2012-09-20 The Auburn Plainsman

              The Auburn Plainsman
A Spirit That Is Not Afraid
Thursday, September 20, 2012 www.theplainsman.com Vol. 118, Issue 14, 18 Pages
Annie Faulk
Writer
Considering the nation’s recent
shootings and the resulting political
debates, Students for Concealed Car-ry
takes a stand with their views on
campus gun control.
“Our organization believes in the
right of citizens to responsibly defend
themselves within the boundaries set
forth by the law,” said Nathan Young,
president of Auburn’s Students for
Concealed Carry. “To that end, we be-lieve
that students who have met the
requirements and received a state
issued concealed weapons permit
should not have their rights abridged
by University policy.”
Auburn’s weapon policy prohibits
the use, possession and transporta-tion
of dangerous or potentially dan-gerous
weapons. These include, but
are not limited to, concealed fixed
blade knives, pistols, revolvers, air
guns and explosive devices.
“Students for Concealed Carry be-lieves
that a responsible citizen who
is licensed by the state to carry a con-cealed
firearm for personal protec-tion
should not be denied that right
on university property,” said Stephen
Gulley, adviser for Auburn’s Students
for Concealed Carry.
Students for Concealed Carry
was founded after the Virginia Tech
shootings in 2007 by Chris Brown, a
political science major from the Uni-versity
of North Texas.
“Our efforts are viewed with a vari-ety
of emotions I am sure, but many of
the responses we have received have
been positive,” Young said. “We place
great emphasis on responsibility and
respect for the law.”
Young said he believes weapons
should be allowed on campus for li-censed
individuals.
“We advocate various means of
preparation for self-defense, includ-ing
nonlethal methods such as pep-per
spray or Tasers,” Young said. “In
the realm of firearms, we support
training citizens in proper firearms
safety through various programs, and
we have sponsored hands-on fire-arms
safety seminars in the past and
hope to do so in the future.”
The two main functions of the or-ganization
are to educate the pub-lic
by dispelling misconceptions and
to promote legislation on concealed
weapon rights, according to the Stu-dents
for Concealed Carry website.
“Students for Concealed Carry be-lieves
that those individuals who are
legally able to carry firearms off cam-pus
should have the ability to do so
on campus,” said David Shamp, vice
president of Auburn’s Students for
Concealed Carry. “Basically those
people with government-issued con-cealed
pistol permits. Permit hold-ers
normally undergo background
checks and often times training, de-pending
on the state or county.”
Gulley said the organization does
not take a position on gun use in gen-eral,
only on the ability of licensed
concealed carriers to exercise that
right on campus.
“The shootings in Aurora hap-pened
in a facility that restricted law
abiding citizens the right to carry fire-arms,”
Shamp said. “If anything, the
The right to bear arms
TJ Harlin
Campus Reporter
Many students may have noticed
rainbow stickers across campus
reading “Safe Zone.”
Although these stickers are
small, their message carries a huge
meaning.
The stickers signify the area is a
safe one for students, faculty and
staff who identify as gay, lesbian,
transgender or bisexual.
“I don’t know that Auburn is
considered an unsafe place ( for
LGBT students) across the board,
but there are certainly students as
well as some faculty and staff who
see some growth areas in how Au-burn
could be a safer environment,”
said Brandy Smith, counselor II, li-censed
psychologist with Student
Counseling Services. “I think part
of it is education.”
Education about these issues is
easy to find at Auburn.
Student Counseling Services
and the Multicultural Center offer
Safe Zone courses to faculty and
staff that educate and inform peo-ple
about the issues LGBT students,
faculty and staff face.
The Safe Zone project is a na-tionwide
effort at numerous colleg-es
and universities to raise aware-ness.
“It’s really something that we
were able to get started through ef-forts
and interest on campus,” said
Shakeer Abdullah, director of the
Multicultural Center. “There was
an interest for more awareness and
professional development for LGBT
issues.”
The course lasts four hours and
is filled with information tailored
to some of the specific issues the
LGBT community faces on Au-burn’s
campus.
“We want it to be engaging, be-cause
we know if we have folks for
four hours we really want them to
stay awake,” Smith said.
The course is more interactive
than a usual lecture.
Participants in the course are
broken into small groups through-out
the day to learn how to deal
with certain scenarios that may
arise with LGBT students.
“One main thing is to be in-formed,”
Smith said. “Just like with
every population, there are a lot of
myths and misinformation out.”
The course is not designed for
any specific group of people. It is
designed for anyone that wants to
be considered an ally within the
LGBT community.
“The goal is not to impress any
values on people,” Abdullah said.
“It’s really to raise awareness.”
The meaning of the stickers
across campus is similar to the
goals of the course.
“The stickers mean that this is a
space where it’s safe,” Smith said.
“It does not mean that this is a
space where someone has the same
identity as me, but rather it’s a re-flection
of ‘hey, I’m an ally. This is a
safe space you can come too.’”
Smith and Abdullah both believe
a safe environment for all students
is critical to Auburn living up to its
values.
“We’re really focused on the Au-burn
family, and I know that’s such
a core component of Auburn Uni-versity,”
Smith said. “What we’re
trying to do is help make sure that
every member of the Auburn fami-ly
is able to be respected and have
a voice.”
Abdullah’s words carry a similar
meaning.
“If we are really representing the
Auburn Creed, then we’re going to
understand all of the people who
are in our community and work
to ensure that the experience that
folks have is a positive experience
when they leave Auburn,” Abdul-lah
said.
The next Safe Zone course will be
offered Thursday Sept. 27.
Those who wish to participate
can sign up through Auburn Hu-man
Resources.
Should students have the right to carry weapons on campus?
Rebecca Croomes / Photo Editor
“Students for
Concealed Carry
believes that
a responsible
citizen who is
licensed by the
state to carry a
concealed firearm
for personal
protection should
not be denied that
right on university
property.”
—Stephen Gulley
Advisor for Students
for Concealed Carry
‘Safe Zones’ encourage
awareness among LGBT
» See Weapons, A2
Presidential election:
Jobs, education top
issues for students
TJ Harlin
Campus Reporter
Two issues surface as the most
important and pertinent topics for
college students in the upcoming
presidential election.
“Jobs and education are the two
main ones I’m worried about, said
Thomas Baker, freshman in pre-aerospace
engineering. “They’re
definitely the most important in
this election.”
Political organizations across
campus agree but have different
ideas on how to tackle the issues
and who the ideal candidate is.
“If you look at each candidate
through the lens of a college stu-dent
you will almost immediate-ly
grasp who holds the interest of
college students, and that’s clear-ly
Barack Obama,” said Jacob Dean,
president of College Democrats.
Sergio Gallardo, vice-president of
College Democrats, agrees.
“One of Obama’s biggest prior-ities
is education,” Gallardo said.
“That’s evident in the restructuring
of student loans.” Not everyone be-
» See election, A2
Gameday vs LSU
See Special
Section inside
Business parking regulations, outdoor
cafe permits reviewed at City Council
Nathan Simone
Online Editor
Amendments to Auburn’s min-imum
business parking require-ments
and the approval of a mixed-use
shopping district and retail li-quor
licenses defined the brief Au-burn
City Council meeting on Tues-day,
Sept. 18.
A special events retail alcoholic
beverage license was also approved
for a Luke Bryan concert taking
place Friday, Oct. 5 at the Wilson
Pub and Eatery on 2065 Sandhill
Road.
An amendment to the South Col-lege
Curb Cut Plan was made, allow-ing
Auburn businesses to have less
than the minimum parking require-ment
per square foot of usage.
“A good example of this is gas sta-tions.
We’re actually lowering the
parking requirements to make the
pumps count as parking spaces to
prevent over parking and lessen the
amount of impervious surfaces pres-ent.”
Forrest Cotton, planning direc-tor
for the city, further explained the
amendment.
“A developer or applicant now
has the opportunity to have park-ing
approved that is less than the
minimum required by ordinances,”
Cotton said. An amend-ment
was made to chapter XII, arti-cle
XII of the city code, capping per-mits
for outdoor cafes at $500.
Permits for outdoor cafes were
previously $1 per square foot, but
concerns from restaurants with
larger outdoor areas, such as Blood-hound,
prompted the cap.
Danielle Lowe / Photo Editor
An amendment to the Auburn’s minimum business parking requirements passed
Tuesday at the city counsel meeting.
Campus A2 The Auburn Plainsman Thursday, September 20, 2012
Toi Garcia
Writer
Downtown Auburn held its first ever AU-tumn
Nights event since the creation of the en-tertainment
district.
The event was sponsored by the Auburn
Chamber of Commerce, the Auburn-Opelika
Tourism Bureau, the City of Auburn, Auburn
Athletics, Downtown Auburn Merchants and
the Auburn Alumni Association. It took place
Friday, Sept. 14.
A pep rally started the celebration, and Au-bie,
the marching band, the cheerleaders and
the Swingin’ Medallions were all at Toomer’s
Corner throughout the night.
It was designed to offer students, alumni and
the Auburn community a way to celebrate the
first home game, which took place the morn-ing
after.
Although the primary purpose of the event
was to entertain people coming through for the
game, businesses claim it did wonders for their
stores and bars as well.
The Gap on College Street typically closes at
9 p.m. on Fridays, but because of the event it
stayed open longer, said Amanda Hutchinson,
assistant manager of the Gap.
“We’re staying open until 10 and it hasn’t
negatively affected the business at all,”
Hutchinson said. “Tonight alone we are doing
really well.”
The majority of their customers are Auburn
fans, and they loved being there for the event,
she said.
“It brings in a lot of people from the com-munity,
and it’s just good for the business,”
Hutchinson said.
Thomas Paterson, a bouncer for Bourbon
Street Bar, sat on a stool outside of the bar and
waited for customers.
He said the bar doesn’t usually open until 10
p.m. on a Friday for college students, but for
this event Bourbon Street opened at 7 p.m.
“The college crowd isn’t here and they are
serving the parents, community and alumni,
but are bringing in more business,” he said.
Because of the new open container law that
loosens the restraints on public consumption
of alcohol, Paterson said that while the bar may
not seem full, business is still good.
“Customers are buying drinks and walking
out,” he said. “Our business right now is com-ing
in and carrying out.”
Lt. Kenny Frazier, an officer with the Auburn
Police Department, said the new law has not
produced any negative effects yet.
“In this setting with adults and family it’s
fine and hasn’t gotten out of hand,” Frazier said.
“The department looks forward to securing the
event because of the low-key environment.”
Police officers had to show up about two
hours before the event and stay another two
afterward.
“We want our patrons to know that they are
in a secure environment,” he said.
At the event, there were several officers scat-tered
around to guarantee safety.
“The main thing is you want enough officers
visible,” Frazier said.
The next Downtown AUtumn Nights event
will be held Friday Nov. 16, the night before Au-burn
plays Alabama A&M University.
■ Clint Martin, 21, Wetumpka
Friday, Sept. 14, 2:36 a.m. on North Donahue Drive
■ Daniel Paul, 22, Greenville
Friday, Sept. 14, 3:02 a.m. on West Longleaf Drive
■ Joseph Holmes, 25, Smyrna, Ga.
Friday, Sept. 14, 7:08 a.m. on W.est Magnolia Avenue
■ Brandon Rohm, 18, Fairhope
Friday, Sept. 14, 9:13 p.m. on Wire Road
■ Ashley Lloyd, 30, Owensboro, Ky.
Saturday, Sept. 15, 12:45 a.m. at Bragg and Donahue
■ Bradley Crain, 20, Huntsville
Saturday, Sept. 15, 3:35 a.m. on Webster Road
■ John Reaves, 20, Columbus, Ga.
Saturday, Sept. 15, 3:58 a.m. at Wright Street and West Magnolia
Avenue
■ Josh Jones, 22, Albertville
Sunday, Sept. 16, 3:35 a.m. on Webster Road
■ Leah Pike, 21, Auburn
Sunday, Sept. 16, 4:32 a.m. on N. Donahue Drive
■ Miguel Ramirez, 23, Auburn
Sunday, Sept. 16, 11:44 p.m. at Webster and Wire Road
■ Mark Remmel, 42, Opelika
Monday, Sept. 17, 12:47 a.m. on West Magnolia Avenue
Public Intoxications in Auburn Sept. 13 - Sept.14
■ Sarah Hausler, 18, Jackonsville, Fla.
Thursday, Sept. 13, 10:44 p.m. at Aspen Heights
■ Melissa Crowe, 18, Austin, Texas
Thursday, Sept. 13, 10:44 p.m. at Aspen Heights
■ Jonathan Berry, 19, Macon, Ga.
Thursday, Sept. 13, 11:36 p.m. on Wright Street
■ Elliott Peace, 19, Atlanta
Friday, Sept. 14, 1:17 a.m. on Magnolia Avenue
■ Edwin Alvarez, 28, Guatemala
Friday, Sept. 14, 1:33 a.m. on Gentry Drive
■ Joseph Morrison, Jr., 18, Memphis
Friday, Sept. 14, 3:13 a.m. on Davis Drive
■ Joseph Cortopassi, 21, Mobile
Thursday, Sept. 13, 12:38 a.m. on South Gay Street
■ Ryan Winters, 18, Chattanooga, Tenn.
Thursday, Sept. 13, 12:49 a.m. on W. Longleaf Drive
■ Nicholas McLaughlin, 19, Dothan
Thursday, Sept. 13, 1:11 a.m. on Wright St.
Were you a 2011-12 SAA Member?
If so, it’s time to renew your
commitment to Auburn!
When you renew, you’ll get another year of
free Momma G’s nachos and other
delicious benefits…and a new T-shirt!
Come to the Auburn Alumni Center on
S. College to renew any weekday this week.
Questions?
334-844-2960 or www.aualum.org/saa.
AUtumn Nights begin new tradition
Magnolia Street was closed Friday for the
entertainment district’s first event, where the
new drinking law was given a trial run
Emily Morris / Assistant Photo Editor
LEFT: The new open container law allows more leniency for those wishing to drink alchohol at the event. RIGHT: The Auburn cheerleaders perform on a temporary stage on Magnolia Street for a crowd of people.
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recent gun violence has only
made people more interest-ed
in the right of legal self-defense
through the use of a
firearm.”
Shamp said the organiza-tion
feels recent gun violence
should promote legal firearm
ownership, not discourage it.
“The issue at hand is Au-burn
University’s restriction
upon firearms,” Shamp said.
“Legally they cannot restrict
a law abiding citizen from
carrying in Auburn Univer-sity,
since it’s a state-spon-sored
school, public proper-ty
and the right to bear arms
is protected by both the Sec-ond
Amendment of the U.S.
Constitution and Article I
section 26 of the Alabama
State Constitution.”
According to the Office of
the Attorney General’s web-site,
Alabama law prohibits
carrying a pistol in a vehi-cle
or concealed on or about
themselves without a pistol
permit license.
“Our law enforcement
agencies are superb and we
respect them greatly, but
they cannot predict ran-dom
criminal activity to pro-tect
all citizens,” Young said.
“The reason that they are of-ten
known as first respond-ers
is because they can only
as a general rule respond to
already ongoing criminal
activity, not prevent it from
happening initially.”
Young said the purpose of
self-defense advocacy is to
make people prepared to de-fend
themselves until law en-forcement
can arrive.
“It is our wish that no vi-olent
crime would ever be
committed against an inno-cent
citizen; but because in
our present world this dream
is unlikely to become real-ity,
we believe that it is best
for citizens to have a means
of defense to prevent them
from victimization by the vi-olent
criminals who would
commit crimes against
them,” Young said.
weapons
» From A1
election
» From A1
lieves that Obama’s presidency
is a good thing.
“Many conservative Repub-licans
believe government has
gotten too big.” said Charlie
Smith, president of College Re-publicans.
“As a conservative
Republican, I believe in hard
work and earning what I work
hard for.”
Smith plans to vote for
Romney mainly because of
America’s weak economy and
the president’s handling of it,
among other reasons.
“The economy is the biggest
concern for college students,”
Smith said. “Romney has had a
career turning around compa-nies
such as Staples and Sports
Authority, and I believe this is
why Romney is the better can-didate.”
Democrats tend to disagree,
and many believe his upbring-ing
somehow negatively af-fects
his ability to lead.
“Mr. Romney has been priv-ileged
his whole life,” Dean
said. “The disconnect Romney
has with most American peo-ple
is very big. I don’t begrudge
him for being successful, but I
do think that lifestyle has led to
the disconnect with American
voters.”
Smith cited several reasons
why four more years of Obama
would be unsuccessful.
“There has been 43 straight
months of over 8 percent un-employment,
and there is cur-rently
a rough estimate of 23
million U.S. citizens unem-ployed,”
Smith said. “For all
the families that are hurting
in this country, it is hard to be
happy about Obama’s presi-dency
thus far.”
Dean has a different list for
why Obama is the ideal candi-date.
“(Obama) has made our
country more safe,” Dean said.
“He has brought our troops
home from war and killed Osa-ma
bin Laden.”
One thing unites most vot-ers:
the need to be informed
and have a say in what goes on
in the government.
“The more kids are informed
on college campuses, the more
they have a sense of political
identity,” Gallardo said.
DUI Arrests in the City of Auburn
Sept. 14 - Sept.17
Thursday, September 20, 2012 The Auburn Plainsman Campus A3
Becky Hardy
Campus Reporter
Honeysuckle Gelato, a shop operating
one of Auburn’s food trucks, won a trip
up North to learn business tricks from
the best.
The company applied for a contest
through city guide website DailyCandy
that could bring them to New York City
for seminars with industry experts.
“We will attend what DailyCandy calls
the ‘academy’ and get to talk to people
at their events that have been success-ful
with growing their small businesses,”
said Wes Jones, partner of Honeysuckle
Gelato.
Some of the experts include Matt
Stinchcomb, inventor of Etsy, Gail Sim-mons,
from Bravo, Food and Wine, and
Ted Gibson, creator of Ted Gibson Beau-ty.
“Some of the mentors in the past have
been people like Sara Blakely, the wom-an
who invented Spanx,” Jones said.
“Other people that will be there are the
people from a famous cupcake place in
D.C., called Georgetown Cupcakes, so I
know that they will probably be the peo-ple
that we are assigned to and can help
us out on advice on online sales and re-tail
sales.”
A gala will also be held in honor of
all the winners, but the most important
prize is exposure on DailyCandy, Jones
said.
“DailyCandy have millions of sub-scribers
all across the country,” Jones
said. “It will help give us exposure to a
lot of different markets that we currently
don’t have any exposure in.”
Honeysuckle Gelato has only been a
part of the frozen treats scene for a year
now.
The gelato business all started when
Jones and a childhood friend, Jackson
Smith, joked about starting their own
business.
“(Smith and I) talked about it more
and more, and before we knew it we
started researching and fundraising,”
Jones said. “We both ended up quitting
our jobs, and Jackson moved back to At-lanta.”
Soon after the two started the busi-ness
they welcomed Khatera Ballad as
their third partner.
“And the rest is history,” Jones said.
Honeysuckle Gelato has over 108 fla-vors
and pulls their inspiration from
their everyday life.
“We make a lot of flavors from foods
we liked as a kid and types of desserts we
like to eat that you don’t necessarily find
as an ice cream or a gelato flavor,” Jones
said. “We try and figure out ways we can
try to turn that into a gelato.”
Honeysuckle also makes sure they
add seasonal flavors.
“With the holidays coming up we have
pumpkin, sweet potato and peppermint
flavors,” Jones said.
Honeysuckle Gelato’s main business is
to sell to restaurants in the area, but the
partners jumped at the chance to send a
truck to Auburn.
“We would love to be on campus at
Auburn during the school year,” Jones
said. “We would like to try out any other
college campuses in the future.”
Honeysuckle Gelato hopes to stay a
part of the Auburn family for a long time,
Jones said.
“We love being at Auburn, and if we
can find a home for the truck there, we’d
love to keep it there,” Jones said.
Auburn dining endeavors bear fruit
Becky Hardy
Campus Reporter
Chilton Food Innovation
Center hopes to bring more
profits for farmers across Al-abama
with the help of donat-ed
kitchen equipment from
Foy Hall.
“We’re about providing a
place for primarily famers to
bring their excess crops and
produce extended shelf life
products,” said Christy Men-doza,
director of Chilton Food
Innovation Center.
Farmers have trouble sell-ing
fruit and other produce
that is not perfect, Mendoza
said.
“For example, in Chil-ton
County, we have a lot of
peaches, and 30 percent of
the peaches on the trees will
not make it to the fresh mar-ket,
which the primary goal of
selling it is at the fresh mar-ket,”
Mendoza said. “Some of
them will be too small, not
ripe enough, too ripe, may
have spots or just have a fun-ny
shape to them. So if they
aren’t perfect they won’t be
sold at the fresh market.”
With the help of the old Foy
Union cafeteria equipment,
the Chilton Food Innovation
Center will be able to provide
farmers with a place to make
products out of their unwant-ed
produce.
“Those peaches can be
brought to the facility and
the farmers can make things
like peach jam, peach salsa or
peach syrup,” Mendoza said.
Mendoza also mentioned
the importance of co-packers
in this business.
“Farmers don’t have a lot of
time to come and make their
products while they’re in
the middle of harvest,” Men-doza
said. “Many of the fam-ers
would prefer having a co-packer.”
The center is looking for
people who would like to
start their own business as a
co-packer, she said.
“They would contact the
farmers and purchase their
produce, pack the prod-uct
and could sell it back to
them,” Mendoza said.
Students are also welcome
to share in the wealth, Men-doza
said.
“We welcome any students
that would like to start their
own food business,” Mendoza
said. “It doesn’t require a lot of
time, especially in the spring
and summer when the crops
are out. The students could
come up for a few days and
process and sell their own
branded product.”
The Chilton Food Innova-tion
Center also is in collab-oration
with the agriculture
school at Auburn.
“The county extension re-search
centers and the farm-ers
that we work with at the
center allow the agricultur-al
department at Auburn to
use the land to research and
test,” Mendoza said. “The stu-dents
can test new varieties of
a fruit or new pesticide.”
The Chilton Food Innova-tion
Center will continue to
collaborate with Auburn Uni-versity.
“We’re all in the same fami-ly,”
Mendoza said.
Foy donates kitchen supplies to
Chilton Food Innovation Center
to salvage imperfect produce
Danielle Lowe / Assistant Photo Editor
Honeysuckle Gelato sells various types of ice cream and sorbets and has been present on campus for almost a year.
Auburn food truck
wins national
competition, owners
head for New York
A4
Thursday, September 20, 2012 www.theplainsman.com Opinions
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- @Auburn_Problems
Let’s talk about the “F”
word—feminism.
If you’re a 90s kid like me,
the word most likely uproots
an unfortunate mental im-age
of Topanga from the first
season of “Boy Meets World.”
In just one iconic episode, the
braless, unhygienic and anti-male
Topanga conveys all the
stereotypical attributes femi-nists
fight against. If I lost you
at “feminism,” but recaught
your attention at “braless,”
good—welcome back, and
now stay with me because I’m
about to clear up a few mis-conceptions.
While I’m sure there are a
few hairy armpits here and
there, being a feminist does
not mean you don’t shave.
Nor does it mean you despise
men. In fact, the only defin-ing
characteristic of feminism
is the promotion of gender
equality by promoting the fe-male.
What better time to reflect
on gender equality than the
year a groundbreaking law
celebrates its 40th anniversa-ry?
In 1972, Congress passed
a law that we all know as Ti-tle
IX. This law requires gen-der
equality for boys and girls
in every educational program
receiving federal funding.
What Title IX stands for is dis-played
in iconic moments like
Brandy Chastain’s personal
celebration in response to the
1999 victory at the Women’s
World Cup. After scoring the
fifth kick in the penalty shoot-out,
she celebrated by whip-ping
off her jersey and falling
to her knees in a sports bra.
By exhibiting a celebration
technique usually only dem-onstrated
by male athletes,
Chastain made a bold state-ment
for female athletics. The
image was featured on the
covers of Time, Newsweek
and in the minds of idoliz-ing
girls everywhere, but this
is only one of the many defin-ing
moments enabled by Title
IX. It is important to note that
the law does not only apply to
athletics.
Title IX has many other ap-plications,
such as prevent-ing
sexual harassment and
increasing women’s opportu-nities
in science, technology,
engineering and math. And
since Title IX was passed 40
years ago, women have start-ed
playing a larger role in ed-ucation
and the workforce,
now earning undergradu-ate
and graduate degrees at
much higher rates and going
into traditionally male-domi-nated
fields. The increased ac-cess
to higher education has
enriched the economic prog-ress
of women as well.
As important as it is to look
back and celebrate the ac-complishments
Title IX has
made, it is even more crucial
to look forward to the many
challenges we are still fac-ing.
Women still lag behind
men in earning professional
and doctoral degrees, specif-ically
in disciplines like math
and science. Also, while wom-en
are more than 50 percent
of the lecturers and instruc-tors
and a little less than 50
percent of the assistant pro-fessors,
they only account for
36 percent of associate profes-sors
and only 21 percent of full
professors.
It is challenges like these
that inspire me and other
women on Auburn’s campus
to take initiative in continu-ing
to pave a way for female
empowerment.
Last fall, a small group of
young women got togeth-er
every Sunday in the Stu-dent
Center to discuss global
and regional issues that affect
women on our campus. This
small group forum is called
Girls Access to Power (GAP)
and is meant to foster strong
female leaders around cam-pus
and battle the societal
strongholds that act as obsta-cles.
“Yes it was therapeutic, and
yes it was informative, but
more than anything it was in-spirational,”
said Sheyda Meh-rara,
active GAP member. The
group’s next move is to legiti-mize
the forum as an Auburn
University organization.
If you haven’t already gone
into epileptic shock from such
frequent usage of the F word,
then I applaud you. In fact, if
you have made it this far in
the article, I owe you a cook-ie,
maybe two.
I hope what you take away
from this article is that fem-inism
is nothing to fear. Fe-male
equality and empower-ment
will not set your bras
on fire during the night, nor
will it hide all the shampoo in
your household.
So when it comes to girl
power, I say F y’all... F as in
feminism, of course.
The ‘F’ Word:
the legacy of
Title IX
Our View
Guest Column
By Elizabeth Johnston
of the Women’s Resource Center
Letter to the Editor
As of late, the Republicans have been asking
Americans a straightforward question: Are you
better off today than you were four years ago?
I can honestly answer that question with a re-sounding
“YES.”
Of course, the far right would also like us to
believe that America is in decline and that we are
heading towards a socialist, liberal abyss com-manded
by a president who wasn’t even born in
the United States, but the facts state otherwise.
To begin, I now have the opportunity to re-main
on my parents’ health care until the age
of 26 because of the Affordable Care Act. This
law allows me to go to law school, graduate
school or pursue higher education without wor-rying
about the pursuit of health care insurance
on a student budget. This in turn will create a
more educated society. President Obama risked
a lot of political capital in order to pass the ACA,
which will transform our health care system to
focus more on preventative services instead of
later treatment.
Secondly, President Obama ended the war in
Iraq. The President ended a costly and seeming-ly
perpetual war that diverted billions of dollars
to restore the broken foundation of Iraq which
could have been spent domestically building
schools, improving our nation’s dismal infra-structure
and trying to solve America’s looming
debt crisis. President Obama ordered the mili-tary
action which lead to Osama bin Laden’s
death.
President Obama also signed the Lilly Ledbet-ter
Act, which makes it easier for women to file
suit against discriminatory employers who pay
females less simply because of their gender.
Then, when congressional Republicans re-fused
to pass the DREAM Act, President Obama
issued an executive order to ensure that America
doesn’t deport young people who were brought
to America through no fault of their own. Pres-ident
Obama recognizes the need to invest in
young people and he worked diligently—and
succeeded—to make sure that student loans are
still offered at lower rates.
Finally, under President Obama 4.6 million
private sector jobs have been added during his
administration, and America has experienced
30 straight months of job creation. The Pres-ident
took an enormous risk early in his presi-dency
to save the auto industry, and because of
his actions over one million American jobs were
saved.
No one, not even President Obama, concedes
that the work is over. We still have much to ac-complish.
But rest assured that we have made
significant progress over the past four years and,
under Obama’s leadership, America is better off
today than it was four years ago.
Jacob Dean
President
Auburn College Democrats
Journatic is the sweatshop of journal-ism,
and it’s changing the face of journal-ism.
Well, they tried to, at least.
A segment on This American Life’s
“Switcheroo” episode 468 delved into the
controversy surrounding Journatic.
The company of Journatic aims to pro-duce
over 100,000 hyper-local stories a
week, hyperlocal meaning stories about
trash pickup schedules to the new restau-rant
opening down the road in your com-munity.
In fact, Journatic is creating this deluge
of quick, short stories by outsourcing con-tributors,
primarily the Philippines.
The company plus enormous amounts
of data and public information and re-cords
into various data bases that they
own, and they pay people to create stories
for this information.
Most of their writers live in the U.S., yet
almost half are overseas, working between
35-45 cents a story. Yep, cents.
Journatic also changes their bylines to
more generic names, like Jenny Cox.
This American Life spoke to Journatic
writer Ryan Smith of Chicago.
Smith told This American Life that he
doesn’t even understand Journatic com-pletely,
and he said he believes that jour-nalism
is supposed to be a local institu-tion,
founded by people who care about
the people in that community.
I agree completely with Smith’s state-ment
about journalism as a local institu-tion,
and Journatic is inauthentic, ethical-ly
wrong and frankly, disgusting.
Journatic isn’t producing good journal-ism;
it’s producing automated-like piec-es
of crap with little thought or care about
the stories or the people behind them.
It’s ruining the heart and connection
to journalism that hyper-local reporters
need and should thrive on.
The only way to write a riveting piece
about the trash pickups in a small neigh-borhood
in Illinois is if you actually go
there and speak to a garbageman, not grab
some “facts” from a database and paste it
together, hoping it’s correct.
Journatic is all-around wrong, and al-though
it may be cheaper to outsource
rather than hire more hyper-local, com-munity
journalists or begin a small com-munity
newspaper, I think we can all agree
that the cheap way is not always the best
way.
Outsourcing
our credibility
Melody
Kitchens
Intrigue@
theplainsman.com
Her View
We appreciate anyone of all
faiths and beliefs. We think there
is no need to hate anyone for being
different. Not in the hippie non-sense
sort of way, of course, but
in the idea that every human de-serves
respect and the chance to
live their life.
It would be great if everyone
else shared that viewpoint. Then
we wouldn’t hear about large-scale
riots in the Middle East over a film
made by bigots; then we wouldn’t
hear about lunatics protesting fu-nerals.
Religious extremism is com-pletely
unnecessary. However, us-ing
the doctrines of a seeming-ly
benevolent faith as a reason to
hate and kill appears to be a pop-ular
trend nowadays.
Islam is the fastest growing re-ligion
in the world. Many strug-gling
nations in the Middle East
and North Africa have adopted Is-lam
as a national religion and have
even formed governments around
the doctrine of the faith.
Although this growth scares a
lot of people in the West, it really
isn’t a big deal.
Yes, Muslim extremists exist,
and their actions are heinous and
misguided. Those who participat-ed
in the violent protests on Sept.
11 are reactionaries who have no
concept of the value of human life.
But these people don’t represent
all Muslims.
In fact, they are a small frac-tion
when compared to the num-ber
of Muslims worldwide, yet the
idea that all Muslims are terror-ists
seems to be a popular notion
in the West. Many have held peace-ful
protests in response to the in-flammatory
“Innocence of Mus-lims”
film. Some have even apolo-gized
for the horrendous violence
of the other protests.
The events of Sept. 11 2001 have
been burned into our nation-al
memory forever. We’ve all been
negatively affected by that trage-dy,
and it will be years before we
can find any closure or reconcilia-tion—
if we find any at all.
We do not have the right, how-ever,
to use that tragedy as motiva-tion
for prejudice. Much like Mus-lim
extremists have no right to
murder when they are offended.
The lack of respect and toler-ance
on both sides is astounding.
We are falling into the trap of let-ting
ourselves be defined by the
more idiotic among us, like those
who think the right of free speech
allows them to propagate hate or
violence.
We could offer a solution, but
what could it be?
Most of us know there is no rea-son
to hate or kill because of our
petty differences—religion, race
and nationality are petty differenc-es
whether you like it or not. But
some of us still feel the need to act
like monsters.
It’s sad that we still have to ques-tion
our humanity in 2012.
Obama’s accomplishments have made US better
No excuse
for hate,
violence
Graphic Contributed by Elizabeth Johnston
A5
Thursday, September 20, 2012 www.theplainsman.com Community
Community
Sydney Callis
Community Reporter
October is National Breast
Cancer Awareness Month,
and the East Alabama Medical
Center Foundation is helping
to put on three events to raise
money for breast care.
Each event is raising mon-ey
to support the breast health
of women living in and around
Lee County, said Sissy Barham,
special events coordinator for
the foundation.
“All of the breast cancer
events are raising money for
the EAMC Breast Health for
Underserved program,” Bar-ham
said.
The EAMC Breast Health
for Underserved Women pro-gram
helps women in Lee
County and several surround-ing
counties.
“Early detection is key in
the fight against breast cancer,
and this program allows for ev-eryone,
regardless of their abil-ity
to pay, to be able to be test-ed,”
Barham said.
Colleen Alsobrook, the
breast health navigator for the
EAMC and event coordinator
for the Think Pink Walk, said
these events raise money to
support the women in these
counties where no other orga-nization
does.
“This is our way for not
only promoting breast can-cer
awareness, but is the way
we raise the money to provide
free mammograms for wom-en
who have no insurance,” Al-sobrook
said. “It’s grown ev-ery
year, and it’s just an infor-mational,
inspirational-type
walk.”
The eighth annual Think
Pink Walk will take place Sept.
29. Registration before the
event is $12, but participants
can also register the day of the
event for $15.
“If you want a T-shirt in your
specific size, you need to regis-ter
by the 20th,” Barham said.
The walk begins at 9:30 a.m.
in the Courthouse Square in
downtown Opelika. Registra-tion
begins at 8 a.m., but par-ticipants
can also sign up be-forehand
online.
Along with raising money
for the EAMC Breast Health
for Underserved Women pro-gram,
the one-mile walk also
celebrates the survivors of
breast cancer.
“It’s a walk to honor breast
cancer survivors,” Barham
said. “It’s one mile around
downtown, and everybody
gets a T-shirt before the walk,
so it’s just a flood of pink T-shirts.”
The next event sponsored
by the EAMC Foundation is
Bingo for Breast Care on Oct. 9
at 11:30 a.m. at the Health Re-source
Center.
Ten games of bingo will be
played, and it is $25 for lunch
and a bingo card. Each addi-tional
bingo card costs $1.
Bra-Dazzle, a bra decorat-ing
contest, is the final EAMC
Foundation-sponsored event
to raise money for the EAMC
Breast Health for Underserved
Women program.
“Other towns had been very
successful and very creative,”
Alsobrook said. “They’ve had
some really cute bras done,
and they thought this would
be something people would
jump on board for. They seem
to be liking the idea.”
Alsobrook said she hopes
anybody who wants to show
creativity and get the word out
about how important early de-tection
is enters the contest.
Entry is $10 and must be
submitted by Oct. 1. From Oct.
2 to 9, entries will be displayed
and voted on at the Health Re-source
Center.
Either individually or team
created, the entries must
be turned in by Oct. 1 at the
EAMC Foundation office or to
Alsobrook in the EAMC Can-cer
Center.
Final voting and announce-ment
of the winners will take
place during Bingo for Breast
Care. There will be two win-ners,
one for best theme and
the other for voter favorite.
For more information
about the three events, includ-ing
official rules for the Bra-
Dazzle contest, visit thinkpink.
eamc.org. If interested in vol-unteering
for any event, email
foundation@eamc.org.
Eva Woghiren
Community Reporter
Learning to drive can be
one of the most exciting times
of a young person’s life, but one
mistake behind the wheel can
also change that person’s life
forever.
Countless people have been
affected by a traffic accident
at some point in their life and
can vouch for how important
it is to learn the rules of the
road and being safe behind the
wheel. It all starts with teens
that are just learning to drive.
Saturday, Sept. 15 State
Farm debuted a teen driv-er
safety program called Cel-ebrate
My Drive. Their goal is
to promote teen driver safety.
“State Farm is the larg-est
home to auto insurance
company in the country and
we are partnering with our
agents who are business own-ers
in the community,” said
State Farm spokesman, Ro-szell
Gadson.
“Obviously our agents see
and insure new drivers on a
daily basis and 16 is an excit-ing
time for a teen, so teen
driver safety has long been an
important issue for us.”
This event took place in 300
communities in the U.S. and
Canada, but because it was
held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
last Saturday during Auburn’s
first home football game, State
Farm agents Kathy Powell and
Scott Holley had to make last
minutes changes to the Au-burn
location.
“We had to adjust to the
timing of the event, so we
moved our biggest focus to
be at the Auburn High School
football game, where we are
handed out lots of goodies and
Niffer’s coupons for free food,”
Powell said. “The other agent
and I worked together to see
how we could still do some-thing
at the Niffer’s location
on Saturday.”
The agents focused on the
students and parents that
came out to the High School
game Friday, Sept. 14. There
they set up a tent in part-nership
with the Lee Coun-ty
Sherriff ’s Department and
informed those who came by
about the importance of driv-ing
safety.
“We were really excited
to be a part of the game this
weekend, it was Auburn High
School’s first football game
and they were playing Smiths
Station and both of those fam-ilies
are here in Lee County,”
Powell said.
As for Saturday’s main
event, agents Powell and Hol-ley
handed out cupcakes at
Niffer’s to people and an-swered
questions about the
Celebrate My Drive event.
According to the Centers
for Disease Control and Pre-vention,
car crashes are the
number one killer of Ameri-can
teens; and their first year
out on the road is the most
dangerous.
State Farm said they do not
believe scaring teens into safe
driving habits is the right way
to go.
They tried out a concept of
sharing information and en-lightening
the teenagers, as
opposed to scaring them with
violent and gory stats and vid-eos.
Although some adjust-ments
had to be made to the
event at the Auburn location,
Gadson said he believed the
event was still a big success.
“As for the future of this
event, we are very happy
about how things are going
so far,” Gadson said. “I can’t
speak specifically as for what
the plans are for next year, but
I don’t think it’s going to go
away anytime soon. I’m not
getting that impression at all.”
Sydney Callis
Community Reporter
The Jean Dean Reading is
Fundamental, or RIF, founda-tion
is working hard to raise
money to cover the hole in
their revenue made by Con-gress
this year.
Jean Dean RIF, in its 22nd
year, provides free books for
more than 25,000 children
aged five and under in Ala-bama.
Cathy Gafford, executive
director of the organization,
said this is the largest RIF
project in the nation.
More than 2,000 volunteers
help around the state to give
books to young children.
”We primarily serve at
risk young children, age zero
through five,” Gafford said.
“What we’re trying to do is to
put books in their hands be-fore
they reach kindergar-ten
so they can be ready to
start school and do well in
school. We want them to have
the opportunity to do well in
school.”
Research done by the Bir-mingham
husband and wife
team, Sharon and Craig Ra-mey,
showed the importance
of getting books in the hands
of children, Gafford said.
“The shorthand version is
that you have all these wires
when you’re born and if you
don’t have experiences that
make those wires make con-nections
then those wires at-rophy
and go away,” Gafford
said. “It’s very important to
stimulate their brain.”
Since 1991, Jean Dean
RIF has provided more than
450,000 at-risk children with
books, Gafford said.
In previous years, Jean
Dean RIF was funded by: fed-eral
grants, Kiwanis and indi-viduals,
businesses or groups
that “had a heart for children
who needed books,” Gafford
said.
Established 45 years ago,
National RIF is the oldest chil-dren’s
literature organization
in the U.S.
It was removed from the
federal budget through the
U.S. Department of Educa-tion,
effective 2011.
“We do not have the abili-ty
to even apply for that fund-ing
for that third that we were
using to cover kids all over
Alabama that were in coun-ties
that didn’t have Kiwanis
clubs or didn’t have any oth-er
funders,” Gafford said. “So,
we are working hard to beef
up all of our fundraisers. The
run is our premier fundrais-er
event.”
Jean Dean RIF has three
fundraising events every year.
These events are a Run to
Read, a pancake breakfast
in the spring and a motorcy-cle
Ride to Read event in the
summer.
Profits go toward filling the
gap in their funds left by the
federal budget cuts.
The Run to Read event will
be Oct. 20. Registration is now
open and participants can
register online at jeandeanr-if.
org.
Prior to the race, registra-tion
is $15 for adults and $12
for military, firefighters, po-lice
and students.
Gafford said Clifford the
Big Red Dog and Aubie will
be in attendance for the run,
and there will be awards and
door prizes, including a Hil-ton
Head vacation.
“Everybody who registers
has the opportunity to win a
one-week vacation this year
to Hilton Head,” Gafford said.
Run to Read is a family-friendly
event, with different
race lengths available for par-ticipants
to choose from.
The Auburn Universi-ty
chapter of Kappa Kappa
Gamma also supports Jean
Dean RIF through their phi-lanthropy
events, and Kappa
alumnus Morgan Luger said
she is proud of the work Kap-pa
does for RIF.
“It’s really important for
kids to have access to read-ing
material to they can learn
how to be successful when
they get to school,” Luger said.
Also, Gafford said Jean
Dean RIF will welcome all in-terested
in volunteering.
Those interested can email
jdrifvolunteer@gmail.com
to help with deliveries, ware-house
work and fundraisers.
“Anybody who wants to try
to help us is welcome,” Gaf-ford
said. “People who care
about literacy can also help
by writing their Congressman
and saying they’re interest-ed
in literacy and they’d like
to see funds put back in the
federal budget to support lit-eracy.”
Federal budget cuts leave Reading is
Fundamental foundation in the lurch
EAMC fights breast cancer with fundraiser trio
Courtesy of EAMC
Participants march in the 2011 Think Pink Walk The East Alabama Medical Center Foundation is hosting three events in order to raise
money to support the EAMC Breast Health for Underserved Women program. The three events are the Think Pink Walk Sept, 29, Bingo
for Breast Care Oct. 9 and Bra-Dazzle, a bra-decorating contest Oct. 2–9.
State Farm brings
driver safety event
to the community
Courtesy of Jean Dean RIF
The Jean Dean Reading is Fundamental foundation lost federal funding in 2011 and is turning to fundraising to fill the hole in the budget.
Community A6 The Auburn Plainsman Thursday, September 20, 2012
Genre-bending Harpeth Rising brings new sound to Sundilla
Eva Woghiren
Community Reporter
Harpeth Rising believes it
has created a new genre of
music.
The folk-influenced band
consists of four classical-ly
trained musicians who re-cently
returned from touring
the United Kingdom.
“We love playing there, as
the audiences are incredibly
enthusiastic,” said band mem-ber
and Western Kentucky
University professor Jordana
Greenberg. “Our tour this year
had almost every show com-pletely
sold out.”
Since forming in the Nash-ville
area they have toured sev-eral
times throughout Europe,
including a stop at the 2011
Cambridge Folk Festival, one
of the biggest folk festivals in
England.
The four members have
ventured around America’s
classical scene to famed ven-ues
including Carnegie Hall, in
addition to recording on four
different continents.
The band has been featured
on acclaimed Nashville-area
shows “Music City Roots” and
“Nashville Traditions.”
Harpeth Rising will be
in Auburn for the Sundilla
Acoustic Concert Series on
Sept. 28 at 7:30 p.m.
“Their sound is very re-fined,
but carries an impro-vised
quality that makes you
feel like you are sitting at the
coffee table hearing the tell-ing
of a tale for the very first
time,” said Sean McMorrow,
Top Shelf Event’s talent book-er.
“If we are lucky, these kids
are creating a new genre for
others to emulate and devel-op
for years to come.”
The band consists of a ban-jo
(Rebecca Reed-Lunn), fid-dle
(Greenberg), cello (Maria
Di Meglio) and hand drums
(Chris Burgess), all accompa-nied
by vocals.
The parts blend together to
create a sound with a hint of
bluegrass spunk, some classi-cal
undertones and a splash of
folky Americana.
Influences listed on the
band’s website biography span
genres as well as centuries and
include Beethoven, Gustav
Mahler and Bob Dylan.
Their debut album, “The
End of the World,” recent-ly
earned a place in the Top
Ten on the International Folk
Charts.
The album is special to the
members of the group be-cause
it presents songs writ-ten
by David Greenberg, fa-ther
of Jordana, the band’s vi-olinist.
The band writes most of
its own music, but it also per-forms
covers of its favorite
songs.
Its U.S. agent, Joann Mur-dock,
booked the Sundilla
Concert for them.
“I’d heard of the series be-fore,
as many of my favor-ite
artists have played there,”
Murdock said. “We are really
happy and excited to be mak-ing
our debut there,” Green-berg
said.
The Sundilla Acoustic Con-cert
Series hosts artists of tra-ditional
folk to blues, country,
bluegrass and jazz.
The event will be held at the
Auburn Unitarian Universalist
Fellowship.
Tickets will be available for
$12 at the door and $10 before
and will also be sold at the
Gnu’s Room.
“If we are lucky,
these kids are
creating a new
genre for others
to emulate and
develop for years
to come.”
—Sean McMorrow
Top Shelf Event’s talent booker
Courtesy of Harpeth Rising
Harpeth Rising consists of (clockwise from left) Rebecca Reed-Lunn,
Chris Burgess, Maria Di Meglio and Jordana Greenberg.
Zeke Turrentine
Community Editor
Lee County joined in with
much of the rest of the state in
voting overwhelmingly to ap-prove
an amendment to the
Alabama constitution that
would move $437 million dol-lars
from the state trust fund
to its general fund over three
years. This would amount to
approximately $145 million a
year.
The county voted 7,919 yes
to 4,511 no votes.
Lee County is home to 37
precincts, only two of which
reported more no than yes
votes. The entire state vot-ed
nearly 2-to-1 in support of
the proposal. The Associated
Press reported late Tuesday
evening that 88 percent of
precincts had been counted
and that there were 349,029
yes votes, or 65 percent, and
184,713 no votes, or 35 per-cent.
Auburn’s Mike Hubbard,
Speaker of the House, blamed
prior governors and legis-lators
for the state’s prob-lems.
“Democrats created
Alabama’s deep fiscal prob-lems
over several decades,
and Republicans can’t solve
them overnight,” he said in a
press release. “This tempo-rary
transfer will provide us
the time needed to fully im-plement
the common-sense,
conservative budgeting prac-tices,
targeted spending re-ductions
and fundamental
government reforms neces-sary
to put Alabama back on
the path to prosperity with-out
raising taxes.”
Gov. Robert Bentley spoke
about the approval as a vic-tory
for those who wanted to
save certain state-funded pro-grams
without raising taxes.
“I want to thank the voters
for approving the state’s plan
to temporarily borrow funds
from our savings account to
help get us through these dif-ficult
economic times without
raising taxes,” Bentley said in
a press release Tuesday night.
“Once again, I pledge to the
people of this state that the
funds transferred to help sup-port
critical state services will
be paid back.”
The state’s budgets show
the general fund is slated to
spend around $1.7 billion in
fiscal year 2013, beginning
Oct. 1. Deep cuts would have
occurred if there was a no
vote and Bentley and legisla-tors
did not find a new source
of revenue, like a tax increase.
Many in the health care in-dustry
welcomed the yes vote
as a victory, while several on
the far right decried the gov-ernor’s
campaign for approval
as scaring people into voting
for something they weren’t
completely informed about.
“We are pleased that the
citizens of Alabama recog-nize
the need to protect preg-nant
women and children
from severe cuts to Medicaid,”
East Alabama Medical Center
President and CEO Terry An-drus
told the Opelika-Auburn
News. “Now the governor’s of-fice,
the Legislature, health
care providers and the busi-ness
community can come up
with a comprehensive plan to
fund Medicaid for the future.”
Sen. Scott Beason (R-Gar-dendale)
had been imploring
people to vote no and said he
thought a lot of Alabamians
would wake up Wednesday
wondering what they’d just
approved.
Lee County election offi-cials
said 13.5 percent of the
county’s 92,000 registered
voters took part in the refer-endum.
They were happy with
this outcome as they said
they were expecting a turn-out
in the single digits.
Lee County agrees on trust fund amendment
Thursday, September 20, 2012 The Auburn Plainsman Community A7
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SHOE_22521_September_2012_Newspaper_Plainsman_9-20.indd 1 9/17/12 2:04 PM
Rebecca Moseley
Intrigue Reporter
For those looking for a
change of pace in their study
habits or a fresh new sound
from a local band, the Jule Col-lins
Smith Museum of Fine Art
is hosting a weekly daytime se-ries
called A Little Lunch Mu-sic.
The free concert series is ev-ery
Thursday from noon until
1:00 p.m. in the area just be-yond
the lobby of the museum.
“Visiting the museum
should be a part of the stu-dents’
education, and we hope
it will be just as important as
studying at the library or going
to football games,” said Char-lotte
Hendrix, director of com-munications
for the museum.
“Programs are printed to
encourage students in music
appreciation classes to choose
A Little Lunch Music for their
required viewing of perfor-mances
outside of the class-room.
Hendrix said she hopes
the local music, free student
membership and Wi-Fi and
fair prices on soups, salads
and sandwiches will encour-age
students to study at the
museum.
“We’re thinking it will be Au-burn’s
newest tradition,” Hen-drix
said.
The venue has highlighted
musicians from the Universi-ty’s
music students and faculty.
Faculty members and students
from Columbus State Universi-ty,
members of the Montgom-ery
Symphony Orchestra and
students from Carver Elemen-tary
School in Montgomery
have also been highlighted.
Upcoming performances
include Joseph Ikner on Sept.
20 and the Auburn Indian Mu-sic
Ensemble on Oct. 4.
Series coordinator Patrick
McCurry said the series began
in 2007 by cellist, pianist and
electric keyboardist Charles
Wright.
Wright was a high school
friend of McCurry and once
led the Auburn Quartet.
McCurry said Wright began
the series because he was sim-ply
looking for a place to play
and share his music.
McCurry said he began
playing the saxophone, flute
and cello with Wright in the
series in 2008.
After a Steinway grand pi-ano
was donated to the mu-seum
in 2009, he and Wright
asked pianist Barbara Acker-
Mills to join them.
The Woodfield Trio was
then born.
In 2009, Acker-Mills left to
teach psychology at Salem
College in Winston-Salem,
N.C.
Wright moved to Sarasota,
Fla., and McCurry took over
Wright’s position as series co-ordinator.
McCurry said he is excit-ed
to see the audience and in-terested
performers growing
in number as the series pro-gresses.
The series now attracts
crowds of around 30 to 50
people and performers of all
genres.
The series mostly displays
classical music with some
jazz, but it is open to all music
performers and has no bar on
talent, he said.
“Wright occasional ly
brought in new people, but not
like this,” McCurry said.
McCurry is now looking for
sponsors on a student recit-al
level for $150, a local color
sponsorship level for $250, the
Woodfield Trio level for $500, a
chamber group level for $750
and a key performance lev-el
for $1000 to cover time and
travel costs for performers.
For performances with-out
sponsorship, the museum
holds a small honorarium.
“As a musician, it’s impor-tant
to me that the musicians
get paid,” McCurry said.
McCurry said his favorite
performances in the series are
those by artists who are not
usually able to perform at re-citals.
He said he is happy to make
that setting more accessible to
them.
“There’s something con-ducive
about Auburn for mu-sic,”
McCurry said. “It is my de-sire
to make its art and music
scene grow.”
“There’s something
conducive about
Auburn for music.
It is my desire
to make its
art and music
scene grow.”
—Patrick McCurry
A Little Lunch Music coordinator
Museum hosts A Little Lunch Music to break up the day
Community A8 The Auburn Plainsman Thursday, September 20, 2012
All real estate advertised
herein is subject to the
Federal Fair Housing
Act, which makes it
illegal to advertise any
preference, limitation
or discrimination based
on race, color, religion,
sex, handicap, familial
status, or national origin,
or intention to make any
such preference, limitation
or discrimination. We will
not know-ingly accept any
advertising for real estate
which is in violation of the
law. All persons are hereby
informed that all dwellings
advertised are available on
an equal opportunity basis.
for sale
Print Deadline
Noon three
business days
prior to publication
To Place an Ad,
Call - 334-844-7928
or Email -
classifieds@theplainsman.com
Display Classifieds
Local............$11 per col inch
National......$16 per col inch
1 col x 4″ min to 1 col x 8″ max
The Auburn Plainsman is not
responsible for the content of the
ads. Ads that seem too good to be
true usually are.
Line Classifieds
15 words . . . . . . . . . . . . $6
Extra Words . . . . . . . 40¢
Bold/outline . .$1 per ad
2000 Honda 2 door,
sunroof, V6, runs
great. $4500. Call 334-
703-3270
for rent
1BR/1BA studio apart-ment
for sub-lease. Fur-nished
with couch, cof-fee
table, nightstand,
dresser and all kitch-en
appliances. $440/
mo. includes cable, wa-ter
and internet. Locat-ed
at Magnolia Studios
right across the street
from campus. Available
beginning Sept. 1st. Call
912-552-2079
2bd/2ba Mobile Homes
@ $400/mo. Small
park, country set-ting,
storm shelter, wa-ter
furnished, pets
welcome. Call/text
(334)332-2567 and/or
(334)787-2665
Delunafest $200obo
per ticket. Cash only.
Call 706-518-4171
Across
1 Run headlong into
4 Leave in stitches
8 Soupçon
11 Ostrich cousins
13 Henchmen
14 Printing measure
15 Speech therapist’s concern
16 Certain music teacher
18 Keen on
19 Je ne __ quoi
20 Freebies near the register
21 Outmoded street fixture
24 Play a good joke on
25 Moose feature
28 Word with tie or cord
31 It may be bleeped out
34 Write to a disk
35 News initials
36 Succulent part of a rack
39 Mario Brothers letters
40 “The Mod Squad” role
42 “Way to go!”
43 Insurance worker
45 Study intently
47 “The Simpsons” shop
keeper
48 International Tennis
Hall
of Famer who won
consecutive
US Opens in 1997 and
1998
55 __-load: prep for a
marathon
57 Liposuction target
58 Overdue book penalty
59 Louisiana nickname
61 “Absolutely!”
62 Upbeat
63 Farm girls?
64 Telegram
65 Fleur-de-__
66 Cabled carrier
67 With “the,” much
-watched
index, a different
component
of which is hidden in
16-, 21-,
36-, 48- and 59-Across
Down
1 Museum piece
2 Acid type
3 “__ paint you a picture?”
4 Sand bar
5 Desi’s daughter
6 Shocked
7 Maker of Opium, initially
8 “Unfaithful” Oscar nominee
9 Money in the bank: Abbr.
10 Curmudgeonly cries
12 Cleaning aid
13 Best Buy buy
14 Shows the way
17 “Hurry up!”
22 Okla., before 11/16/1907
23 “Good one!”
26 Square, moneywise
27 Sit for a spell
28 Juicer refuse
29 Mayberry boy
30 Napa equipment
31 Back-tied sash
32 “Breaking Bad” cable channel
33 Place to start a hole
37 Kind of verb: Abbr.
38 Bite with un aperitivo
41 Cantankerous
44 Belly laugh
46 Yours, to Yves
47 Chain with Market Fresh
sandwiches
49 Lead-in to bad news
50 Silicon Valley’s Santa __
51 Deejay Casey
52 Like a wallflower
53 Madrid month
54 Ask for more Money?
55 PC key
56 Shout between ships
60 London hrs.
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
Los Angeles
Times Daily
Crossword Puzzle
Answer to
Previous Puzzle
10/7/12
Sudoku By The Mepham Group
Solution to last Sunday’s puzzle
Complete the
grid so each row,
column and
3-by-3 box
(in bold borders)
Level: 1 2 3 4
Chandler Jones
Writer
The AU “Real Food” Fest
is the inaugural event of Au-burn’s
new slow food move-ment.
The event is open to the
communities of Auburn, Ope-lika
and the student body of
Auburn University.
The festival will celebrate
local ingredients and aims to
introduce the community to
slow food and the Real Food
Challenge, a local organiza-tion
with a goal of supporting
local and sustainable food cul-ture.
The Slow Food chapter, a
campus organization, gives
people in the Auburn commu-nity
a chance to find each oth-er
and come together to cele-brate
food, said Rosco Davis,
senior interdisciplinary major
and president of the Real Food
Challenge.
“The goal for schools who
take the challenge is to get 20
percent of their school’s food
budget to go toward food that
is ecologically sound, local,
fair and humane,” Davis said.
The festival has one main
objective broken up into three
parts: to return the satisfac-tion
of local food back into the
community by incorporating
fresh ingredients, to connect
farmer to consumer more eas-ily
and to instill the values of
slow food in people’s lives.
Robyn Bridges, public rela-tions
and communications di-rector
for the Auburn-Opelika
Tourism Bureau, was the me-dia
relations force behind the
festival.
“We are rich in this part of
the country in terms of ag-riculture;
being able to grow
those products,” Bridges said.
“Auburn is a land-grant uni-versity.”
Bridges said she believes
the project will be well-re-ceived
in Auburn because of
the city’s history in agricul-ture.
“We are talking about life-style
and cultural change
when asking people to change
their diet,” said Cameron In-grum,
Auburn senior inter-disciplinary
major and Real
Food Challenge chief strate-gic
officer. “Back in the day,
food was something all people
could gather around; all peo-ple
could share.”
A $40 donation buys a tick-et
to the event. Profits will
provide the necessary tools
to help maintain the Auburn
Real Food Challenge commu-nity
gardens, located on cam-pus.
The Challenge began work-ing
closely with David Ban-croft,
head chef at the AU
Club, in beginning the slow
food movement in Auburn in
May.
“We lucked up when we
found David Bancroft and
started the Slow Food chap-ter;
he is so deeply ingrained
in this community and knows
so many people,” Davis said.
For Bancroft it all began
four years ago when he expe-rienced
all the trends, vari-ous
chefs and the eclectic din-ing
scene outside communi-ties
had.
“All the community support,
seeing all the names on the
menus for me is such an at-tractive
thing,” Bancroft said.
“That was intriguing to see re-lationships
translated into the
menu and seeing the impact
that it was making.”
For Bancroft, the festival is
an example of the community
coming together.
“The city of Auburn with
Auburn University, the stu-dents,
the professors and the
foodie community is the big-gest
melting pot,” Bancroft
said. “This is the common
ground for everyone. Food can
become a community gather-ing.”
The festival will feature dif-ferent
forms of entertainment.
“There will be music play-ing
the whole time, food the
whole time and in the mid-dle
there will be a panel with
several well-educated, knowl-edgeable
food patrons in our
community,” Davis said.
The event is all-you-can-eat
with food made by local head
chefs with local ingredients.
There will also be a chance
to drink all you can from 5 to
7:30 p.m.
Earth Fare will sponsor a
raffle including handmade
baskets from Ghana filled with
various local products.
The panel will discuss the
potential work of Slow Food.
“It is about going back to
localized economies; about
small-scale farming, farm to
plate, reducing all those mid-dle-
man mechanized input
costs of conventional agricul-ture,”
Ingrum said.
Rachel Suhs / Design Editor
Food enthusiasts get back to the basics
AU “Real Food”
Fest focuses on
locally grown
and sustainable
food sources
Sports B1
Thursday, September 20, 2012 www.theplainsman.com Sports
Caitlin Wagenseil
Writer
Many Auburn fans know
about Spirit, one of the bald
eagles that flies around Jor-dan-
Hare Stadium before
home football games. His
home, however, isn’t as well-known.
The Southeastern Raptor
Center, located at 1350 Pratt-
Carden Drive, is a rehabilita-tion
center for raptors, a cate-gory
of birds that are hunters
and are able to grab food with
their claws. It is home to a va-riety
of these birds, including
owls, eagles, falcons and vul-tures.
This will be the seventh
year the Raptor Center will
host Football, Fans and
Feathers, an event held ev-ery
Friday afternoon before a
home football game.
An outside amphitheater
with stacked-stone bench-es
allows spectators to watch
as the birds are released from
two wooden towers situated
behind each side of the stage.
More than 200 orange-and-blue
clad fans came out this
past Friday, Sept. 14, to watch
the birds soar through the air
and down to the gloved arms
of their trainers.
“Releasing them is the
most rewarding thing—it’s an
incredible feeling,” said Taylor
Wyatt, a sophomore in pre-veterinary
medicine and vol-unteer
at the Raptor Center.
An owl named Chaplin was
shown to the crowd first, fol-lowed
by a falcon. As the vul-ture
was brought out, the Ad-dams
Family theme song
played in the background as
he skipped along to it. The
raptor trainers chanted “vul-ture
family” together.
Spirit was released from
the tower last and was un-veiled
by a blue and orange
Auburn blanket covering his
cage.
“What a lot of people don’t
realize is that we fly our birds
in the stadium just about ev-ery
day,” said Marianne Hud-son,
raptor specialist.
All of the birds at the Rap-tor
Center are there because
they would not be able to sur-vive
in the wild on their own.
One of the birds only has one
eye, and another was stolen
from his nest as a baby.
“He has imprinted now,
so he either thinks he’s a lit-tle
person or that we’re all
birds,” said Carla Irene, volun-teer
at the rehabilitation cen-ter.
“If we tried to release him
he would most likely go back
to where there is a lot of peo-ple,
so we keep him here,” she
said.
As for Spirit, he lacks one
important characteristic to
survive in the wild.
“He’s missing a sharp-hooked
beak, so he can’t tear
his food very well, so that’s
why he lives at the Raptor
Center,” Hudson said. “He has
flown at many games off and
on since 2004, and has done
a great job representing Au-burn
University.”
Working with the birds is
no easy feat.
“The most challenging
thing is to make sure the ea-gle
lands on the 50-yard line
on game day, because we nev-er
know where the birds are
going to go whenever we let
them loose,” Hudson said.
“We’re just holding our breath
every time we let a bird fly
free, whether it’s an owl or an
eagle, and then we really hope
we get them back.”
The task can even be dan-gerous.
“Its very humbling working
with the birds,” Wyatt said.
“But they are wild animals
and they will go after you
sometimes—I definitely have
some battle wounds.”
Because the birds are rap-tors,
it is in their nature to be
aggressive.
“They have to hunt and
kill things in the wild, so we
just have to manage it; make
sure that we’re being safe, and
make sure we’re not getting
hurt,” said Andrew Hopkins,
raptor specialist at the Raptor
Center who assists in training
all the raptors.
In addition to caring for
and training the birds, the
raptor specialists also work to
educate the public. “What is
often not known is they [the
raptor specialists] go around
the state and teach and pro-vide
outreach to over 20,000
children a year,” said Jamie
Bellah, director of the Raptor
Center.
“The best thing about the
program is being able to ed-ucate
the public,” Irene said.
The next event will be this
Friday, Sept. 21 at 4 p.m. Ad-mission
is $5, and proceeds
will help support the Raptor
Center and go toward buying
the necessary tools and food
for both the trainers and the
birds.
Auburn looks to climb from SEC cellar vs. LSU
Locals flock to Football, Fans and Feathers
Danielle Lowe / Assistant Photo Editor
Spirit, an American bald eagle, is one of the eagles that fly at home football games along with Nova, a
golden eagle.
Danielle Lowe / assistant Photo Editor
One of the trainers at the Raptor Center holds Spirit on a gloved hand as another trainer narrates Spir-it’s
story to the audience. Spirit is lacking the hooked beak needed for hunting making him unreleasable.
By the numbers
ULM vs Auburn
40
Auburn possessed the ball for 40 minutes–40 minutes and 15 seconds to be precise–and out-possessed
their opponent for the first time this season. This resulted from a larger focus on
the running game which gained 255 net rushing yards to keep the chains moving and the
clock running. The increase in time of possession showed that Auburn can keep opposing de-fenses
on the field while allowing rest for their own.
2
Auburn converted two of their three red zone opportunities and the scores could not have
been bigger for Auburn. Tre Mason scored on a 1-yard rushing touchdown to put Auburn up
by 14 in the 3rd quarter. The final conversion proved to be the game winning one as Cody Par-key
connected on a 35-yard field goal. Auburn should have gone three for three, but running
back Mike Blakely fumbled inside the 5-yard line.
1
Kiehl Frazier completed only one pass in the second half despite six attempts. While Scot
Loeffler was right to keep the ball on the ground where the team enjoyed its biggest success
Saturday, Frazier must still maintain control of the game. Judging from the post-game com-ments,
Frazier’s game plan was designed for him to manage the game and occassionally take
a shot down the field. For Auburn to establish or keep a lead, however, Frazier must make the
throws required of him in the closing minutes of games.
27
ULM gained 27 first downs against Auburn’s defense. Unfortunately, nine of those came on
third down and three came from fourth down conversions. The offense did a decent job of
keeping the defense off the field, but the defense must return the favor and get off the field on
the late downs. Auburn only recorded 19 first downs.
On Sept. 15, ULM took Auburn to the wire
and narrowly missed upsetting an SEC team for
the second straight time.
This week on Sept. 22, Auburn (1-2) welcomes
ULM’s bayou brethren the LSU Tigers (3-0) to
the Plains as LSU begins their conference play
in Jordan-Hare Stadium.
LSU has played three relatively easy games
against unranked non-conference opponents
North Texas, Washington and Idaho.
In those three games, LSU has been the epit-ome
of balance on both sides of the ball, allow-ing
an average of 10.3 points per game and rack-ing
up 48.3 points per game behind new starting
quarterback Zach Mettenberger.
Mettenberger has shown improvement since
his first start against North Texas, but his play
has still been less than spectacular.
He has thrown an interception in two of his
three games, only broken 200 yards once and
shown an inability to effectively run the ball
(eight carries for -24 yards).
The 6-foot 5-inch junior has been consistent,
however, and can make all the throws required
of him.
And yet, the real strength of LSU lies in its
rushing attack.
The Bayou Bengals have four running backs
capable of starting for any team in the NCAA
and boast a stable of workhorses consisting of
Alfred Blue, Kenny Hiliard, Michael Ford and
Spencer Ware.
The fact that Ware, the team leader in rushing
touchdowns last season, is fourth on the depth
chart is a testament to the team’s depth.
LSU has garnered 808 yards rushing in their
first three games with 12 touchdowns on the
ground.
Auburn’s defense has played poorly against
the run this season, and opponents have aver-aged
189 yards per game.
Despite LSU’s status as an 18-point favorite
and Auburn fans’ low expectations, Gene Chizik
seemed nonplussed about facing the national
championship runner-up.
“This is what college football’s all about–
to be able to have the opportunity to have a
very good football team come in here and see
how much improvement we’ve made from the
week before,” Chizik said. “I think our players
are very excited about the opportunity. I know
our coaches are, as well. I think it’ll be fun for
our fans. It’s going to be a great evening, so we’re
looking forward to it.”
LSU has typical SEC powerhouse depth, but
the team has suffered numerous losses that may
impact the team’s first game against a confer-ence
opponent.
Starting left tackle Chris Faulk is out for the
season with a knee injury.
Tyrann Mathieu had his much publicized dis-missal
for failing a drug test and must now hope
to make the team next season.
In addition, four LSU players have been ruled
academically ineligible for the 2012 season: se-nior
tight end Tyler Edwards, sophomore line-backer
D.J. Welter and sophomore offensive
lineman Evan Washington and projected start-ing
junior linebacker Tahj Jones.
All four players missed the first three games
as they awaited the decision, but LSU now
knows the holes it has to fill going against Au-burn.
As for Auburn, the team is tied for last in the
SEC West and has scored the fewest amount of
points in the entire conference.
Chizik continuously preaches about taking
the season one game at a time, but with AP No.
5 Georgia and No. 1 Alabama (not to mention
former top-10 Arkansas) looming on the sched-ule,
a loss against No. 3 LSU would cast doubt on
Auburn’s chances of climbing up from the bot-tom
rung of the division.
As for this week’s game against LSU, Auburn
faces a steep challenge against the nation’s No.
17 ranked scoring offense and No. 2 total de-fense.
If they overcome the odds, however, Auburn
will definitely have earned their SEC stripes.
Andrew Yawn
sports@theplainsman.com
Rachel Suhs / Graphics Editor
Sports B2 The Auburn Plainsman Thursday, September 20, 2012
John Burns
Sports Reporter
Former Auburn swimmer
Dave Denniston has had highs
and lows in his career, but he
has found a way to climb from
the deepest valley to the tallest
mountain.
Denniston was a three-time
NCAA individual champion
and a 15-time All-American
during his tenure at Auburn in
the late 1990s.
After leaving Auburn, Den-niston
set his sights on making
the Olympic team in 2004, but
came up short.
The swimmer then decided
to brush it off and get ready for
the 2008 Olympics in Beijing,
however his career took a dev-astating
turn in 2005.
While sledding in Wyo-ming,
Denniston suffered an
accident that left him para-lyzed
from the waist down, an
enormous blow to any swim-mer.
His resolve was unwavering.
Denniston made it to Bei-jing,
and competed in the
Paralympics.
This summer Dennison had
the opportunity to coach Para-lympics
athletes in London,
after shelving his career as a
competitive swimmer.
Denniston said he feels that
his career as a Paralympics
swimmer helped him coach
the athletes in London.
“I love coaching,” Danniston
said. “After being a competitor,
I feel like I have a better feel for
the athletes’ wants … Instead
of them having to tell me, I
kind of already had a feel for
what they needed.”
The American swimmers
benefitted from having an ex-perienced
coach, and were
able to rake in 41 medals, 14 of
which were gold.
“There were swimming
events every day of the games,”
Denniston said. “And most of
our time was spent at the pool,
but the experience itself was
phenomenal. It was just great
to get to meet so many peo-ple
with a lot of different back-grounds.”
Denniston and the team
worked together for two and a
half years before the Paralym-pics
this summer in Colorado
Springs, Colo.
“Before the games we went
to Stuttgart, [Germany],” Den-niston
said. “We had to ad-just
to the time change before
going to London. That was a
great experience.”
After a successful run in the
Paralympics, Denniston has
his sights set on thefuture.
“I’m committed to contin-ue
coaching,” Denniston said.
“We’re getting geared up for
Rio de Janeiro, and we’re going
to be ready to hit the ground
running this coming January.”
While he is not in the water
or coaching, Denniston tells
his story to inspire youth and
adults.
Denniston’s website, da-vedenniston.
com, welcomes
visitors to learn about swim-ming,
whether it be swimming
strokes, safety or technique.
The site also has links to in-spirational
books and stories
as well as a charitable dona-tions
tab which redirects to
numerous charities like Oper-ation
Smile and the American
Cancer Society.
Frazier shows improvement in win
Sophomore quarterback
Kiehl Frazier entered the
Sept. 15 ULM game under
heavy scrutiny and walked off
Pat Dye Field with a win and a
shred of redemption.
The team won for the first
time with Frazier under cen-ter,
and even if you dismiss
the win because of the oppo-nent,
fans have to be happy
with what they witnessed.
Yes, he had another turn-over.
Yes, he completed one pass
of six in the second half as the
Warhawks fought back into
the game.
Yes, it was against a team
Auburn paid $1.05 million to
play.
But you can’t dismiss Fra-zier’s
noticeable improve-ment
from the past two de-bacles.
He cut down turnovers,
showed poise in the pocket
and had his first multi-touch-down
game of his career–al-beit
not in the way most ex-pected.
Frazier scored on an elec-tric
33-yard catch-and-run
and ignited the home crowd
again with his last second
bomb to freshman Sammie
Coates to end the first half.
On the hail mary, Frazier
avoided pressure and a near
sack to roll left.
Most fans who had seen
the first two games undoubt-edly
envisioned a wild throw
out of bounds or into the
hands of a ULM defender.
Frazier, however, squared
his shoulders and heaved
the ball to where only Coates
could catch it.
When Frazier scrambled,
he kept his eyes downfield
and extended the play with
his feet.When the time came
to run, Frazier did so deci-sively
looking only for posi-tive
yardage.
Although he only had 8
yards rushing, he was only
stopped once for negative
yards and took one sack.
He wasn’t spectacular, and
there are still strides to make
in his game, but, to echo the
coaches’ post-game thoughts,
Frazier did a solid job of
“managing the game.”
Auburn led it’s attack on
the ground, but Frazier made
enough throws to keep the
defense honest and six of his
10 completions were first
downs that kept drives alive.
The offense rediscovered
its strength on the ground
and rushed for 255 yards.
If the defense improves its
consistency, that rushing at-tack
combined with the effi-ciency
Frazier showed in the
first half–nine of 12 for 114
yards and a touchdown–is
all that Auburn needs to win
games.
Frazier has still not prov-en
himself a master of come-backs
or the two-minute drill.
When ULM got within a
touchdown of Auburn’s lead,
Frazier rushed twice for -1
yard and threw twice for two
incompletions.
Auburn is not content with
mediocrity, and Frazier must
do more to give his team a
chance to win in the future.
But Frazier now has the
confidence of his first win
and he showed the fans and
critics alike that he was seri-ous
about correcting his mis-takes.
Against LSU, Frazier fac-es
his biggest test and must
show he can be more than a
game manager.
Andrew
Yawn
sports@
theplainsman.
com
Emily Morris / Assistant Photo Editor
Frazier defused some of the criticism with his two touchdown performance in a win over University of Louisiana at Monroe. The sopho-more
went 10 of 18 for 130 yards, a touchdown and an interception and also caught a 33-yard touchdown pass.
Swimming a
different stroke
Former Tiger swimmer Dave
Denniston overcomes paralysis to
compete, coach in Paralympics
Thursday, September 20, 2012 The Auburn Plainsman Sports B3
Nathan Simone
Online Editor
Former Auburn
swimmer Tyler Mc-
Gill was named vol-unteer
assistant on
Sept. 5. McGill was
a part of Team USA
along with Michael
Phelps and Ryan
Lochte in the 2012
London Olympics.
McGill agreed to
sit down with The
Plainsman and dis-cuss
his future in the
Olympics and as vol-unteer
assistant for
the Tigers.
You were unable to talk
on Sept. 14 because you
were at the White House
with Team USA. What did
you do? Did you get to
meet the president?
The Olympic and Paralym-pic
teams were invited to the
White House for a visit, so we
traveled to D.C. on Thursday
night and got up really early
on Friday to drive over to the
White House. They had a re-ception
on the South Lawn for
us, and then at 9:30 a.m. we all
sat and watched the president,
vice president and first lady
come up on a stage and speak.
Afterward everyone got the
opportunity to shake the pres-ident’s
and vice president’s
hand, and the first lady was
giving out hugs, so it was real-ly
cool to meet them and say
‘thank you, it’s an honor to be
here.’ It was something that we
got to do a little bit of in 2007,
when Auburn won its first ti-tle
that I was here for, so to go
back and do it again was nice.
Different president, but equal-ly
as special to be there.
Representing the USA
in the London Olympics
and then meeting the
president, did the process
of training and achieving
come full circle?
A little bit. It’s always a lit-tle
surreal when you meet the
president of the United States
just because you know who he
is and what he represents how
busy he is. You feel honored
that he takes time out of his
day to thank all of the Olym-pians
and Paralympians for
inspiring young athletes and
young people across the coun-try.
It was special to us because
it’s special to him, considering
how busy he is.
Having won a gold
medal in the Olympics,
what’s it like coming back
to Auburn as a volunteer
assistant coach?
Well, I’m still training ( for
the 2016 Olympics), so I’ll be in
the water. My volunteer job as
a coach is a bit limited, but I’ll
try to help out a little bit a cou-ple
of times during the week.
My goal is to be someone
the athletes can look up to and
talk to if they have questions
about anything. Brett want-ed
to name me a volunteer as-sistant
coach and asked me if
I would be a volunteer assis-tant
coach, and of course, with
everything Auburn and Brett
have done for me, it was easy
to say yes.
So you’re training full
time for the 2016 Olym-pics
in Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil while being a vol-unteer
assistant coach?
I am. My training sched-ule
is a little hectic right now.
I’m pretty much gone Friday,
Saturday and Sunday of every
week.
I get in the water when I can,
trying to stay in the best shape
as possible these first couple
months so that when Decem-ber
and January rolls around,
that can really kick in my train-ing
and I’ll be ready to go.
Your stroke of specialty
is butterfly. What’s your
training regimen like
now?
Like I said, it’s just a mat-ter
of finding different ways to
stay in shape, keeping my feel
in the water, so that it’s not a
foreign way of working out
when I start back in December
and January.
I’m doing some yoga right
now, playing with different
things in the weight room, just
having fun being an Olympian
and doing all the things that
come along with winning a
medal. I’m very busy outside
the pool, so I’m trying to do
my best staying in shape and
keeping a feel for the water,
but also having a lot of fun at
the same time.
With the football team
not doing so great, will
it be easier to encourage
people to watch meets?
I think that when the foot-ball
team is doing great, it
brings attention to Auburn
and it brings attention to how
good Auburn is at so many
other sports. Yes, it’s unfortu-nate
that they’ve started the
way have, but they’re trying
everything they can. They pre-pare
weekly to do the best they
can, just like the guys here pre-pare
all season long to be great
at the end of the year.
Any attention that’s brought
to Auburn and the swim pro-gram,
whether it’s through the
football team or other sports,
is always positive here.
As a competitive swim-mer
and Olympian,
you’ve gotten to travel all
over the world. What’s
been your favorite place
to visit and why?
Mark Gangloff, myself, Li-onel
Moreau and Alana Dil-lett
went to the French Na-tional
Meet this past march in
Dunkirk, France. We did a little
bit of training in Paris first, and
it was the first time that I’ve
been able to go to a big com-petition
without that compe-tition
being my focus meet of
the year. So we got to enjoy
the city a little bit more, walk
around Paris and grasp the
culture a bit.
Lionel is French, so he took
us around and showed us a lot
of cool things about the peo-ple
and the culture there. I was
with great friends, in a very re-laxed
atmosphere.
On Oct. 12, the swim
team will compet e
against Alabama in an
SEC dual meet. How ex-cited
are you for that?
Unfortunately, I will be out
of town as I will be induct-ed
into my high school’s hall
of fame that week. Obvious-ly,
football sets up that rival-ry,
but it’s a little less intense in
the swimming community.
We always look forward
to racing them however, be-cause
of the tradition that the
schools have together. I’ll be
excitedly watching from afar.
If you could tell the
students of Auburn one
thing, what would it be?
Come out and experience
what a swim meet is like.
There’s a lot of excitement
and work that these athletes
put into racing, so come see
what that’s all about. Along
the timeline of predictions,
I think this team has a great
opportunity to utilize leader-ship
in its upperclassmen, and
grow their good, young talent
that have performed well in
the past.
Obviously there’s a long way
to go in the season, so I’m hop-ing
that things will develop in
the right way so those upper-classmen
can lead the way
they want to and are supposed
to, and that the younger guys
will find ways to improve and
take Auburn to great places.
Gold medalist McGill named volunteer
swim coach, trains for 2016 Olympics
Rebecca Croomes / Photo Editor
In McGill’s second Olympics, he won the gold as part of the men’s 4x100 meter relay team. McGIll is back from London now and already train-ing
for the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Ali Jenkins
Sports Reporter
It took Hunter Morris only
136 games to make his name
known throughout the mi-nors.
The Huntsville Stars first
baseman just wrapped up
the greatest season any play-er
has had since the fran-chise
came to Huntsville in
1985.
Morris needed one full
season at Double-A to grab
the attention of league field
managers, broadcasters and
print media and become
the fifth Star in history to be
named the Southern League
Most Valuable Player.
The honor places him with
the likes of ex-Star Jose Can-seco,
an outfielder and des-ignated
hitter who spent 16
years in Major League Base-ball.
“It really is crazy,” Mor-ris
said. “It’s an honor. It’s a
pretty exclusive list of players
that have been in that posi-tion
before. The last Brewers
player that won it was Corey
Hart back in 2003 and he’s
had a great career up to this
point, and he’s going to con-tinue
to do well.”
The 23-year-old led the
league in six different cate-gories
with 28 home runs,
113 RBIs, 158 hits, 74 extra-base
hits, 294 total bases and
a slugging percentage of .563.
He played the second-most
games this season,
had the second-most at bats
(522) and doubles (40) and
scored the third-most runs
(77).
His 113 RBIs are the sec-ond
most in all of Minor
League Baseball this season
and the most in the South-ern
League since 2000.
“It’s good and bad,” Mor-ris
said of his MVP title. “It’s
a lot to live up to. I would like
to think that it could only get
better from here, but at the
same time, you kind of set a
standard. You continue to
want to live up to that
from here on out
and that’s not al-ways
the easi-est
thing to do,
especially in
baseball. It’s
not the eas-iest
sport
to try to stay
consistent with,
but I think it’s a
good place to be
right now and
to continue to
build from there.”
His MVP crown isn’t the
only honor he’s received this
year.
He was named the Topps
Southern League Player of
the Month for June and July,
the first player to receive
the accolade back-to-back
since Montgomery’s Delm-on
Young in 2005. He was
named to both the mid-sea-son
and post-season All-Star
teams and earned the Brew-ers
Minor League Player of
the Month for April and July.
But his on-field success
didn’t start there.
He graduated from Vir-gil
I. Grissom High School in
Huntsville with a career bat-ting
average of .470, 46 home
runs and 198 RBIs.
While in high school, he
was a member of Team USA’s
silver medal team in the
World Games in Cuba.
He was also named Hunts-ville
City Player of the Year
four times, as well as North
Alabama Super Metro Player
of the Year and Alabama 6A
All-State Player.
He was All-SEC at Auburn,
hitting a team-high .351 in 54
games as a freshman in 2008.
He also finished second in
home runs (11) and RBIs
(49) and tied for third in runs
scored (42) that season.
Morris was named SEC
Player of the Year in 2010,
batting .386 with 23 home
runs, a school record.
That same year, Morris
was drafted by the Brewers in
the fourth round of the 2010
First-Year Player Draft.
Morris is the first Hunts-ville
native to play for the
Stars, a luxury for the home-town
hero.
“It was surreal,” Morris
said. “Just to play in front of
my friends and family and
be at home with my wife and
son every day, it’s an oppor-tunity
that very few guys in
Minor League Baseball ever
get. It’s something that I
certainly didn’t take
for granted; I en-joyed
every min-ute
of it. Hopefully
I didn’t disappoint
the home-crowd
too much. Hope-fully
they enjoyed
watching me play as
much as I enjoyed get-ting
to play in front
of them.”
Baseball ‘Star’
Morris is MVP in
Southern League
Courtesy of Jason Clark
Morris led the league in six different offensive categories and is
the fifth player to claim the league MVP honors in Stars’ history.
Sports B4 The Auburn Plainsman Thursday, September 20, 2012
PT-33205
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vv presents....
Dinner and a Movie:
Snow White and the Huntsman
Tuesday, September 25
AU Student Center Ballroom
7:00 PM
Dinner for the first 300 students!
For Event Information:
www.auburn.edu/UPC
(334)-844-4788 or follow us on
Facebook and Twitter
@Auburn UPC
Dinner and Dancing
Friday, September 21
AU Student Center Ballroom @ 6 PM to 9 PM
Tickets available TODAY 10am-2pm
AU Student Center 2nd Floor
$5 for students, $15 for general public
TIGER MANIA:
On The Boardwalk
Wednesday, September 26
AU Student Center Greenspace
11am-3pm
Come out for inflatables, tie dye,
caricatures, cornhole tournament, a dunk
tank, a live DJ, free food and much more!
Taylor Grafft and
Justin Ferguson
Writers
The Auburn women’s soc-cer
team dropped their first
two conference games Friday
and Saturday night, losing 2-0
to 13th ranked Missouri and
2-1 in overtime versus Florida.
Against Missouri, long dis-tance
goals from Missouri’s
Kaysie Clark and Haley Krentz
separated the two Tiger teams.
“Missouri did a better job of
executing their gameplan and
playing the way they wanted to
play,” Auburn Head Coach Kar-en
Hoppa said after the game.
“We needed to connect more
passes and be more effective
offensively.”
After non-conference wins
over Auburn in 2008 and 2009,
the Tigers from Columbia cel-ebrated
their first win as a
member of the SEC on Friday.
Despite allowing two goals,
Auburn goalkeeper Amy How-ard
kept Auburn in the game
with nine saves.
The defending SEC Defen-sive
Player of the Week has
made 19 saves in Auburn’s last
two matches.
“She was very good again to-night,”
Hoppa said. “Nine saves
is a really high number. She
saw a lot of shots, and I think
that [Missouri’s] two goals
were really quality finishes.”
Clark’s 29th minute goal, a
low shot that took an awkward
bounce at the last moment,
broke the 0-0 deadlock and
gave Missouri a lead Auburn
was never able to overcome.
After trading good shots
and quality possession with
the conference newcom-ers,
Auburn suffered from too
many turnovers for the rest of
the opening period.
The second half started off
with more dominating play
from Missouri.
Krentz doubled Missouri’s
lead in the 52nd minute with a
22-yard strike that was just out
of Howard’s diving reach.
From that point until the fi-nal
whistle, Auburn looked de-termined
to score.
Near misses and shots off
the woodwork gave fans hope,
but to the dismay of the new-ly
christened student section,
Hoppa’s Hooligans, and the
rest of the crowd at the Au-burn
Soccer Complex, none
of those chances materialized
into a goal.
“We had our opportunities,”
Hoppa said. “We hit a couple
of crossbars, had an empty net
chance that we missed. We
had our chances, but we just
didn’t finish.”
Auburn had a better show-ing
against Florida and took
the lead early, but junior for-ward
Adriana Leon’s long dis-tance
goal with 32 seconds
left in the first overtime peri-od
completed No. 13 Florida’s
comeback, and the Tigers lost
2-1.
“I thought we did a good job
with patience in our defense,”
Hoppa said. “We kept them
in front of us… they’re such a
good possession team, you just
have to give them that. You’re
not going to out-possess Flor-ida,
they’re too good on the
ball. I thought we were patient
and the goal scored was great,
exactly what we were trying to
do. Unfortunately, we couldn’t
finish our other opportunities
and Florida did.”
Senior forward Mary Coffed
put Auburn up, 1-0, in the 5th
minute, when she finessed a
shot low into the right corner
past Florida goalkeeper Tay-lor
Burke.
Sophomore forward Tatiana
Coleman did a good job beat-ing
her defender on the right
wing before sending a low
cross into the box to Coffed for
the assist.
The goal was Coffed’s 14th
of her career and third of the
season.
Auburn took the 1-0 lead
into halftime, but the Tigers
were unable to keep up with
Florida’s dominating posses-sion
in the second half.
In the 73rd minute, Flor-ida
(4-3-1, 1-1-0 SEC) found
the equalizer from senior mid-fielder
Holly King.
Senior defender Jo Dragot-ta
was credited with the assist
after sending a free kick into
the box where King was able to
connect and slide the ball past
Howard.
Auburn created several
chances to go ahead in the fi-nal
minutes of regulation, but
was unable to find a finish.
Their best chance came in
the 90th minute when the ball
was crossed in from the right
wing forcing Florida’s Burke to
make a diving save.
The rebound was loose in
the box, but cleared away by
Florida defenders before an
Auburn player could possess
it.
Florida won in overtime af-ter
Leon dribbled to the top of
the box, following an Auburn
foul, and fired a low shot past
Howard into the left corner.
“They played a quick free
kick and they transitioned out
of the foul quicker than we did.
We left her open and they pun-ished
us for it,” Hoppa said.
Of the nine games Auburn
has played this season, five
have been decided by a single
goal.
Auburn’s record in those
games is 2-3-0.
Auburn defeated Florida 3-2
last year to win the SEC Tour-nament,
but this year, Auburn
has fallen to an overall record
of 4-5-0, 0-2-0 SEC.
They travel to Baton Rouge
to play LSU, Friday, Sept. 21 for
Auburn’s first SEC road test of
the season.
The Tigers then head west
to challenge Texas A&M.
Women’s soccer drops two games to kick off conference play
Rebecca Croomes / Photo Editor
Auburn had numerous chances to defeat both Florida and Missouri, but the team lost both SEC games.
Intrigue
Thursday, September 20, 2012 www.theplainsman.com Intrigue
B5
Emily Morris / assistant photo editor
Hunter Dobbins, senior in creative writing, has been pulled over on
his skateboard at least two dozen times in his two years of living in
Auburn by police, both in cars and on bicycles.
Courtesy of Young americans for liberty
YAL holds protests to demonstrate that the free speech exist.
Courtesy of Young americans for liberty
YAL met on the concourse earlier this month to protest student debt.
Young Americans of Liberty spread importance of free speech
Skateboarders
push for clarity of campus rules
Emily Morris / assistant photo
editor
Rebecca Moseley
Intrigue Reporter
Local skateboarders are
hoping for a clear set of rules
and regulations concerning
skateboarding to clear the
confusion experienced by the
many students and residents
who often use the mode of
transportation primarily, as
well as for police officers that
are unfamiliar with the cur-rent
laws, and also the tech-niques,
of skateboarding.
Numerous skateboarders
have been issued costly tick-ets
as a result of unawareness
of the contrasting rules and
regulations of the city and on
campus.
For example, 21-year-old
Auburn native Charles Galik,
who has used a skateboard
to get to his job at Kroger
on Glenn and Dean for four
years, was pulled over at Mc-
Donald’s two years ago af-ter
traveling at a high speed
down the right side of Mag-nolia.
“I experienced what I felt
was harassment and was
threatened to be handcuffed
on the spot,” Galik said.
Galik said that the officer
accused him of doing tricks in
the middle of the road, which
he said was impossible be-cause
of his high speed.
He said he was then read
his rights, but saw it was just
a scare tactic after the officer
began writing a ticket.
More recently is the inci-dent
of Elliot Broder, who re-cently
graduated with a de-gree
in fisheries, still resides
in Auburn and also uses a
skateboard for transporta-tion
daily.
After what Broder said
he felt was an innocent ride
through empty streets to a
late Tuesday afternoon lab
last spring, he was pulled over
and issued a ticket for disor-derly
conduct.
Broder said after he re-searched
the charge and
watched other court pro-ceedings,
he chose to fight the
charge in court by explaining
to the judge that his experi-ence
with skateboards allows
him to understand how to re-main
safe and that the board
is important to him because
it is his only form of transpor-tation
to and from class and
work.
“I felt stupid because I had
to explain skateboarding
terms to the judge, including
carving to adjust speed, that
(the officer) may have misin-terpreted
as losing control,”
Broder said.
Broder said that he re-ceived
a letter stating the
charge was dropped because
of lack of evidence after the
judge dismissed the court, ad-mitting
that he was unfamil-iar
with skateboarding laws,
and essentially put the case
on hold to discuss the matter
with other officials.
Another example is Hunt-er
Dobbins, a senior in cre-ative
writing, who has been
pulled over on his skateboard
at least two dozen times in his
two years of living in Auburn
by police officers both in cars
and on bicycles.
Similar to Broder, Dobbins
feels his experience should be
taken into account when con-sidering
the safety and legal
aspects of skateboarding.
“I know how to stop…I
know how to use (the skate-board),”
Dobbins said. “It is so
open for interpretation.”
Dobbins said a specific in-cident
occurred last spring
semester when he was giv-en
a criminal mischief charge
for skateboarding across the
crosswalk from campus to-ward
Chick-fil-A in front of
the engineering building.
He said after he received
the charge, he took it direct-ly
to a district attorney he had
previously consulted with on
other similar charges regard-ing
skateboarding.
He said the charge was
dropped immediately be-cause
of what the district at-torney
said was uncertain
rules and regulations against
skateboarding on and off
campus.
“When it comes to city and
downtown on the roads, I
want to know what I can and
can’t do because different
cops tell me different things,”
Dobbins said.
Dobbins said on-cam-pus
police tell him he can-not
skate on campus, but that
he can skate on the road; and
that off-campus police tell
him that he can skate on cam-pus,
but not on the road.
“(I hope) that we get a strict
set of rules of when and where
I can skate,” Dobbins said.
While section XXII-XI of
the city code of ordinanc-es
prohibits riding a bicycle
and skating with skates, roll-er
blades, skateboards, or oth-er
similar devices on the side-walk
within the downtown
business district, there is no
mention of riding or skating
on the street.
The downtown business
district is defined by the code
and the penalty of skating in
this area consists of a max-imum
of $500 in fines and a
six-month maximum sen-tence
of hard labor for the
city, as stated in section I-IX
of the code.
On the other hand, the
campus skateboarding pol-icy
as defined by the 2012-
2013 Traffic and Regulations
of AU Parking Services states
“the use of skateboards, long-boards
and the like (mini-cruisers)
is allowed on cam-pus
as long as it does not pose
a hazard to oneself or others,
or potentially cause property
damage (to include trick rid-ing)
and is in compliance with
Alabama state law and Uni-versity
regulations.”
Part two of the policy goes
on to say that sidewalks that
are intended for pedestrian
use only include those that
are less than 10 feet wide and
are not to be skated on, as
well as ramps at the Coliseum
and any parking deck.
Sidewalks on campus wid-er
than 10 feet are considered
shared-use corridors and are
open to careful skaters so
long as there is no congestion
of pedestrians.
A map of these sidewalks
can be found on the parking
services website.
While the policy does
not prohibit skating on the
street, it strongly discourag-es
it, whether in bike or vehi-cle
lanes.
“If you see a skateboarder
on campus, understand that
you don’t have to jump out of
their way,” Dobbins said. “
You’re not going to see a
new skateboarder trying to
(skate among) 2,000 people
by the Haley Center.”
Rebecca Moseley
Intrigue Reporter
The Young Americans for
Liberty organization plans to
celebrate the nationwide YAL
Constitution Week by stand-ing
up for student rights.
“We have two main ob-jectives
which would be to
spread the message of the
liberty, and to explain the im-portance
of the First Amend-ment
of free speech,” said
Forest Warren, president of
the University’s chapter of
YAL.
The protests, which were
originally planned for the
spring, began yesterday with
members gathering just out-side
of the free speech zone
next to the library from 10
a.m. to 1 pm.
“We’re going to be using
the free speech zone—or the
open air forum, as the Uni-versity
likes to call it—as a
tool to spread the message
of the importance of free
speech,” Warren said.
The organization is hold-ing
the protests in order to
demonstrate that the free
speech zones exist, because
most students are unaware
of them, said Cely Thompson,
freshman in economics and
director of communications
and recruitment for the YAL.
“We’re trying to spread
the message that if you’re
restricting one group’s free
speech, then you’re kind of
throwing free speech out the
window because restrict-ing
speech at all isn’t free
speech,” Thompson said.
The concensus of YAL is
that it is important for stu-dents
to learn about the free
speech zones because if one
right is limited, the boundar-ies
of other rights are threat-ened
as well, Thompson said.
As far as spreading the
message of liberty, Warren
said the organization will be
having several students dress
up as Guantanamo Bay pris-oners
with orange jumpsuits
and black bags over their
heads.
Several students will be
dressed in donated security
guard attire as well.
He said there will also be
students dressed as TSA of-ficers
in a booth made by
group members to mock a
TSA checkpoint.
Students will be given a
convenient, pocket-sized
Constitution after passing
through the booth.
Warren said other plans
for spreading the message
of liberty include meeting
on the concourse Tuesday,
Sept. 18 to continue the pro-tests,
even though they are
still working to raise enough
money for a new tent that
can be used on the con-course.
The organization had
planned to meet on the con-course
every day of the week
beginning Sept. 17, but War-ren
had troubles getting the
plan approved by the Univer-sity
because of the organiza-tion’s
dunk booth event held
on the concourse two weeks
ago.
“They were giving me a lit-tle
bit of what I’d like to call
‘bureaucratic troubles’ just
because of things I had to
sign up and pay for,” Warren
said.
Warren said the University
required him to make a $100
purchase for extra insurance
and that the dunk booth end-ed
up costing about $600,
which was mostly paid for by
an activism grant from the
Leadership Institute.
The Leadership Institute
is also helping YAL to spread
the message of liberty with
a $750 grant to start its own
newspaper to publish on
campus and in the commu-nity.
“We’re going to
be using the free
speech zone–
or the open air
forum, as the
University likes to
call it–as a tool
to spread the
message of the
importance of
free speech. ”
—Forest Warren
President of Auburn’s Young
Americans of Liberty
Intrigue B6 The Auburn Plainsman Thursday, September 20, 2012
ROAD TRIP
Mon-Sat
10am-7pm
Sun
1pm-5pm
AAnnggeell’’ss AAnnttiiqquuee aanndd fflleeaa maallll
Grab your friends and let’s go picking!
900 Columbus Pkwy
Opelika, AL
36801
1 blk off I-85 N, exit 62
•
334-745-3221
Hurry in to fi nd bar signs, cheap
furniture, old windows, cool
Auburn stuff, vintage records,
jewelry, etc!
It’s HUGE!
Rent a Puppy?!
» Well, close enough. ”Pups
and Pops” is coming Mon-day
to the Greenspace.
Pups provided by For Paws
Rescue, and pops will be
made fresh from The Over-all
Company. For more in-formation,
check the In-trigue
section on
www.theplainsman.com
Ag Ambassadors selling coffee for Haiti
“(The Sustainable
Haiti Project)
is providing an
education for
children that
would not usually
get resources,
or money, or
even a school.”
—Katie Brennan
Former President of
the Ag Ambassadors
COREY ARWOOD
Writer
With every bag of Haitian
coffee Auburn’s College of Ag-riculture
Ambassadors sell,
they promote sustainable
economic development and
supply the demands of both
developed and developing
countries.
A beverage to consum-ers
and an economic staple
to producers, how coffee is
viewed is determined by the
wealth of both the country
and its people.
After years of political up-heaval
and one of the worst
earthquakes in its history,
Haiti is trying to reach devel-oping-
country status.
With this in mind, Alltech,
a Lexington, Ky. based agri-culture
company focused on
animal health and nutrition,
became involved in Haiti al-most
immediately after the
2010 earthquake.
The company has helped
regions struck by natural di-saster
before.
Hurricane Katrina, the
2004 Indian Ocean Tsuna-mi
and earlier earthquakes in
China all received natural di-saster
relief from Alltech.
However, according to Su-sanna
Elliott of Alltech cor-porate
public relations, “it be-came
quickly apparent that
traditional relief efforts would
not work in Haiti. They need-ed
a long term commitment
to sustainable economic de-velopment.”
Pearse Lyons, president
and founder of Alltech, at-tempted
to travel directly into
Haiti.
But with complications
from the earthquake and
Alltech having an office in
the Domincan Republic, he
changed route and crossed
the border of the Dominican
Republic into Haiti within 48
hours after disaster struck.
“We formed what we called
the ‘Sustainable Haiti Project’
and it really takes a long term
view to Haiti,” Elliott said.
“Where we are looking at
what kind of resources they
already have in place, and
then working to build those
up. And we see it as not a
handout–we’re not sending
checks over–but a hand up, to
try to elevate them economi-cally
so that they can rebuild
an even better Haiti.”
Haiti was once a leading
coffee supplier, and although
it is still a major cash crop for
families and communities,
over time its role in the coffee
market has severely dimin-ished.
Alltech capitalized on this
potential as one of its efforts
to promote Haiti’s economic
development.
The College of Agricul-ture’s
Associate Dean for In-struction
Paul Patterson ex-plained
the company buys
green beans from the growers
and brings them back to Lex-ington.
There they are roasted,
then packaged and market-ed
under the name Café Cita-delle
and sold.
The coffee is sold in 12
ounce bags for $12 a bag. Kai-tlyn
Mulvaney, of Alltech’s
Georgia location, said, “this is
actually a complete nonprof-it
initiative that Alltech is in-volved
in.
So, Alltech does not hold
any of the funds back, the
clubs get $4.50 and then the
remaining $7.50 goes directly
back to the Haitian families.”
This is not the first time the
College of Agriculture Am-bassadors
have sold the Café
Citadelle coffee or helped
Alltech’s continued efforts in
Haiti.
Katie Brennan, along with
her sister Emily Brennan who
was president of the organi-zation
last year, spent a week
in Haiti that was sponsored
by Alltech through last year’s
coffee sales.
Katie Brennan said see-ing
the coffee cooperative in
Northern Haiti, the schools
that Alltech sponsors and the
realities of the coffee fields
were a major inspiration for
her.
“It’s definitely providing an
education for children that
would not usually get resourc-es,
or money or even have a
school,” she said.
More information about
Alltech’s Café Citadelle can be
found on Alltech’s website.
All proceeds from cof-fee
sales through the Alltech
website go to the Sustainable
Haiti Project.
A percentage of each pur-chase
made through the Col-lege
of Agriculture store web-site
will fund Auburn’s College
of Agriculture Ambassadors,
while the majority will go to
the Sustainable Haiti Project.
Thursday, September 20, 2012 The Auburn Plainsman Intrigue B7
Album review:
‘The Carpenter’ by
The Avett Brothers
All photos courtesy of bellwether variety show
Top: Rivers Langley, Auburn alumnus and creater of the Bellwether
Variety Show, now lives in California to pursue his comedic passions.
Middle: Lisa Taylor of the band Outskirts played at the show last De-cember.
Bottom: Mario Carreras performed his comedy routine last
November.
Transition your decor in between seasons with tips from Moxii
Annie Faulk
Writer
As the warm summer
nights begin to cool and hints
of fall are in the air, college
students may find themselves
questioning how to redeco-rate
their spaces.
Moxii, an interior design
and decor shop in Auburn,
was featured in a USA Today
photograph slideshow about
designer dorms.
The photograph pictorial
demonstrated how Moxii de-signers
were able to transform
Auburn dorm rooms and were
able to capture the student’s
style.
Moxii co-owners gave in-sight
on how to transform
your own space with the lat-est
trends.
What are the new colors
for fall in college dorms and
apartment decorating?
“College students today are
moving toward neutral colors
with the occasional pop of col-or,”
said Betsy Stark, co-owner
of Moxii. “Greys with orang-es
and soft blues with flax are
currently popular.”
“Neutrals, ivory and white,
with a pop of color in decora-tive
pillows,” said Katherine
Bailey, interior designer and
co-owner of Moxii. “Anything
navy has been popular this
year. Textures, layers and ruf-fles
continue to be popular.”
What are the best ways
to decorate a small space,
such as a bathroom, living
room or bedroom?
“Choosing one item for a fo-cal
point and adding touches
of the same color can bring a
sense of completion to a room
of any size,” Stark said. “For
example, adding an interest-ing
piece of art in any of the
three rooms suggested above
and then pulling colors from
the art around the room can
give the room a cohesive feel.”
“I suggest choosing one
main color and two comple-mentary
colors for small spac-es,”
Bailey said. “Keep accesso-ries
simple, and focus on the
bed, sofa and other larger fo-cal
points in the room. Light-ing
is also important. Choos-ing
the right size lamp is key
in small spaces.”
What are the best ways
to re-vamp your dorm or
apartment?
“Curtains and wall art of-ten
refresh dorms and apart-ments
because they draw the
eye upward,” Stark said.
“In my opinion, the bed-ding
and rug should be the fo-cus,”
Bailey said. “Spend en-ergy
on making your bed the
wow for the room with a com-plementary
rug.”
What is one way for peo-ple
to change the decor of
their space without chang-ing
everything?
“One of the least expensive,
but most dramatic, ways to
update a space is with a can
of paint,” Stark said. “Also an
area rug can pull the room.”
“A can of paint can go a long
way,” Bailey said. “If you are
permitted to paint, removable
wallpaper is always fun.”
What is something that
every dorm should have? Is
there a certain item or a cer-tain
trend?
“Well we love our Moxii
shelving because it adds both
vertical space and display ar-eas
to make the room seem
like home,” Stark said.
“Every dorm room should
have a combination of per-sonal
items brought from
home mixed with new intro-ductions,”
Bailey said. “Pho-tos,
artwork, or a pillow from
your bed at home mixed with
new frames, new bedding and
new organizational items.”
What are a few tips for
college students when they
are decorating their space?
“The tag line for Moxii is
‘your personality, your style’,”
Stark said. “And that is the
most important concept to
remember whatever size the
space or whatever the bud-get.”
“It is about expressing who
you are,” Stark said. “Secondly,
enjoy the process.”
“Sometimes an idea works
and sometimes it doesn't but
that is part of the process,”
Stark said. “Thirdly, remem-ber
the details a candle, new
pillows on the sofa, picture
frames, all the personal touch-es
that create a comfortable
space.”
“Enjoy the process, plan
your style and color scheme
and stick to it, and don't be
afraid to spend a little extra
money on an item or two you
will have for years to come,”
Bailey said. “Student decor
doesn't have to be disposable.”
Bellwether
Comedy show encourages local
talent the first Tuesday night of
every month at Bloodhound
Graphic by lane jones
The Avett Brothers have been
breaking banjos and pluck-ing
heart strings since 2000.
The Southern roots rock of the
Avetts is manic, high-energy,
warm-hearted and harmony-drenched.
Their sound centers
on the interplay of banjo, guitar
and upright bass, but it can take
the form of a soaring ballads or
an unhinged country-rock-er
with equal ease. “The Car-penter,”
released on Sept. 11, is
their seventh full-length album
in 10 years. Like 2009’s “I and
Love and You,” it was produced
by Rick Rubin, who has also
worked with the likes of John-ny
Cash and Neil Diamond. The
Avetts have a legacy of favor-ing
a bright, raw sound, but Ru-bin’s
production polishes down
some of their rough edges. The
result is a collection of songs
that, while more stripped down
and streamlined than their pre-decessors,
are both achingly
beautiful and startlingly honest.
While “The Carpenter” capi-talizes
more on “I and Love and
You’s” sadness and soul instead
of previous albums’ frenetic
yells, there’s no mistaking the
signature mix of confusion and
clarity that has characterized
their lyricism the whole way
through. “Live and Die,” the first
single from the album, captures
a theme that runs through the
entire album. Nearly every song
deals with questions of mortal-ity,
devotion and the delicate
balance of life and death. The
reckless boyhood that marked
their early albums has giv-en
way to the voice of experi-ence.
Along with this transfor-mation
came a distinct shift in
the tone of the music. Their sig-nature
frenzy and spontaneity
seem to have been benched in
favor of a more deliberate and
cautious approach. The airy
vocals and tired lyrics of “Win-ter
In My Heart” have a bland-ness
that doesn't seem to be-long
to the same band. “Febru-ary
7” recalls some of the simple
songs of “I and Love and You”
but lacks the emotional grit to
make it memorable. The senti-ment
is too vague or too famil-iar,
and they simply don't hold
up to the standard set by earli-er
albums.
The album’s introspective
second half offers an intimate
glimpse into both the joyous
and sorrowful moments of
life, reminding us (in case we
forgot) why we loved them in
the first place. “A Father’s First
Spring” chronicles the birth
of Scott Avett’s daughter Elea-nor
in 2008. Songs like “Life,”
which closes the album, speak
to the pain that the entire band
has endured since bassist Bob
Crawford’s daughter was diag-nosed
with brain tumor. Their
songs are able to capture the
fullness of conflict and emo-tion
with remarkable grace. The
weight of the album borrows di-rectly
from the band member’s
struggles and triumphs, lend-ing
it a heartbreaking sincerity.
These moments of vulnerabil-ity
resonate with keen aware-ness
and a relentless hope.
Even in the album’s lighter
moments, an undeniable au-thenticity
remains at the core
of every song. The lilting tune
“Down with the Shine” is a
gleaming example of how the
boys can approach heavy sub-ject
matter with a light touch.
“Pretty Girl From Michigan”
is the latest in their long line
of “Pretty Girl From [Place]”
tunes–a series they had to es-tablish
after the last girl they
named in a song title was not
too pleased about all the public-ity.
Cheery anthems like “I Nev-er
Knew You,” and the 97-sec-ond
“Geraldine” expertly infuse
insight with their trademark
contagious energy. The bulk of
“The Carpenter” is heavy with
heartache. but paired with a
dose of familiar foot-stompin'.
The effect is cathartic instead
of gloomy. The Avett Brothers
are a band that would rather
stop playing than do the same
thing twice. Their sound may
have transformed, but the heart
of the music has remained the
same.
Lane Jones
Lane@
theplainsman.
com
Anna Beth Jager
Writer
Picture this: a bar packed
with people, all spread
around a room adorned with
antler decor, that eventu-ally
leads you to a dimly lit
stage with a painted cres-cent
moon hanging against
the wall, smirking at you,
preparing you for a night of
inevitable laughter.
It’s a scene that recurs ev-ery
second Tuesday night
of each month for what has
become known as The Bell-wether
Variety Show.
A show built for laughs,
The Bellwether Variety Show
started in October of 2011
by Auburn alumnus Riv-ers
Langley, who has since
moved to California to pur-sue
his comedic passions,
leaving the show to a new
host and funny man David
Dettmering.
The Bellwether variety
show is held at Bloodhound
or ‘The Hound,’ a family
owned restaurant, bar and
live music venue off Tichenor
Avenue in downtown Au-burn.
With an open, easy-going
atmosphere and food served
until 2 a.m., The Hound was
exactly the type of venue for
The Bellwether Variety Show
to expand to.
Dettmering is equally pas-sionate
about the show and
the opportunity it gives for
local artists who like to get
up on stage.
“If people haven’t been
here, I think they’d be sur-prised
at the level some of
these people are working at,”
Dettmering said. “I’ve defi-nitely
seen people on TV who
aren’t as funny as some of the
people we have come in.”
Every month, there is an
array of comedic stylings
from performers from all
around the East Coast. There
are a few veterans, but new
people come in every week
to try it out. There is no au-dition
process; if someone
hopes to perform and there
is enough room for them,
they can.
An up-and-coming per-former,
River Morris, said
the show helped him devel-op
his own personal comedic
styles and the various things
that inspire him for his per-formance.
“Inspiration for my jokes
comes from a lot of things,”
Morris said. “Most of it
comes from real life experi-ences.
I see the things that
happen around me, and I try
to laugh about it.”
Another performer, Scott
Howard, said performing on
stage is an adrenaline rush.
“It usually keeps me wired
for the rest of the night,”
Howard said. “Now that I've
bombed a cou