clear from Phuntsok’s speech that compassion plays a crucial role in Buddhism. However, its impor-tance in the world transcends any single religion or belief.

Monk travels to campus to spread message of compassion

Ben Overby/The NewsTibetan monk Tsering Phuntsok visited campus to speak on the Buddhist perspective of compassion.

Monk to Murray State

Features8 Oct. 1, 2020

1Contributed by Ashli Craig, Molly Dowell and Mallory Unverfehrt

Racer One

‘This year’s Racer One horse Vegas is sassy, energetic and the perfect visual for social distancing. “If we measured in length, I would guess Racer One would be about 6 feet long,” said Bailey Blackburn, a mem-ber of the Racer One team. Horses, usual-ly measured in “hands,” actually measure 6 feet on average – the approximate length

for social distancing.

ways to stay 6 feet apart

Racer Style6“I would guess 15 chicken sandwiches,” said Molly Yates, an elementary education major, when asked how far 6 feet of Chick-fil-A is. The fast-food chain is a newer restaurant featured on Murray State’s cam-pus and has amassed a large fanbase. Measuring 4 inches long, it would take 18 Chick-fil-A sandwiches

to fulfill a social distance.

If you find your match then place a pair of shoes onto the iconic Shoe Tree. Just imagine the Shoe Tree has a match, and you can imagine 6 feet. It takes about two full shoe trees to maintain the social dis-

tancing requirements.

18 Chick-fil-A Sandwiches Two Shoe Trees

2 3

4One Bicycle

If you ride a bike, you are rolling on 6 feet. Sounds crazy, right? One bicycle is equiv-alent to 6 feet. You can find these bicycles rolling on the bridge, on bike racks in front of residential colleges, academic buildings

and around Murray. 5One Murray State Bench

Shelby Shank, senior animal science ma-jor, said it’s easy to visualize 6 feet in the classroom and T-Room with stickers and signs, but on the farm and outside, it’s much harder to tell. Scattered throughout campus are beautiful benches for studying, relaxing and (currently) visualizing 6 feet. 6

Eight Football Helmets

The Racer football season may be postponed but the tradition remains in the hearts and minds of students and faculty across campus, especially when it comes to social distancing. If about eight players lined their helmets in a row, the length would measure the equivalent of nearly 6 feet – the appropriate distance to stand from others in the time of COVID-19.

Paige Bold and Gage johnson/The News

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