August 2012
08.31.2012 | by Chris Saunders | Filed under NC State History, Sports | Comments: No responses |
The NC State Wolfpack takes on the Tennessee Volunteers tonight in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game. While it should be a good game, it’s doubtful that anyone watching in Atlanta or in Raleigh will remember the first time the two teams played.
The first match-up between the two schools — more than 100 years ago — resulted in the first signature win for NC State athletics.
The North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts was in its second full year in 1890. The university had the Pullen and Leazar literary societies to fill the students’ extracurricular needs, but some of those boys and young men wanted more. So they organized a football team that included boys from Raleigh to serve as the college’s first sports club, which received no money from the college.
In those first couple of years, the “the Farmers and the Mechanics,” as the team was known, played area academies and preparatory schools, according to Bill Beezley’s The Wolfpack: Intercollegiate Athletics at North Carolina State University. Fans celebrated the team’s first athletic victory, an 1890 win over Horner Academy in Oxford, N.C., by building a bonfire and listening to professors speak about A&M football’s success.
The 1892 schedule included games against other area colleges. A&M battled Wake Forest, the University of North Carolina and Trinity College, now known as Duke University — but with one catch. The Farmers played those schools’ second teams, known then as “scrubs.”
“C.C. Harris, an 1897 graduate, remembered that the team defeated the prep schools, then got ‘beaten to a frazzle by Carolina and Wake Forest scrubs’ but did manage a tie with Trinity’s second team,” wrote Beezley. The squad continued to struggle as it lost its first official game to Carolina 22-0 in 1893.
And then Tennessee came to town.
November brought the Volunteers to North Carolina for a series of scheduled games against Trinity, UNC and Wake Forest. But after losing to UNC 60-0 and to Trinity 70-0, Tennessee canceled its game against Wake, opting for a more competitive contest against the A&M boys on November 7, 1893.
Beezley wrote that those who attended the game paid 25 cents to get in to watch a scoreless 30-minute first half. But in the second half, the Farmers’ offense was able to get moving with the “flying V” formation and get a touchdown. That led to a 12-6 win for A&M, the school’s first victory against another college opponent.
The Farmers and Mechanics in 1893.
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08.30.2012 | by Chris Saunders | Filed under Administration, NC State History | Comments: No responses |
On the day that Alexander Quarles Holladay’s home state of Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861, he did two things. He married Virginia Randolph Bolling and he went to war, joining the 19th Virginia Regiment as a second lieutenant.
During the Civil War, Holladay reached the rank of a colonel and was paroled in Greensboro, N.C., at the war’s end in 1865, according to David A. Lockmiller’s History of the North Carolina State College.
Holladay, who trained at the University of Virginia and the University of Berlin in Latin and Greek languages and moral philosophy and law, farmed and practiced law in Richmond, Va. He also served in the state senate for four years before becoming a teacher. He served as president of the Stonewall Jackson Institute in Abingdon, Va., and later as president of the Florida Agricultural College, which eventually merged into the University of Florida.
But on this day in 1889, Holladay was elected the first president of the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts.
Lockmiller described the growth of the college during Holladay’s tenure as “slow but steady.” The campus grew from including only Main Building, now called Holladay Hall, to house a mechanics building, an engineering building, a dairy and four brick dorms. He retired in 1899 due to health concerns.
“Alexander Quarles Holladay was eminently qualified by temperament, education, and experience to administer and guide The North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts during the first ten years of its history,” wrote Lockmiller in 1939. “…Stately and polished in manner, disciplined by military service, cultivated by travel, and broadened by wide and thoughtful reading, Colonel Holladay represented the best of a Southern tradition in higher education.”
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08.30.2012 | by Bill Krueger | Filed under Alumni News, Sports | Comments: No responses |
Years ago, Joe Barbee, a lifelong NC State fan, began attending all the away NC State football games when someone else put the travel groups together.
Today, Barbee still attends the away football games (as well as home football games and several other Wolfpack sporting events), but now he’s one of the organizers.
“There’s a loyal group of people who travel to the football games,” says Barbee, a Raleigh native. “We have a good time at all the games.”
Joe Barbee and his daughter, Amanda
Barbee has a group of 26 fans going to the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game when NC State takes on Tennessee on Friday in Atlanta. The group of fans is a combination of close relatives, co-workers and relatives from a large extended family. His daughter, Amanda, who also attended NC State, is flying in from New York City for the game. The group is a bit smaller than the group Barbee sits with at home football games in Raleigh, which generally numbers 30.
“We’ll have a lot of fun,” Barbee said of Friday’s game. “We’re excited about it. I’m so excited about football and I think we’ll have a great team this year….I’m expecting a good game in the Georgia Dome.”
One of Barbee’s favorite away games was in 1992, when NC State played the University of Iowa in New Jersey in a kickoff game. It was Barbee’s first trip to nearby New York City.
“We beat them that night,” he says. “They were favored. It was so exciting. That was a memorable game.”
Barbee is hoping for another exciting night this week, and a good season after that.
“I think we have a better than 50 percent chance of winning,” says Barbee, who predicts a 13-0 record at the start of every Wolfpack football season. “I think we have a better chance than we’ve ever had to win this first game.”
Barbee’s advice to all the Wolfpack fans on Friday night is: “Cheer hard, because it really pumps [the players] up when fans are behind them.”
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Our stories from Atlanta this week were reported and written by Betsy Rhame-Minor, an Apex, N.C., native who grew up an NC State fan because her grandfather was an alumnus. She attended NC State for graduate school, earning a MA in English in 2006. Betsy is a writer and editor in Atlanta. When she’s back in Raleigh she enjoys seeing the Wolfpack women’s basketball team play in Reynolds Coliseum.
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08.29.2012 | by Bill Krueger | Filed under Alumni News, CHASS | Comments: No responses |
Another NC State alumna is working to get a foot in the fashion world. Alaina Tew ’02 and her sister Vanessa Boyd recently opened Swoon Boutique, a trendy clothing shop in Holly Springs, N.C. The store, which boasts on-trend and affordable clothing, shoes and accessories, has been open for almost two months and has already seen lots of foot traffic.
Tew, a communication graduate, worked in event planning prior to collaborating with Boyd, whose background in the fashion industry included working as a buyer for another clothing boutique.
Alaina Tew
“I’ve always been interested in fashion, but my background was definitely more on the marketing, public relations and event planning side,” Tew says. “When my sister and I decided to go into business together, opening a clothing boutique seemed like a great fit.”
While Tew and Boyd are focusing on getting the store up-and-running, keeping product in stock and assisting their customers, they hope to expand to include fun events – like fashion shows – in the coming months.
“I think people might see my current role as a departure from my communication degree, but it amazes me how much my education comes in handy,” Tew says. “I’m constantly interacting with a variety of audiences – distributors, contractors, designers and clients – and knowing how to engage them is critical.”
Swoon Boutique is located at 2112 Werrington Drive, Holly Springs, in Main Street Square off Hwy. 55. The store’s website is also set up for online shopping.
– Caroline Barnhill ‘05
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08.29.2012 | by Bill Krueger | Filed under Sports | Comments: No responses |
Few people can remember the last time NC State and the University of Tennessee played each other in football. However, that all changes Friday night when the two meet in Atlanta at the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game.
The last time the two played was in 1939 when Tennessee won 13-0. In 1911, NC State beat the Volunteers 16-0.
Two North Carolina families have been waiting a long time for this matchup.
Andy Smith ’02, is a fan of both teams. His father is an electrical engineering graduate from the University of Tennessee and Smith is a mechanical engineer from NC State. While growing up in the Raleigh area, Smith always pulled for both teams. “[My wife] tells me I have to pick one or the other,” says Smith.
Smith’s wife has elected to root for NC State in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game. Smith’s loyalties are going to be split. “I’m going to be a man divided,” he says.
Smith, his next door neighbors and nine family members will be sitting together at the game, some as Wolfpack fans and some as Volunteers fans. Though the family hasn’t placed any bets yet for the winning team, Smith believes they’ll have enough time in the car on Friday as they drive from Kernersville to Atlanta to do that.
Greg Coley and his family in Wolfpack gear...
Though Greg Coley’s, ’92, mother will be attending the Kickoff Game in a half red, half orange outfit, Coley will be wearing red. Coley’s mother and grandmother are from Knoxville, Tennessee, and he and his brother are both natives of Hickory, N.C., who went to NC State. Nine members of the Coley family will be sitting together at the game.
“I imagine there will be a little red and a little orange,” says Coley.
It’s a game they have been looking forward to for a long time. “We talked about it all the time,” he says.
... and with his larger family in Tennessee gear.
To his Tennessee relatives who were sure their team would win such a matchup, Coley remembers telling them, “Let’s hope we get that opportunity one day and we’ll settle it on the field.”
It’s a game the Coleys are sad their grandmother won’t see. The Tennessee football season ticket holder died a few years ago. “She was the one lady…I could call and talk about [college football] recruiting,” Coley says. “I hate she’s not here to see it. It will be an emotional game.”
No matter the outcome, members of the Smith and Coley families expect to remain true to their respective teams.
“We’re [still going to be] a family confused instead of a family divided,” says Smith.
Coley, however, is sure that NC State will use the fact Tennessee is favored to win as motivation. “I think it’s going to be a good matchup,” he says.
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Our stories from Atlanta this week were reported and written by Betsy Rhame-Minor, an Apex, N.C., native who grew up an NC State fan because her grandfather was an alumnus. She attended NC State for graduate school, earning a MA in English in 2006. Betsy is a writer and editor in Atlanta. When she’s back in Raleigh she enjoys seeing the Wolfpack women’s basketball team play in Reynolds Coliseum.
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08.29.2012 | by Bill Krueger | Filed under Academics, CHASS, Faculty News, NC State History | Comments: One response |
Mary E. Wheeler didn’t go to college until after she had raised her two boys, and she was admittedly a bit nervous about going to class with students fresh out of high school.
But Wheeler did well in her studies at Norfolk College of William and Mary, graduating in three-and-a-half years with a 4.0 average. “I was accepted and found it an exhilarating experience to find my mind had not atrophied completely,” Wheeler recalled in an interview years later with The Raleigh Times.
In fact, Wheeler continued with her studies, going on to earn a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1966, Wheeler joined the faculty at NC State, where she was an associate professor of Russian history.
And while she may have been late to university life, Wheeler clearly took to academia. On this day in 1973, Wheeler became the first woman to receive one of the Outstanding Teacher Awards given annually at NC State. She was one of two recipients that year.
Dr. Mary E. Wheeler
Wheeler told The Raleigh Times that her students were open-minded and interested in Russian culture. She was excited about using that experience in her upcoming classes on Russian history.
“The Russian people were very friendly and hospitable,” she said. “They almost put Southern hospitality to shame.”
Wheeler encouraged women to follow her lead and get a college education, even if it happened later in life.
“Many are afraid they won’t be able to keep up with the younger students,” she said. “But I have found that their additional maturity makes up for their age. They have more self-discipline and are not worrying about whether or not they have a date for Saturday night.”
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08.28.2012 | by Chris Saunders | Filed under Alumni News, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, NCSU Libraries | Comments: One response |
When you ask Grayson Currin ‘05 about his transition from being a CALS major at NC State to a music journalist, he laughs at not having thought about biology since he graduated.
“I don’t think about agriculture and life sciences enough to catch that you said ‘CALS,’” he says. “I thought you said ‘cows.’”
For Currin, who is also the co-director of the Hopscotch music festival held annually in Raleigh, biology bought him time at NC State. He came to the university with a passion for science, something he liked because his mother was a biology teacher at the high school he attended in Fuquay-Varina, N.C.
Currin wanted to be a doctor, but he quickly found he wanted to write more. So he used science, something he says he could do rather easily, to give him the freedom and time to explore his passion for words. He soon began to marry that passion with something he’d long loved — music.
While he was in college, Currin admits, he was a fan of the Dave Matthews Band. And it so happened that Matthews’ lead guitarist, Tim Reynolds, was doing a solo show at the Lincoln Theatre. “I just wanted to hang out with the guy,” Currin says. “So I got in my mind that I should interview him, and I set it up with his people.”
The problem was that Currin wasn’t writing for any publication. So he went to Technician, got an application and received the benefit of an expedited selection process when he told an editor he already had secured an interview with Reynolds.
That gig led to a career. “I really just wrote ,” Currin says. “I would just write as much as I could.”
When he was a sophomore, the Independent Weekly contacted Currin about covering Raleigh’s music scene. He started writing a column for that publication and has been there since 2003, now serving as its music editor. He’s also a contributing editor for Pitchfork, a national music publication.
Currin says the best part of the job, while at the same time being one of the most deflating, is always discovering just how much music is out there, just how much he’ll never be able to hear. “I’m always learning that there’s something I didn’t know,” he says. “It’s constantly unraveling. It’s a picture that’s larger than you ever thought it would be. That’s one of the joys of the job.”
Those writing duties led directly to Hopscotch, which will be in its third year when it takes place September 6-8 in venues across Raleigh. He says he and his partner went through some growing pains at the festival’s outset, losing $80,000 the first year. But the pair soon found that success was in spending more money and aiming higher with every subsequent festival. Last year, they turned their first profit. And now the festival helps him satiate his appetite for all music all the time.
Currin tells the story of the first time music really meant something to him. He was on a bus with 30 other kids heading cross country on a summer trip his parents had signed him up for. He pulled out a Case Logic binder that held 256 CDs. He only had 30 or so in there, but he remembers a kid pointing to it and saying, “Look at how many CDs that guy has.”
“I was like, ‘Yeah,’” Currin says of the self-satisfaction he felt. “That to me is still a genuine feeling. I still want all the CDs. I want all the music.”
Currin will speak tomorrow afternoon at 4 p.m. about his education and Hopscotch in D.H. Hill Library as part of the Amazing Alumni series. The program is free, open to the public and presented in collaboration with 88.1 WKNC.
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08.28.2012 | by Bill Krueger | Filed under Sports | Comments: One response |
Over 5,000 alumni live in the greater Atlanta area, this weekend’s host for the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Games. Thousands of Wolfpack fans will arrive in the city hungry for an NC State win against the Tennessee Volunteers, so we asked several Atlanta Wolfpack alumni what visiting fans should see and do while in town for the weekend.
The World of Coca-Cola
Some of Atlanta’s most well-known attractions are great for first-time visitors. Chris Gilmore ‘08 recommends the Atlanta History Center, World of Coca-Cola, CNN Center and the King Center. Pam Jones ’78 also likes the Georgia Aquarium.
According to Jeannette Johnson ’86, the best place to see the city is at the Sundial Restaurant, Bar and View at the top of the Westin Hotel in downtown Atlanta. “I love taking out-of-town friends to the Sundial…[for] great views of Atlanta” she says.
Dan Houck ‘00 recommends several places in Midtown Atlanta.
“Piedmont Park is an important cultural center for Atlanta, whether that be the finish line for the Peachtree Road Race, a venue for Paul McCartney or the host for a family picnic,” Houck says. “Also, come see the Fabulous Fox Theatre. Tour the building to see the Moorish architecture and stay for a world-class show. Go across the street for drinks at the Georgian Terrace Hotel if you have time.”
Dan Houck
The Jimmy Carter Library and Museum is just a few minutes from downtown Atlanta and the Georgia Dome. “Seeing the mementos President Carter received from the heads of state during his time in office and the full-size model of the Oval Office makes the visit unique,” says Robert Mays ‘97.
The best burger in Atlanta is up for debate. One of the most famous Atlanta burger joints is The Varsity, located near Georgia Tech’s campus. The Vortex , Yeah! Burger, Grindhouse Killer Burgers and Bocado are also popular places.
“But if you have some time, head over to Holeman & Finch,” says Gilmore. “They only serve 24 burgers each night at 10 pm, so you have to get there around 8:30 to reserve a burger.”
Mays recommends one of Atlanta’s most unique restaurants for the best burger in town. Ann’s Snack Bar was rated the top burger in the U.S. by the Wall Street Journal and CNN Travel.
“Ann’s Snack Bar is an institution here in Atlanta, serving the world-famous Ghetto Burger I love. The burger is not the only reason to go though,” he says. “The small, eight-seat restaurant cannot hold Miss Ann’s personality (think Soup Nazi from Seinfeld), which pushes the experience to unforgettable.”
No Atlanta experience is complete without sitting in a little traffic. With the Auburn versus Clemson Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game on Saturday night, the Atlanta Braves at home all weekend against the Philadelphia Phillies, Dragon*Con and the NASCAR race at the Atlanta Speedway, visitors will need to allow extra time to get around. Mays recommends stopping at The Varsity for a Frosted Orange drink until the traffic clears on the Downtown Connector.
For those looking to escape Atlanta’s busy attractions, area suburbs and the North Georgia foothills and mountains provide a peaceful atmosphere with beautiful scenery. “Visit downtown historic Roswell shops and great dining,” says Lisa Renko ‘87.
Robert Mays
Jones recommends Tiger Mountain Vineyards, Tallulah Gorge State Park and dinner at the Dillard House, all about an hour north of Atlanta.
But no matter what NC State fans do for the rest of the weekend, Mays says this is what’s important: “…Seeing the sea of red in the Georgia Dome and knowing it won’t be University of Georgia fans. Enjoy your time here, but save some energy for those Vols. Go Pack!”
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Our stories from Atlanta this week were reported and written by Betsy Rhame-Minor, an Apex, N.C., native who grew up an NC State fan because her grandfather was an alumnus. She attended NC State for graduate school, earning a MA in English in 2006. Betsy is a writer and editor in Atlanta. When she’s back in Raleigh she enjoys seeing the Wolfpack women’s basketball team play in Reynolds Coliseum.
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08.27.2012 | by Chris Saunders | Filed under College of Veterinary Medicine, NC State History | Comments: No responses |
NC State’s College of Veterinary Medicine consistently ranks as one of the top programs of its kind in the country. But it was a program not without controversy when educational leaders from around the state argued for its establishment 45 years ago. When the dust settled, on this day in 1981, the inaugural class of 40 students took the first veterinary medicine classes ever held on NC State’s campus.
Alice Elizabeth Reagan writes in her North Carolina State University: A Narrative History that leaders first explored the establishment of a vet school in the late 1960s, when the Southern Regional Education Board’s regional programs in veterinary medicine said it lacked enough room for its own students. Until that point, the SREB allowed North Carolina veterinary students to attend the University of Georgia, Auburn University and Oklahoma State University. With those students needing somewhere else to go, the N.C. Veterinary Association made a formal request to establish a school at NC State, which, in turn, established an advisory committee in 1970.
Governor Bob Scott also appointed a committee, and in 1971 it echoed the support for a vet school at NC State. The General Assembly and the Board of Governors both supported NC State as the site in 1973. Reagan writes that it was at this point that N.C. A&T State University threw its name in the hat for the location of the new vet school at its campus in Greensboro, N.C. Outside consultants identified NC State as the better option, and officials from N.C. A&T charged discrimination and sought help from what was then called the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW). “HEW responded by proclaiming that the University of North Carolina was at fault for not taking into consideration the racial impact of the veterinary school decision,” Reagan writes, adding that UNC system president William “Bill” Friday ‘41 argued against the A&T location. The controversy then reached its most tenuous moment when HEW officials said they would halt federal dollars from coming into the UNC system if the vet school found its home at NC State. Friday finally went to Washington, D.C., to reach a resolution and “in October, 1975, HEW officials reluctantly withdrew their objection.”
After a U.S. District Court judge denied an injunction that N.C. A&T alumni had sought to stop the school, the General Assembly appropriated $2.5 million for the new school in 1977. And then the ball was rolling at NC State. Reagan writes that faculty recruitment and the construction of the school by the fairgrounds began in 1978. Four departments were created in 1980 (Anatomy, Physiology, and Radiology; Companion Animal and Special Species Medicine; Microbiology, Pathology and Parasitology; and Food Animal and Equine Medicine). And in the fall of 1981, the school’s first class took to the labs for the very first time.
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08.27.2012 | by Bill Krueger | Filed under Alumni Association News, Alumni News, Sports | Comments: No responses |
The Black Alumni Society (BAS) had no problem getting its members interested in the Wolfpack’s season-opener in football this year.
BAS is taking a charter bus to Atlanta on Friday for the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game against the University of Tennessee. Soon after the trip was publicized, the 50 tickets were quickly purchased, and more were ordered by the organization.
“Those went right away,” says BAS President Stephanie Cogdell, ’93.
Though there is no official tailgating event, the BAS is encouraging its members to meet up with each other in the FanZone and take part in Wolfpack Club festivities. The Atlanta Network of BAS alumni are hosting an event following the game.
“NC State is planning so many great activities,” says Monique Harrell-Cartwright, ’93, co-chair of the Atlanta Network of BAS.
Cogdell is heading to Atlanta earlier in the week to spend time with friends and fellow NC State alumni before the game Friday night.
“I’m excited because it’s against Tennessee,” says Cogdell, a Raleigh resident who attends every home football game. “This will be my first time going to Atlanta for a game.”
Members of the Atlanta Network of BAS will be at the hotel to welcome the charter bus passengers and provide them with information on what to do in Atlanta. The Atlanta Network is organizing a social for after the game.
“We really wanted to do something,” says Harrell-Cartwright. “[The event is for] anyone who wants to hang out after the game….We’re hoping for a good turnout.”
The Atlanta Network of BAS’ party is at Wet Willie’s on Piedmont Road in the Buckhead area of Atlanta.
Harrell-Cartwright sees the Friday night event as a way to get more people hooked into the NC State network in Atlanta and beyond.
“We want to reconnect with NC State alumni,” Harrell-Cartwright says. “We’re trying to build a strong network here and get people interested in being involved.”
BAS Networks are active in Raleigh, Charlotte, Washington, D.C., and Chicago. For more information about BAS and its events, visit http://www.ncsublackalumni.org/. For information on and directions to Wet Willie’s, visit http://www.wetwillies.com/Locations/Atlanta.html.
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Our stories from Atlanta this week were reported and written by Betsy Rhame-Minor, an Apex, N.C., native who grew up an NC State fan because her grandfather was an alumnus. She attended NC State for graduate school, earning a MA in English in 2006. Betsy is a writer and editor in Atlanta. When she’s back in Raleigh she enjoys seeing the Wolfpack women’s basketball team play in Reynolds Coliseum.
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