Hark the Sounds

Jack Hughes '39 has seen a lot of history in his 101 years, including a front row seat at the D-Day invasion. Listen to the story of his assignment on the healing end of history's largest naval invasion, in his own words. Read more about Jack Hughes in the September/October '21 issue of the Carolina Alumni Review: https://bit.ly/jack-hughes.

Timothy Beatley ’85 (MA, ’86 PhD) believes in the benefits of maximizing connections and contact with the natural world.

Because you can't go to the Smtih Center this season, we'll bring the Smith Center to you. Put on your lucky jersey and get ready to jump around.

It had been more than 50 years since they had walked off the basketball court as teammates, members of a squad that established Carolina as a perennial national title contender and started building Dean Smith’s legendary status as a coach. But it seemed as if it had been just last week listening to Jim Delany, retired commissioner of the Big 10 Conference; Eddie Fogler, longtime assistant to Smith and retired college head coach; and Charlie Scott, a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame who played professionally before a career in business. Chatting on Zoom with a fellow member of the class of 1970, GAA President Doug Dibbert, the Carolina memories flowed as smoothly as Delany and Fogler’s assists to Scott back in the day.

In a life defined by her love of books, "The Night Before Christmas" holds a special meaning for Elinor Dixon Hawkins ’50 that extends well beyond the holiday season. Read more about the amazing life of Elinor Hawkins in the November/December '20 issue of the Carolina Alumni Review: https://unc.live/3fy4biY

Elijah Heyward ’18 (PhD) has always been interested a richer, more complete American story. As COO of the International African American Museum, now rising on the Charleston waterfront, he’s getting the chance to build that narrative from the ground up.

In a career defined by covering foreign wars, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Zucchino ‘73 discovered the conflict that drives his third book closer to home. In 1898, white supremacists overthrew the multiracial government of Wilmington, N.C. It remains the only coup d'état ever to take place on American soil. For decades, American history textbooks wrongly cast the black victims as instigators, and the perpetrators as heroes. It took almost a century for the true story to come to light. Zucchino tells that story in the book Wilmington’s Lie.

(Please use headphones to listen to this episode for the full sonic experience.) Immerse yourself in the sounds of a sunny summer day on campus as you take a brief, five-minute walk around the Southern Part of Heaven.

Everybody knows that Hinton James, Carolina's first student, walked to Chapel Hill from Wilmington...or did he? University Archivist Nicholas Graham '98 (MSLS) takes on the enduring campus legend. Want more? Check out the Review's coverage of the first Hinton James Day, held during the University's Sesquicentennial in 1945: http://bit.ly/2uDmOPC

Acting on an impulse, Whitney Brown ’10 (MA) changed the course of her life. A Phi Beta Kappa perfectionist, intent on a career studying folklore, she turned down a promising job with the Smithsonian Institution and instead ran off to Wales to learn the ancient art of building dry-stone walls. More about Whitney Brown: “A Perfect Fit,” in the January/February 2020 Carolina Alumni Review. https://unc.live/2QZ1PiF

History, says UNC professor William Sturkey, isn’t necessarily what happened. “It’s what gets written down.” Recent events like the renaming of Saunders Hall, and the national attention focused on the Silent Sam confederate monument, have forced Carolina to reckon with the unwritten parts of its racial history. That’s the point of the “Race and Memory at UNC” class taught by Sturkey, an assistant professor of history. His class is one of 18 in the University’s shared learning initiative, titled “Reckoning: Race, Memory and Reimagining the Public University.” Over 800 students are taking courses. Sturkey's class is the only one designed specifically for the initiative. It is by far the largest, with over 100 students enrolled. Sturkey doesn't want to reinvent the wheel. He just wants to teach history in a much more transparent and honest way. And if that makes some folks uncomfortable, well, that gives him fuel for the fire. Because he doesn't want his grandchildren to be having these same racial arguments 100 years from now. More about William Sturkey: “Some Things That Are Just Wrong,” in the November/December 2019 Carolina Alumni Review. https://unc.live/2Oq4f7o

Danny Rosin '90 paid his way though college "leveraging my love for Carolina (and hatred for dook). I did this through a small business enterprise on campus, where I was the guy knocking on dorm doors." The business was selling T-shirts, which included the iconic '25 things you need to do before you graduate from UNC.' Today, as the founder of promotional products company Brand Fuel, "we hold CLC licenses to manage the protection of UNC’s sacred marks versus the production of rogue that helped fund my education." Take a nostalgic trip down the Franklin Street of the 1980s as Danny tells his unlikely tale. (See the shirt in question at http://bit.ly/unc-top-25-things, and share your Chapel Hill memories at http://bit.ly/unc-top-25-comments.)

The academic rigors and culture of college can trip up even the best-prepared. Jeff Powell ’15 fell back on his love of creating objects, and that eventually led him to Holden Mora. In this episode, Powell discusses the trials and tribulations he encountered while building his first prosthetic hand for the 5-year-old boy. Find out more about Jeff Powell at https://alumni.unc.edu/news/a-hands-on-education/.

To the rest of the world, Alexander Julian '69 is a an internationally acclaimed designer who credits his style to his Chapel Hill upbringing. To the Tar Heel faithful, he's the man behind the iconic argyle on all of the Tar Heel sports uniforms. This is the story of how that came to be.

From a childhood bedroom in Greensboro gazing at National Geographic maps tacked to the walls to planting a Tar Heel flag on the North Pole, Dr. Ranjan Sharma ’82 has accomplished a feat most travelers can only dream about.

One day in the future, he might lose his ability to speak. So to Sam Anthony '91, each second counts. Every word matters. And every person he meets is important.

Step into the ropes with athletes from the Carolina Jump Rope club as they prepare to host and compete in the National Collegiate Jump Rope Championships.

Instead of our usual stories about Carolina, and Carolina alumni, our latest episode features a selection of a cappella holiday music courtesy of the UNC Loreleis and Clef Hangers. The session was recorded during a recent performance at the George Watts Hill Alumni Center.

Photographer Tyler Cunningham '97 believed that she could do more with her camera. A podcast introduced her to Through Our Eyes. The project distributes cameras to members of the homeless communities, allowing participants to tell the stories of their lives through images of their own creation. Cunningham decided to bring the project to Raleigh. With the help of her church and local organizations, she handed out over 100 cameras just days before Hurricane Florence battered the Triangle.

The text message read something like, “I have ALS. I need you to tell my story.” And just like that, a wildlife documentary about red wolves in eastern North Carolina became a documentary about life, and death, and friendship. So Jeff Mittelstadt ’07 (MBA) quit his day job and learned to cry quietly behind his camera as he filmed the final years of his friend Chris Lucash's life.

More than 4,000 of the newest members of the Carolina family have arrived in Chapel Hill, ready to begin their Tar Heel journey – just as soon as they deal with move-in, family, roommates and simply finding their way around campus.

1968 was a watershed year in American history. For college students, Vietnam, civil rights and the sexual revolution mixed with the more mundane realities of daily life on campus. Back in Chapel Hill for their 50th reunion – some of them for the first time since graduation – the UNC class of 1968 gathered to reminisce about what it was like to live through that historic time.

Mike Wiley ’04 has been performing for school and regional theater audiences for almost two decades as a solo artist, and he often plays more than two dozen characters during a performance. “You almost feel like you have multiple personality disorder,” he says.

Martha Gunter Caldwell ’39 was on the small side from the beginning and topped out at 4-foot-10, but she has lived a big — and long — life. Caldwell, who turned 100 in April, graduated from UNC at a time when few women attended college. “I still love Chapel Hill — I still love it. And every time somebody goes, I say, ‘Blow a kiss to the Old Well for me,’ ” Caldwell says. “Yes, I’m a Tar Heel. Hark the sound!” (Story at http://unc.live/2o5xOkE)

A passionate storyteller himself, Jim White '71 created historians out of his students when he sent them out to listen to – and record – the stories of war veterans. Now the hundreds of cassette tapes that make up the Jim White Oral History Collection are part of the Southern Historical Collection at UNC.

Freddie Kiger ’74, teacher of the GAA’s overwhelmingly popular N.C. History Series, gives us a preview of his class "History of The University of North Carolina, Part II (1835-61)," marking the rise of UNC—a “golden age,” if you will—before the destructive whirlwind of secession and civil war.