In 1962, NC State celebrated its 75th anniversary. That year also marked the centennial of the signing of the Morrill Act, the landmark legislation that paved the way for land-grant universities such as NC State. To mark both occasions, the music department commissioned a musical composition by noted North Carolina composer M. Thomas Cousins. The piece, called “Of Earth and Atom,” celebrated NC State and its land-grant legacy. It was performed by the symphonic band accompanied by the men’s chorus, with spoken and sung parts. The musical score was thought to have to been lost in the 1965 fire at Pullen Hall, but the score was recently found in the archives of D.H. Hill Library. Harry Tune ‘62, who performed the piece as first trombone, and Brent Cousins ‘73, ‘74, the son of the composer, are working to see if the composition can be performed again this year as NC State celebrates its 125th year. To hear a recording of a 1962 performance, click here.
Hesham Kandil ’93 PHD, Egypt’s minister of water resources, was nominated prime minister by Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi on Tuesday.
Kandil was born in 1962. He received a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Cairo in 1984, then went on to earn a master’s in irrigation and drainage from Utah State University in 1988, according to BBC news. He earned his PhD from NC State in biological and agricultural engineering with a minor in water resources in 1993.
In Kandil’s dissertation, he extended a computer simulation model of water drainage developed at NC State. The work, titled “DRAINMOD-S: A Water Management Model for Irrigated, Arid Lands,” uses data from field plots in Egypt. The computer model developed at NC State simulates how water moves through poorly drained, high-water table soils on an hour-by-hour and day-by-day basis for long periods of as long as 50 years. Kandil’s paper helps predict salinity on arid lands—an issue in parts of the world like Egypt.
Wayne Skaggs, William Neal Reynolds professor of drainage and agricultural water management, was Kandil’s adviser at NC State. Skaggs remembers Kandil as a “very bright, hard-working student who did an outstanding job on his PhD….a personable, very technically able individual who works well with people in all levels.” Skaggs noted that although one news report referred to him as an “obscure technocrat,” he found Kandil to be out of “outstanding moral and ethical character…a pleasure to be around.”
“My experience with Hesham indicates that he is absolutely honest and will work as hard as he can to do his very best to benefit the people of Egypt. I am very proud of him. The job he now has is enormous,” Skaggs said in an email message.
As an American-educated technocrat, Kandil is likely to be comfortable working with international agencies, news reports noted. At age 50, he is one of the youngest prime ministers in the country’s modern history. His leadership skills will be tested as he begins to assemble a cabinet that would replace the current one, appointed by the military after a 2011 uprising ended the nearly 30-year reign of President Hosni Mubarak.
Kandil’s selection came a week after a deadline that Morsi had himself to name a cabinet. So far, no other members of a new government have been announced, and government ministries remain under the control of figures from the Mubarak era.
According to the New York Times, Kandil came to the public eye briefly in June when a subordinate in his ministry climbed out on a building ledge and threatened to commit suicide. Kandil reportedly quietly persuaded him to come back inside the building. Exactly what he said to the man was not revealed, giving Kandil a reputation for discretion as well, according to the Times.
The Washington Post reported that Kandil will the first prime minister in Egypt to wear a beard, which is seen as an outward display of Islamic piety. Morsi is Egypt’s first bearded president.
The correct web site for Encore, NC State’s continuing education program, is ncsu.edu/encore. An incorrect website address was published in the summer issue of NCState magazine.
You can also find out more about Encore by calling 919-515-5782 or visiting the office at the McKimmon Center.
Encore offers a variety of classes, many taught by retired NC State professors, in a wide variety subjects ranging from genetics to low-budget western films, to students age 50 and up.
For years it was known as the RBC Center. Now it is known as PNC Arena. What really matters, of course, is that it is the home of Wolfpack men’s basketball.
But on this day in 1997, when officials staged the groundbreaking for the new arena in west Raleigh, it was known as the Raleigh Entertainment & Sports Arena. Or ESA.
The groundbreaking on the $120 million arena came after months of negotiations and efforts to scrape together the money. NC State would share the arena with the Carolina Hurricanes of the National Hockey League.
“The budget battle that preceded approval of Raleigh’s proposed arena was dirty,” read a story on WRAL.com at the time of the groundbreaking. “But it couldn’t hold a candle to the shovels full of mud that flew Monday at the arena’s official groundbreaking ceremony.”
Among those on hand for the ceremony was then-Gov. Jim Hunt and then-Chancellor Larry Monteith.
When the arena opened a little more than two years later, the NC State magazine welcomed it with a two-page spread of photos, calling it a “state-of-the-art arena capable of ‘packing in’ 19,722 howling fans.
Kristen Aubut’s life is just the right mix of the French impressionist painter Monet and Little Bear, a show on the children’s network Nick Jr.
A 2010 CHASS graduate, Aubut is a stay-at-home mother in Raleigh looking after her 4-year-old son, Wilson. But late in 2011, she decided to use some of her time to paint and sell her work through a new business, Fresh Coat of Paint Designs.
Aubut, 27, now spends four hours of her day painting, networking and preparing for art shows, most of which are lined up in the homes of family and friends. “It’s still in the process,” she says. “It’s still at the hobby status. I’m not making a living of it now, but maybe one day.”
It’s definitely a grassroots effort. She promotes her work on Facebook and on her website and invites friends over to serve as focus groups for her art. She goes to other art shows to form some basis for the prices on her own work. And she fields criticism from her son, who’ll sometimes question if a painting is pretty enough to sell. “Sometimes he’s right,” Aubut says.
Aubut describes her work as folk art and something that could be seen at a craft show. She draws with colored pencils and paints with oil pastels. She admits that her paintings reflect some of the raw talent she developed at Sanderson High School in Raleigh, where she first discovered the reward of seeing a landscape and capturing it on canvas. Those landscapes now include memorable places on NC State’s campus, such as the Brickyard, the smokestacks or Holladay Hall. Those paintings capture the affinity she has for the university as well as help her find an audience for her work, her main goal.
“When I create something,” she says, “my goal is to have a person desire putting it in their home or office.”
Richard H. Linton, chair of the Food Science and Technology department at The Ohio State University, has been named the new dean of NC State’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. His appointment is effective Sept. 15.
“He has a strong agricultural background and he’s led many successful collaborate efforts involving academia, industry and other important stakeholder groups,” Provost Warwick Arden said in announcing Linton’s appointment. “I’m confident that he’ll be a major asset to the college, the university and the state of North Carolina.”
Linton is an expert in food microbiology and developing food-safety systems to reduce the risk of foodborne illness. He most recently chaired the largest food science and technology program in the country at Ohio State. Before that, Linton served as a professor of food science, center director and unit leader at Purdue University.
At Purdue, Linton directed the Center for Food Safety Engineering, which aims to provide knowledge to detect and prevent chemical and microbial food contamination, doubling the center’s funding and building multidisciplinary research teams.
The meal sounds simple enough — a chicken club sandwich with turkey, bacon, avocado, tomatoes and grilled chicken on homemade bread. But for Austin Simmons and Andrew Vanover it was another chance to make a new friend.
Simmons (a rising senior at NC State) and Vanover (a recent NC State grad) are traveling the world this summer. They have a specific goal in mind for their travels — to make new friends in each country by asking strangers to join them for a meal. They even have a name for their journey — 50 days 50 meals.
Austin Simmons and Andrew Vanover
And so, while in Capetown, South Africa, they enjoyed a chicken club at The Green Room, a small surf shop owned by a man named Ollie. “He started his own shop six years ago after being a waiter for 15 years in various locations around the globe,” Simmons wrote in an email while on board a plane destined for Turkey. “He decided he wanted to do something on his own and opened The Green Room. We hung out with him for a bit and got to hear his story! Fantastic stuff.”
Simmons, a Caldwell Fellow, says that he and Vanover wanted to take a trip where they could tap into their shared passion for photography, film and graphic design. But they also wanted the trip to have purpose or, as Simmons says, “something that had some backbone to it.” They offered further explanation for their journey on their blog.
“We both had a love for food and people, so we came up with the concept of engaging with at least one person a day on a personal level,” Simmons says. “We wanted to just love them. We thought, what better platform to reach people than through food. We wanted to engage individuals from multiple socioeconomic backgrounds using the bistro table as common ground. We wanted to hear their stories, hear a their perspective on various topics, learn from different cultures.”
Their travels will ultimately take them to 19 different countries, including Peru, India, China and New Zealand. To pay for the trip, Simmons and Vanover worked for almost six months to get sponsors for each day of their journey. Given the trip’s focus on food, it’s not surprising that many of the sponsors are restaurants in the Triangle — places like Humble Pie, Elmo’s Diner, Vin Rouge and Amante Gourmet Pizza. Other business sponsors include High Rock Partners, Southern Rail and, fittingly, The Globetrotter Luggage & Gifts.
Simmons and Vanover typically arrive in each country with no plans and no place to stay. Their goal is to meet a stranger, offer to buy them dinner and then get to know them over a meal. They take photos and videos of their new friends, and share their experiences on a blog and Web site they are maintaining for their trip. Simmons says the craziest meal they have had so far was a South African sandwich known as a “Gatsby” that is stuffed with different meats, french fries and a special sauce.
“It is important to note that the conversation is the MOST important part,” Simmons wrote. “The paying for the meal is just something we try our best to do to show the true nature of our hearts.”
The two are a couple of weeks into their journey, and Simmons says they have already met dozens of “amazing people.”
“The most exciting thing is knowing that every day is a surprise,” he says. “We have learned to expect the unexpected, let the place we are lead/guide us in whichever and whatever way it wants. And when we don’t understand someone, just smile and say hello!”
Simmons says they hope to turn their journey — and the photos and videos they have taken along the way — into a publication, a documentary and “hopefully” an exhibit at the Contemporary Art Museum in downtown Raleigh.
“We’re not changing the world,” Simmons says, “but it is really rewarding to leave a place with new friends and stories to tell.”
Matt Salome was hoping to find a way into the business side of sports when he received his MBA from NC State this May. Little did he know that some work he did in class would be the key to open the door.
Salome loves sports, so when one of his professors told him this spring about someone looking for students to do some sports-related market research, Salome jumped at the chance. The “client” in this case was Michael Wranovics, the founder and CEO of something known as the Basketball Alumni Legends League, or The-BALL.
Wranovics’ plans are to create a league of basketball teams based in college-basketball hotbeds — like Raleigh — comprised of players who have finished their college eligibility but not made it to the NBA. The idea is to give those players a chance to continue playing in front of fans who are familiar with them from their college days. The goal is to have the league up and running by next summer.
But The-BALL is starting with a “soft launch” of two games this summer, a home-and-home series between teams from Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia. And that’s where Salome comes back into the picture.
Salome did so much market research for Wranovics that he turned it into an independent study course. Not long after Salome graduated in May, Wranovics told him he could still use his help as the league was preparing for the two games this summer. He offered to pay Salome to move to Philadelphia and work with the league through early August, when the games will be played.
And so Salome had a foot in the door of the sports world.
“I do a little bit of everything, literally everything,” Salome says. That includes getting press releases out, doing social media for the league, managing the league’s Web site, taking care of press credentials for the two games, etc. “I’m kind of his right hand man for getting stuff done,” he says of Wranovics.
Unlike the NBA’s development league, The-BALL plans to put teams in college towns and stock them with players from the area. A Raleigh team, for example, would feature former players from NC State, UNC, Duke and other universities in North Carolina. The Washington team that will play this summer will have players from Georgetown, Maryland, George Mason and other area universities.
“There is a tremendous amount of talent that, for whatever reason, doesn’t make it to the NBA,” Salome says. “This is an opportunity to showcase some of those former college players.”
Salome says the league will also give fans a chance to keep up with some of their favorite players from their alma mater. “These guys will be playing in front of the crowds that are used to cheering for them,” he says.
Salome is enjoying the work, and hopes it evolves into a full-time job.
“How cool is it,” he asks, “to be able to say that I’m helping to launch a basketball league?”
A new book has been written about NC State’s Cullen Jones — with an eye toward younger readers.
In Speed to Glory: The Cullen Jones Story, first-time author Natalie Davis Miller tells a story familiar to fans of Jones, who is preparing for the upcoming Olympics in London. The former NC State swimmer has qualified to compete in the 50-meter freestyle, 100-meter freestyle and the 4×100-meter freestyle relay.
The 98-page paperback was published by Zonderkidz, which specializes in Bibles and Christian-themed books and videos. The books revisits the story of how Jones nearly drowned in a pool when he was 5 years old, prompting his mother to enroll him in swimming classes.
Jones, of course, went on to compete at the highest levels of swimming. He swam for NC State, winning an NCAA championship in the 50-yard freestyle and then went on to be part of the dramatic 4×100 relay with Michael Phelps, Jason Lezak and Garrett Weber-Gale that won the gold medal at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
Jones also has served as a role model, encouraging countless kids to take up swimming. As one of the few African-Americans competing at the highest levels of swimming, Jones has been an inspiration to African-American children to get in the pool.
The book focuses on the hard work Jones put in to succeed in swimming, as well as the importance of faith in his athletic pursuits.
Miller, a freelance writer in Indiana, says she was attracted to Jones’ story because he is defying stereotypes and because he is giving back to his community through the Make a Splash safety initiative sponsored by USA Swimming.
“He’s going out into the community and talking at schools and other places about water safety,” she says. “How awesome is that? He’s an Olympic swimmer and he’s still getting in the water with little kids and helping them learn how to swim.”
Miller says that may end up being Jones’ greatest legacy, even if he is able to win more Olympic medals in London. “By reaching these parents and their children, he’s going to save more lives down the line,” she says. “His legacy will shine through him in that way.”
But Miller and her family will be watching and cheering as Jones competes in London for what he hopes will be his first Olympic medal in an individual event.
Former NC State swimmer Duncan Goodhew ‘79 will be in a comfortable place when the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympics get under way on July 27 in London.
Goodhew, a London resident, won a gold medal for Great Britain in the 100m breaststroke at 1980 summer games in Moscow. We feature the former Wolfpacker in the summer issue ofNC State magazine, and he talks about his Olympic victory, how he’s translated it into a career as a motivational speaker and how his dyslexia motivated him to succeed.
Goodhew is serving as an ambassador for Great Britain’s Olympic team this year. Since the Olympics starts in two weeks, we thought our readers might like revisiting — or watching for the first time — his gold-medal swim from 1980. Enjoy!
For years it was known as the RBC Center. Now it is known as 
Kristen Aubut’s life is just the right mix of the French impressionist painter Monet and Little Bear, a show on the children’s network Nick Jr.
Aubut, 27, now spends four hours of her day painting, networking and preparing for art shows, most of which are lined up in the homes of family and friends. “It’s still in the process,” she says. “It’s still at the hobby status. I’m not making a living of it now, but maybe one day.”
Aubut describes her work as folk art and something that could be seen at a craft show. She draws with colored pencils and paints with oil pastels. She admits that her paintings reflect some of the raw talent she developed at Sanderson High School in Raleigh, where she first discovered the reward of seeing a landscape and capturing it on canvas. Those landscapes now include memorable places on NC State’s campus, such as the Brickyard, the smokestacks or Holladay Hall. Those paintings capture the affinity she has for the university as well as help her find an audience for her work, her main goal.
Richard H. Linton, chair of the Food Science and Technology department at The Ohio State University, has been named the new dean of NC State’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. His appointment is effective Sept. 15.
Salome loves sports, so when one of his professors told him this spring about someone looking for students to do some sports-related market research, Salome jumped at the chance. The “client” in this case was 
Unlike the NBA’s development league, The-BALL plans to put teams in college towns and stock them with players from the area. A Raleigh team, for example, would feature former players from NC State, UNC, Duke and other universities in North Carolina. The Washington team that will play this summer will have players from Georgetown, Maryland, George Mason and other area universities.
In 
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