Winter 2018 $9.00

Today Contents Winter 2018 02

Winter 2018 | Vol.75, No.1 Today

03 From the Editor 04 WU View 06 Save the Date 07 Ask the President 08 University news 12 Homecoming photosos

16 THE ENTERTAINMENTENT ISSUE Kristen Bartlett Tony Griffey John Crooke Fabio Brazza Brandon Crumpton Ed Winters Mark Gray Troy Press Brian Venable

56 Lara Golesorkhi 58 Bulldog Nation 60 Class Notes

Cover photo by Jason Walle WINGATE TODAY From the Editor

03

Chuck Gordon

Setting the Stage for Anything

graduating from college. But look at Wingate Today celebrates those me now. All grown up!) Bulldogs who have, sometimes Not everyone, however, has it improbably, migrated to the world all figured out in their teens. Take Ed of entertainment, be it performing, Winters, for example. He majored in writing, cutting deals or managing finance at Wingate and then dipped others’ careers. Entertainment is not W his toe in that field before becoming necessarily the most obvious industry a model and actor. He now produces of choice for the average Wingate movies and commercials. student, but it has pulled a good Or Brian Venable. He majored in number of Bulldogs into its orbit. history and poli-sci, considered law Kristen Bartlett’s path involved When my son was 5 years old, he had already school and now travels the country revisiting her first preteen crush: mapped out a varied career for himself: He making sure you can get HBO in your . Sure, lots of kids want to was going to first be a race-car driver, then a hotel room. write for . So basketball player, then a paleontologist, and Even Tony Griffey came to do many adults. But unless you finally a king. He’s in high school now, and I can Wingate with the long-term goal stood out at the Harvard Lampoon, confidently say that at least three of those are no of whipping church choirs into that’s a tough gig to get. Bartlett was longer in play. shape, hardly dreaming of where he approaching 30 before she decided For most people, contemplating what they would ultimately end up: Juilliard, to pursue comedy writing as a want to be when they grow up is a lifelong state the Metropolitan Opera and the career. Now she crafts jokes for Kate of mind. Grammys. McKinnon and . Oh, there are certainly linear career paths. Those three are probably the A common thread among all the A few kids might have seen the man in the rule, rather than the exception. Life Bulldogs featured in this issue is the white coat on the elevated platform dispensing is complicated, and the developing solid liberal-arts base upon which secret goodies to grateful grown-ups and said, “I brain is a well of uncertainty. they started their journeys. For want to do that.” They majored in biology, got Whatever you think you want to be this Emmy-nominated, Grammy- accepted into pharmacy school and now happily when you’re 15 probably isn’t what winning, world-touring group of fill prescriptions at Rite Aid or CVS. you’ll wind up being. Universities alums, college was about figuring out Quite a few people head off to college are great for adjusting the focus on their strengths, their passions and intending to eventually take over the family your long-term picture so you get a their peer group, not about following business. They get a business degree, come clearer idea of where you’re headed. a predetermined road. back home and keep the insurance agency or It’s where you can find out who Wingate laid a foundation for hardware store running smoothly. And that’s you are, what you can be and, most them, and they took it from there. wonderful. important, who and what you truly I hope you find their stories (To be fair, I wanted to be a sports writer want to be. entertaining. Q in high school, and I did that for a decade after A large portion of this issue of 04 WINGATE TODAY WU View

05

PERFECT ENDING Irwin Belk Stadium’s new lights weren’t the only thing illuminating the night sky after Wingate’s 44-20 Homecoming victory over Limestone in early November. An impressive fireworks show capped off a memorable weekend that featured a street fair, opera performances, an awards celebration and much more. Oh, and with the victory, Wingate claimed sole possession of the South Atlantic Conference title. 06 Winter 2018 | Vol.75, No.1 Today

EDITOR Chuck Gordon ’89

EDITORIAL BOARD Amy Jackson ’06 Chuck Gordon ’89 Heather Campbell Miller ’01 Kristen Yost

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Chuck Gordon ’89 JANUARY 26 Luanne Williams ’87 American Spiritual Ensemble

PHOTOGRAPHY Ed Cottingham FEBRUARY 2 Chuck Gordon ’89 The Wailin’ Jennys Jason Miczek Idil Sukan FEBRUARY 15 Jason Walle University Singers and Chamber Singers Concert ART & DESIGN Dwayne Cogdill FEBRUARY 18 Pinkalicious: The Musical CREATIVE DIRECTOR David Storey ’90 FEBRUARY 25 A Tribute to Benny Goodman: The Julian Bliss Septet BOARD OF TRUSTEES CHAIR Chuck Howard ’69 – Charlotte, N.C.

MARCH 1 BOARD OF VISITORS CHAIR University Choirs Concert Carolyn Matthews ’69 – Winston-Salem, N.C.

MARCH 5-9 Spring break Wingate Today is a magazine for alumni and MARCH 21 friends of Wingate University. The magazine’s editorial staff strives to inform, engage and Speaker: Donisha Rita Claire inspire readers through stories about the Prendergast University’s contributions to the world. We encourage you to send us your story ideas. MARCH 23 POSTMASTER: Balsam Range Send address changes to: Wingate Today P.O. Box 159, Campus Box 3071 APRIL 12 Wingate, N.C. 28174 One Day, One Dog Send correspondence to: Chuck Gordon, Editor Wingate Today magazine MAY 12 P.O. Box 159, Campus Box 3071 Wingate, N.C. 28174 Spring Commencement [email protected] WINGATE TODAY Ask the President

07

Rhett Brown

Question: How did your experience at Wingate affect your faith? —Kristi Wilkins York ’90 there were any non-Christians in Hunger Seminar. We became basic training, but it was clear no friends, and he eventually invited one cared if there was. me to stick around after graduation So … by the time I arrived at to start UCAN. What began as a Wingate in 1986, you could say I temporary gig ultimately led to my was a Protestant free agent with no being president of my alma mater. G fixed allegiance. Dr. Mitch Simpson, From near and from distance, Jim then the pastor of Wingate Baptist, has been a constant reminder to me gave the devotion for our first home of how to live a devout life. football game, and I so loved it that Eventually, I met and I periodically dropped in on his married Nicci, and as a life-long Growing up in Pelion, S.C., I attended the church while I was an undergrad. Episcopalian, she helped me find Methodist church along with a few relatives For my second religion class, I had my spiritual home. Father Henry and friends, and everyone else I knew attended Dr. Byrns Coleman. His faith was Presler became my mentor and either the Lutheran church or the Baptist obvious, but he didn’t require us my friend as I traveled the path church. Three choices – that was the scope to check our intellect at the door. to confirmation in the Episcopal of my faith continuum. My dad taught our I took Dr. Jerry Surratt’s History of Church (where I remain today). But 10-year-old Sunday School class, and he the Modern Church and wrapped my it was Wingate that accelerated and became fascinated with Hal Lindsay (and his mind around the differences between gave substance to my faith journey. preaching on the “End Times”), so we focused consubstantiation, transubstantiation The University was foundational on the Book of Revelation for two whole years. and memorialism as they apply for a faith that was finally my own Scared the hell out of me. I also periodically to the Lord’s Supper. My research and has nourished me in good times attended an Assemblies of God church in paper in his class was on the Eastern and bad. Dr. Paul Baxley, my friend Columbia because there was a young woman Orthodox Church. and colleague, introduced me to the there whose attention I coveted. As a student, Dr. Nancy Randall, idea of borrowed faith versus owned When I first went away to Lees-McRae Dr. Bob Doak, Dr. Pam Thomas and faith. And it is my sincere hope that College, I attended the Presbyterian church Dr. Bob Billinger were daily models we set all of our students on the on campus. It was there, in an introductory for how to live out a Christian life course to an “owned” faith that will religion class, that I read the Gospel of that pursued the Kingdom of God on buffet them against the winds and Thomas. Until that point, I had never earth. They embodied my favorite seas of a sometimes stormy life. Q questioned how the books of the Bible came scripture (Micah 6:8) by loving to be. In basic training for the Navy, my whole mercy, doing justice and walking Got a question for the president? company went to the Roman Catholic service humbly with God. E-mail [email protected]. because our company commanders felt the Eventually, I came to know Protestants would be OK there. Not sure if Dr. Jim McCoy through the World University News WINGATE TODAY

808 Byrum leaves Wingate $35 million for scholarships

Byrum Scholarship Fund, which will also benefit from the latest gift. Hannah Dickerson, Wingate’s vice president of advancement, describes the most recent gift as “transformational,” especially in light of the University’s recent record-setting enrollment growth. “This funding is enabling those students to have a Wingate education without leaving here with a burden of high debt,” she said. “Now the responsibility is ours to continue to honor Mr. Byrum’s incredible legacy by providing those students with a life-changing experience.” Brown said it was the individual lives changed by the scholarships that interested Byrum the most. In fact, he kept group photos of each year’s scholarship recipients on a wall in his Charlotte living room. “When I would go and visit Mr. Byrum and talk with him about the power of his gift, sometimes I would take some of the scholarship recipients with me, because that’s what he enjoyed most,” Brown says. “There is nothing you could buy the man that orter Byrum’s bequest of more than $35 million he wanted, but to meet the to Wingate University – announced in October students he was helping gave as part of a larger gift that included donations to him a great deal of joy.” P Wake Forest and Queens – will make college more Since 2012, more than 800 affordable and accessible for generations of students. scholarships have been awarded, Wingate University President Rhett Brown, who is also a with more than 450 students Wingate alum, has no trouble imagining what a difference the in 33 majors benefiting from funding will make. Byrum’s generosity. “I have deep appreciation for Mr. Byrum and his “He wanted kids who didn’t generosity to Wingate University for very personal reasons,” have the means but had solid Brown says. “My own background growing up in South ambition,” says Tom Williams, a Carolina is not dissimilar to that of many of our Porter longtime Wingate University trustee and chairman of the Byrum Scholars at Wingate. I know what it means to have Board of Trustees at the time of the Park Road Shopping tremendous financial need and, even after all available aid is Center sale. counted, to still be short. This is exactly the kind of student Wingate uses the scholarship money to help students Mr. Byrum wanted to help when he established the Byrum in need rather than to simply the highest-achieving. “Mr. Scholarship Endowment at Wingate.” Byrum told Jerry, ‘I don’t want this going to a bunch of Byrum, who died in March at age 96, was one of the eggheads,’” Brown says. And the Byrum Scholars don’t get largest benefactors Wingate has ever had. His association full rides, which means that many more students benefit with the University began in 2001, when he was introduced from Mr. B’s generosity. to Wingate’s president at the time, Dr. Jerry McGee. Later Those close to the Charlotte businessman, who was that year, Byrum gave Wingate two parcels of land and an recognized as the 14th-most-generous philanthropist in office building. the United States in 2011, say Byrum’s generosity was Byrum went on to serve as a member of the WU Board based on a firm belief in the power of higher education. of Trustees, was awarded an honorary doctorate and had the He grew up on a tobacco farm and was a first-generation Wingate University School of Business named in his honor. college student himself. His contributions over the years included a 2011 A graduate of Wake Forest University, Byrum was donation of a 25.5 percent interest in Park Road Shopping an attorney by trade, but he invested wisely, mostly Center in south Charlotte. Wingate used half of the money in real estate, amassing a multimillion-dollar portfolio from the center’s sale on capital projects, including the and giving away significant portions of his holdings to construction of a dormitory. The rest went to establish the institutions in need. University News 09 ‘Laughter in the Walls’: Colemans give longtime home to University

yrns Coleman spent a half century investing in the lives of students at Wingate. He was one of a handful of professors to bridge multiple eras at the school, beginning his tenure in 1960 when Wingate was a B junior college and seeing it flourish as a growing University when he entered retirement in 2010. Now, as Coleman and his longtime bride, Alice, move south to be near family during their golden years, the professor emeritus is still finding ways to invest in students’ lives. The beloved couple, who met at Wingate and married in 1961, have put their Faculty Drive home into a charitable remainder unitrust (CRUT) that will benefit the already established G. Byrns and Alice B. Coleman Scholarship Fund. In early November, they handed the keys and deed over to the university. “This is a testament to the faithfulness and generosity of the Colemans,” says Harry Workman, associate vice president for philanthropy. When the Colemans decided to move to South Carolina last fall, they informed the University that they wanted to deed their house to the University as a gift. The University will sell the house, with the proceeds to go into the trust. “Then the Colemans will receive an annuity until their address changes to heaven,” Workman says, “at which time Wingate will receive the remainder of the trust for the scholarship fund.” Sitting down for a chat in their near-empty house during Homecoming weekend last fall, the Colemans shared some of their favorite memories from 309 Faculty Drive and their hopes for the home’s next residents. Built in 1960 by the father of Bill Nash, who is now the director of Wingate’s Athletic Foundation, the 2,132-square-foot brick ranch first belonged to a Wingate religion professor, Charles Tucker. When Tucker decided to move gift certificate for two home-cooked meals as an auction to Cary in 1964, the Colemans bought the home. Their daughter, Jo, had just item for a Wingate fundraiser led by the late dean Donald begun to walk, and they no longer felt it was safe for her to play in the front Haskins, and bids poured in from those eager for a spot at yard of the house they rented on U.S. 74, then a busy, two-lane road. Their son the family’s table. Bill was 6 weeks old when they moved. Allen Coleman, now on the Wingate Unlike some households that reserve formal rooms Board of Visitors, would come along three years later. All three siblings grew up for special occasions, Byrns says, the Colemans used in the home just off North Camden Road and earned degrees at Wingate. every inch of their home and ate every meal in the dining “For years we called it the Tucker house,” says Byrns, 83. “And then one room. When he wanted a fireplace, he and Bill, a ninth- day I told Alice, ‘This is not the Tucker house. It’s the Coleman house.’ So, we grader at the time, knocked out a wall, built a room onto began to call it the Coleman house.” the back of the house and closed in the carport. Filled with practical heirlooms – hand-me-down dishes and century-old While they spent several summers in Nashville, farm tables – the house had a feature that Alice says she brought from her earning advanced degrees at Vanderbilt University, Byrns childhood home: laughter in the walls. and Alice always loved coming home to Faculty Drive. “The house I grew up in, one of my first cousins was riding by one day, “We have certainly enjoyed our years here and our and he said he could just hear laughter in the walls of that house,” she says. connection with Wingate University,” Alice says. Family “We’ve always said we had laughter in the walls here too with all the good members joined them in Wingate over Homecoming times that we had.” weekend to help move the last of their furnishings to their Many of those good times involved surprise guests that her husband and new home in Columbia, South Carolina. children would bring home for mealtime. Byrns said it was a frequent Sunday “We hope the next people that get the house will stay occurrence, especially when he was invited to preach at an area church. here 53 years,” Byrns says. “Some of my former students would show up in the congregation. … I Alice says their children supported their decision would say, ‘What are you doing for lunch? Just go home with me.’ Sometimes to deed the house to Wingate and set up the trust. Byrns Alice knew about it, and sometimes she didn’t,” he says with a laugh. “I had says he would recommend anyone who wants to donate more fun with that than Alice did, probably.” their home to Wingate to consider a CRUT. Meals at the Coleman home were memorable. Alice still gets requests for “It benefits us and it benefits the university,” he says. her sweet potatoes and her asparagus. For a number of years, she offered a “We wanted to give something back.” WINGATE TODAY

10 University News WUSOP student Wingate pursuing lobbies to let optometry school pharmacists do more

any counties in North Levine College of Health Sciences, inety-two of North Carolina’s 100 counties include Carolina are far behind which in addition to pharmacy areas designated as “medically underserved.” M the national average in the includes physician assistant studies, N Meanwhile, some 10,000 pharmacists are licensed number of optometrists per capita. physical therapy and nursing in the Tar Heel state. Wingate University is planning to programs and is in the process of Wingate University School of Pharmacy (WUSOP) help fill the void. adding occupational therapy. student Caleb Ramey says the numbers point to an obvious Wingate University has Nationwide, there are solution: change the law to allow pharmacists, who are announced its intention to pursue approximately 1.3 doctors of already trained to perform many medical services, to offer the first school of optometry in the optometry (ODs) per 10,000 head of those services under the umbrella of Medicare Part B. region. Wingate made the decision population. In North Carolina, that President of the University’s chapter of the American after a thorough study and significant figure is just 1.1, and many counties Pharmacists Association (APhA) and a second-year consultation with multiple professional in eastern North Carolina have well pharmacy student, Ramey is among a growing number of optometric organizations. below the national average – or no those in the profession who are pushing for the passage As part of the school of optome- optometrists at all. of the Pharmacy and Medically Underserved Areas try, the University plans to establish “Optometrists have sort of Enhancement Act. a free community eye-care clinic, congregated in urban areas,” The legislation, filed in the U.S. Congress as H.R. which would provide care to an Supernaw says. “We thought that 592 and S. 109, would allow state-licensed pharmacists in underserved population in rural we could correct that.” medically underserved areas to be paid by Medicare when eastern Union County. There are only 22 schools of they give immunizations, conduct health-and-wellness President Rhett Brown received optometry in the nation, and none in testing, manage chronic diseases and medication therapy, a strong recommendation from a region that encompasses the states and partner with health systems in other ways to reduce Wingate’s consultant, Dr. Melvin of West Virginia, Virginia, North hospital readmissions. The reimbursement rate would be Shipp, dean emeritus of the Ohio State Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. 85 percent of the physician fee schedule. University School of Optometry. Wingate’s school of optometry will “There’s already a lot of altruism in pharmacy, where “I felt the appropriate support provide a pipeline of ODs to the pharmacists are taking time out to help the patient, was there, both within the institution region to help fill the provider gap. going over their medications and talking with them and within the profession in the A community clinic providing about disease management,” Ramey says, explaining state,” Shipp says. “I felt that Wingate care for indigent people in Union and that the law would not expand the types of services that had the support structures that would surrounding counties would be a key pharmacists are permitted to provide, but would simply allow for a successful program.” component of the Wingate University allow them “provider” status under Medicare. Dr. Robert Supernaw, Wingate’s School of Optometry. In addition to Ramey feels so strongly about it that he and WUSOP vice provost for health sciences, spent vision health, optometry screenings assistant professor Dr. Cortney Mospan took a trip to over a year researching the feasibility contribute to the diagnosis of diabetes, Washington, D.C., in July to meet with lawmakers. Part of Wingate’s establishing a school of hypertension and cardiovascular of a contingent that included representatives from three optometry. Based on his due diligence, compromise. Early detection of such other North Carolina pharmacy schools, Ramey and he says, it is clear that there is a chronic illnesses would reduce related Mospan met with the staffs of Sen. Richard Burr, who great need in North Carolina for an healthcare costs significantly for the already supports the bill, and of Sen. Thom Tillis. optometry school. citizens of North Carolina. “This is not really about the money, but corporate Supernaw is an experienced For these reasons, a growing may not want us, as pharmacists, to spend a lot of hand when it comes to starting number of members of the North time with a patient to provide a service if that time is health-science programs. In 2002, Carolina General Assembly support not something that can be billed for,” he says. “So the he was hired to start the Wingate the University’s commitment to reimbursement would be an incentive for the corporation University School of Pharmacy optometric education. to let us offer the service we’re already trained to do.” (WUSOP), and it has been a huge Overall, the time is right for Ramey says that, if allowed, pharmacists can make success, recording national-licensing- Wingate University to provide North a huge difference in healthcare delivery, helping patients exam scores above the national Carolina with its own school of stay out of the hospital and reducing costs, especially as average for 10 straight years and optometry. Baby Boomers age and the doctor shortage intensifies. becoming one of the first schools “At the end of the day, I felt “Doctors already have their time cut short with in the nation to gain the maximum like they had the wherewithal to be patients,” he says. “So if a patient is worried about eight-year accreditation status. successful if they made the decision their glucose, their blood pressure or their cholesterol Since WUSOP was established to start an optometry school,” – any of that point-of-care testing – they’d be able to in 2003, Wingate has added the Shipp says. see a pharmacist instead of having to wait for a doctor’s University News 11 WU developing medical-sociology minor

“I never thought about it that way.” That’s one sentence that Dr. Christi Sporl and Dr. Lacey Ritter never tire of hearing in their classrooms. And it’s one that the assistant professors in Wingate’s Sociology Department expect to hear even more often as they develop the University’s minor in medical sociology. Defined as “the systematic WUSOP student Caleb Ramey and Dr. study of how humans manage issues Cortney Mospan went to Washington, of health and illness, disease and D.C., this summer to promote the disorders, and health care for both Pharmacy and Medically Underserved the sick and the healthy,” it’s the Areas Enhancement Act. fastest-growing segment of sociology. It’s also an area of study Dr. Christi Sporl, left, and Dr. Lacey Ritter are ready to more office appointment or go to an that department chair Aaron deeply explore the social aspect of health care. urgent care facility.” Culley believes will fit well with Ramey says retail pharmacies Wingate’s growing focus on health developing the new minor. located in medically underserved sciences. Grounded in liberal arts, “Wingate has been amazing with us to let us bring in areas could incorporate the services the University has programs in our areas of interests,” Sporl says. inside their stores, a move that would pharmacy, physician assistant Students in Sporl’s Introduction to Medical Sociology create more jobs for pharmacists studies, physical therapy and nursing class appreciate her enthusiasm for the specialty and while making healthcare more and is looking to add occupational often find themselves in new intellectual territory, accessible for their customers and therapy and optometry to the mix. debating questions such as structure versus agency in cutting costs. “Medical sociology has been on health behaviors. Studies show pharmacists’ our radar for two or three years,” Ritter greets her Sociology of Death and Dying counseling and adherence programs Culley says. In fact, the University students with a test of sorts on the first day of class. can save the healthcare system made the emphasis part of the criteria “Everyone knows about death, right? So I give a $164 per patient in the six months for recent sociology-faculty hires. Knowledge of Death quiz, and they get about three out of after the start of a new medication. Sporl, whose primary 30 questions right,” she says. “Then we talk through the Further, an average of $1,000 is specialization is medical sociology, answers and it’s always a ‘wow’ moment for them.” saved per year per patient when has studied social inequalities with Sporl and Ritter are ready to move the courses pharmacists step in to help patients an emphasis on gender and sexuality, they’ve taught as special-topics electives into the manage their chronic conditions. and her research areas have included mainstream of the department. They say that it’s a Patients are three times more likely healthcare utilization and access for reflection of healthcare trends and that students pursuing to stay out of the hospital when they vulnerable populations as well as a wide variety of careers can benefit from medical take advantage of clinical services health and illness behaviors within sociology courses. from a pharmacist after discharge. these groups. Ritter, who spent “Within the medical world, the sociological aspect A native of Low Gap, North much of her childhood tagging as had been neglected over past decades, as the focus has Carolina, near Mount Airy, Ramey her certified nursing assistant mom been on the biological,” Sporl says. “But even the CDC is always willing and ready to worked in a nursing home, has a is reporting that so often, social aspects and behaviors help people better understand the passion for gerontology and has influence people’s health just as much as genetic and pharmacy profession. researched health disparities among biological components.” “People think pharmacists older populations. She also studies Culley says that most medical schools are either just stand there counting out pills sexual orientation differences in requiring or recommending sociology as a prerequisite, and telling you to have a nice day,” health outcomes, behaviors and and Sporl says the Medical College Admission Test now Ramey says. “Many people don’t lifestyles; gender; social psychology; includes a social science component. realize it’s a doctoral degree, so we and uses both qualitative and Depending on how many qualifying classes they can are educated to know much more quantitative research methods. offer, the medical sociology minor might be an option for than just ‘is this the right pill to go in It’s hard to say which of the two students graduating as soon as 2019. Q the bottle?’” recent hires are most excited about Homecoming WINGATE TODAY

12 A Homecoming to

T

The Homecoming 2017 highlights were many: a jammin’ street fair, a Wingate Opera performance that included alumni and current students, even bulldog races featuring rescued mutts. With the game held at night for the first time in a couple of decades, and the Bulldogs entering the contest 8-0 and ranked in the top 25 in NCAA Division II, Homecoming was certain to be a packed house. And it was. As extensive a tailgating scene as Irwin Belk Stadium has ever seen served as a fitting prelude to a game the Bulldogs won 44-20. A fireworks extravaganza topped off a night to remember. 13 remember WINGATE TODAY

14 Homecoming WINGATE TODAY Homecoming

15 WINGATE TODAY

Words by Chuck Gordon Art by David Storey

Wingate students head off in all sorts of directions after walking through The Gate one final time after Commencement. For many grads, that means forging a career in the entertainment industry. In the following pages, we turn the spotlight on WU alums who have made it to SNL and amazed audiences with their Carnegie Hall, written comedy sketches for rapping prowess. They’ve also worked diligently behind the scenes to keep you engaged and entertained. So grab a drink and some popcorn and enjoy the show. WINGATE TODAY

18 19 Bartlett proves she’s ready for prime time with SNL gig

he day after 2016’s presidential election, Wingate’s Admissions Office to see if it was still available. a stunned and sleep-deprived Kristen “They said yes, and so I transferred,” she says. “And I Bartlett ’05 spent most of her workday was instantly happier.” hammering out a sketch for the Wingate life suited the girl from Black Mountain, . who relished being treated like an adult. “We were in An avowed liberal from the mountains apartments, and it was just like a different life,” Bartlett of North Carolina, Bartlett felt like she’d says. “It was not the arrested development of living in a been punched in the gut by the election. dorm and getting drunk every night or whatever. It was As they do every Tuesday, she and her nice to have it be serious a little bit.” fellow writers at Saturday Night Live Better yet, she found her tribe. “I very quickly found had been up late the night before writing the English Department and fell in love with a lot of the T sketches they hoped would be included professors there, like Dr. (Taura) Napier and Dr. (Sylvia) in thatT week’s show. On this Tuesday they also kept one eye on the election Little-Sweat and Dr. (Beverly) Christopher, and the returns. The writers were exhausted. Processing the election results in the people in those classes I really loved. That was like my midst of a grueling work schedule proved difficult. “It was a very, very hard nerd herd. I sort of found my gang.” night for everyone,” she says. Bartlett, in her first season as a writer for the show, worked through the night with cast member Alex Moffatt to refine an idea Moffatt had. AIR TIME “It was so quiet,” Bartlett says. “It was six in the morning, and Alex and I sat The first SNL sketch Bartlett worked on that made it on in his office and – he’s so wonderful – he said, ‘Let’s get this done.’ The sun was air was, naturally, a take-off on a popular TV show. Bartlett up, and it was like, ‘We have a job to do. We have to get on with our lives.’” made it to SNL partially on the strength of her work with The work ethic it takes to become a writer on SNL, and to survive the two sketch and improv groups – Bridge and Tunnel, which show’s brutal work schedule, is nothing new to Bartlett. She hails from a blue- she co-founded, and the Theatre – collar background and had always chosen paths in her life that were, if not safe, and at both, she excelled at writing TV parodies. at least practical and work-driven. She’s no loafer, and she has always known During the second week of the 2016-2017 SNL season, she’d have to pay her own way. She loved English in college but majored in Bartlett worked with veteran cast member Sasheer Zamata communications because she figured that would give her more marketable skills. on a spoof of the Netflix hit Stranger Things, which is set She transferred to Wingate from UNC-Chapel Hill for a variety of reasons, a big in the 1980s. Zamata’s premise was a simple question: one being a Belk scholarship. And, not having the luxury of familial affluence to Where are the black kid’s parents? support her dream of comedy stardom, she has always held down a day job. The host that week was Lin-Manuel Miranda, writer/ But lurking in the background for the past 20-plus years was a desire to producer/star of the smash Broadway hit Hamilton (in case write for television. And now she does. you’ve been living under a rock for the past four years). It would be easy to overstate the improbability of Bartlett’s career arc. After “Lin wanted to play the guy with the lisp,” Bartlett says. “I all, she’s clearly talented, and few people could outwork her. But as she herself was like ‘Cool. That’s awesome. We’re going to write you as says, “Not a lot of people from Black Mountain go on to do SNL.” this kid.’ Now he was excited about it.” Miranda was great as Dustin, and the sketch proved worthy of its airtime that week by getting some big laughs. FINDING HER GANG Still, Bartlett was new to SNL and didn’t know during the Like hundreds of North Carolina teens every fall, Bartlett arrived at the state’s week whether they had hit the target. “There were people flagship university for her freshman year a little unsure of herself, despite a the previous year who didn’t get anything on until the straight-A resume from Charles D. Owen High School. It was the fall of 2001, and following spring,” she says. “I wasn’t expecting it.” Bartlett found herself overwhelmed by the number of students in her classes. On Wednesday evenings, the final show rundown Dorm living didn’t suit her, and she was no longer a big fish. is posted on the wall of the writers’ room – “very much “I wasn’t happy there,” she says. “It was too big – which is funny because like high-school theater,” Bartlett says. The first week I live in New York now. It wasn’t right for me at the time. The classes were of the season, Bartlett waited for the room to clear and enormous, and it was easy for me to not go. The only thing motivating me was then checked the list. She didn’t make it. “It’s a hard me, and I just wasn’t motivated as an 18-year-old kid.” thing to go look at that wall,” she says. “Even now I’ll Before her first semester ended, Bartlett began scouting around for an wait until the crowd thins out and then I’ll go check it escape plan. High-school friends started touting the benefits of Wingate – “You out, unless I know.” can be friends with everybody,” they told her. “You can talk to your professors.” The second week, for some reason, she didn’t even She’d been offered a Belk scholarship as a high-school senior, and she called check the list, instead going to her office. A few minutes WINGATE TODAY

20 later, Zamata stopped by. “We got in.” development department at CBS in Los Angeles. “I applied for development “She told me,” Bartlett says, “and I’m like, ‘Oh my because I was still in that mindset of ‘I need a job that’s going to support me,’ God. That’s so insane.” and development is a great job for that,” she says. When a sketch gets the green light, the fun is just Bartlett was on her own for the summer, thousands of miles away from starting. Even though it’s Wednesday evening by this point, home. It was difficult and stressful, but she wanted to work in entertainment, and everyone’s operating on minimal sleep, there’s still and this was a size-15 sneaker in the door. She was in meetings where writers work to be done. Bartlett and Zamata immediately meet for newer shows, such as CSI: New York, got feedback. with members of the design team to begin the process of “The job included hearing pitches and being with writers in writers’ constructing the set, assembling the props and figuring out meetings, to give them notes on their first season,” she says. “You weren’t the costuming. After all, Design has just a couple of days to organizing. You weren’t getting coffee. You were in these meetings.” turn the stage into a close approximation of the Stranger Bartlett worked hard and was grateful to be learning so much, but Laverne Things set – as well as create sets for all the other sketches. McKinnon, then the senior vice president of drama development at CBS, sensed “We told them specifically what we wanted things to that Bartlett wasn’t 100 percent on board with development. Bartlett says, “She look like,” Bartlett says. “Like, the little boy, this is what we called me in and said, ‘I get the feeling you’re unhappy here. I can tell you’re wanted him to look like. These are the backpacks that we a writer.’” So McKinnon and Christina Davis, another drama-development want. This is the bike we want, a classic ’80s bike. executive, had Bartlett pitch them “spec scripts” of current shows. Bartlett “It’s amazing. That’s the real talent at SNL: these wrote something for Nip/Tuck. “They took me through that whole process, people who can make anything happen.” which was very generous and cool.” Around this time, Bartlett, admittedly “scared and sad and lonely” in L.A., joined Match.com in an effort to meet people. The person she most connected DEVELOPING HER SKILL SET with was Jason Gore, a radio deejay and aspiring comedian who lived in Late in her junior year at Wingate, Bartlett began scouting Virginia. “I was like, ‘What’s the point? You’re not in L.A.,’” she says. “But around for summer internships. “I applied to Playboy,” she we hit it off and really dug each other. He made me laugh real hard when we says. “I applied to Cameron Crowe’s company. I was just talked on the phone.” trying to get an entertainment internship, and I didn’t know Gore flew out to see Bartlett, and before long they were a couple. what that would be.” “We had a lot in common in terms of the pop-culture stuff we both enjoyed, She wound up being accepted into a competitive and the fact that we were both raised in the mountains,” Gore says. “But the program run by the Television Academy of Arts & Sciences. biggest thing for me was how funny she was. I thought she was amazing the first Always practical, she chose to intern in the drama- moment I spoke with her.” After returning from L.A., Bartlett spent the fall 2004 semester in England with the Wingate-in-London program. In October of that year, Gore flew to London and proposed. “We had been dating exclusively for only six weeks,” “She never stopped. She Bartlett says. Her friends and professors were taken aback by her engagement. “It wasn’t my style,” she says. “I was pretty “Shenever never got discouraged. stopped. independent. I had just been in L.A. alone. I’m very liberal, intensely liberal, and an intense, insane, hard-ass feminist, and that’s part of why I loved being at Wingate, because I She’sShe kind never of a relentless got loved having to fight sometimes.” discouraged.workhorse.” She’s ‘Chonk’ The first SNL sketch Bartlett was the driving force behind was “Chonk,” which aired on Oct. 15, 2016. A prerecorded kind of a relentless “commercial” for a made-up women’s clothing brand, the sketch focuses on “the commercialization of body positivity,” as Bartlett explains. “There’s such a language workhorse.” with brands about, ‘You’re beautiful, you deserve this,’ and it’s really just trying to sell you deodorant,” she says. “Chonk” shows women of varying shapes and sizes and talks about their “unique body.” At the end of the ad, it advises men to go to a place called “Normal Clothes,” where men of all sizes shop for essentially the same styles. The ad’s skewering skepticism didn’t go unnoticed. AdWeek, The Hollywood Reporter and New York magazine all wrote admiringly about the sketch’s humor and message. Several websites recap and review each SNL episode, and “Chonk” was almost universally held up as the 21

Bartlett spent years taking and leading sketch and improv classes in New York before catching her big break with SNL.

gem on its night. choice, so she started sending her resume to companies in The week after “Chonk” appeared was a test of Bartlett’s self-awareness New York and Los Angeles, to be closer to the country’s big and modesty. comedy scenes. Pretty soon she got a call from CBS, and “When you wake up the next morning and there are 10 things about what she and Gore moved north. you wrote, it’s nice, but you really have to keep your ego in check,” she says, Working in S&P has helped Bartlett go to bat for jokes laughing, “because you’re the same person you were when no one would see she knows are OK for network TV, especially late-night TV. your stuff. It’s just that you’re in this amazing position now.” More than that, simply having worked in an office gives her Such an outlook is unsurprising to Bartlett’s good friend Michael a perspective that a lot of writers don’t have. Hartney, who, as a performer and instructor at the Upright Citizens Brigade “Knowing what real life is can be helpful,” she says. Theatre in New York, has seen close up how much effort it has taken “I can write an office sketch, because I know what kinds Bartlett to get to this position. of things happen there. I know what annoys office people, “There are definitely people who fall ass backward into a career,” he says. because I lived that life for a long time.” “Kristen Bartlett is not one of those people. She’s not one of the people who’ve At CBS, Bartlett worked as a bleeper for the Grammys, had a career handed to them. It’s the result of years of hard and good work. the Tonys and other big productions, keeping one hand “She never stopped. She never got discouraged, and, like all of us, there hovering over the button while watching the shows, which were plenty of reasons to get discouraged. She’s kind of a relentless workhorse.” are on a seven-second delay. Once, she bleeped , who uttered an expletive after receiving his Tony for directing Death of a Salesman. “He was someone BLEEPING MIKE NICHOLS you didn’t expect to say something, and that was almost Like most people in the subjective world of comedy, Bartlett doesn’t always worse,” Bartlett says. know when a sketch or joke is going to land. But she does know when one has The work was steady and the paycheck helped Bartlett crossed the line. For nearly a decade, Bartlett supported herself, and her comedy and Gore pay the rent on their place in Jersey City, but dreams, by working in “standards and practices,” first for Turner Broadcasting in Bartlett knew she didn’t want to work in S&P her whole Atlanta and later for CBS in New York. life. She wanted to be a comedy writer. And Gore helped The S&P department is essentially the naughty-word police. Back in a more get her there. innocent time, the folks in S&P were the ones who kept writers from including the word “pregnant” in dialogue. Today, they hit the “delay” button quickly when a wardrobe malfunction occurs. THE DEAD DADS CLUB Even though she started in Atlanta, working in S&P gave Bartlett her first In 2009, Gore began trying to persuade Bartlett to introduction to comedy writing. After about a year with Turner, she had earned take improv classes with him at the Upright Citizens a promotion and found herself working for two comedy properties, Adult Swim Brigade Theatre, a well-known program founded by Amy and Super Deluxe. Rather than simply rapping writers’ knuckles, Bartlett worked Poehler, , and Ian Roberts. “He with them to come up with solutions when she thought something wouldn’t live was extremely pushy,” Bartlett says. Gore, who also up to the network’s guidelines. “That was sort of like doing the writing, even if I works part-time in the comedy world, knew more about wasn’t writing the material,” she says. UCB than Bartlett did, and he eventually revealed that The experience convinced her that comedy writing could be a viable career there was a sketch-writing program there too, so she WINGATE TODAY

22 agreed to check it out. “I said, ‘OK. Why?’” Bartlett says. “He said, ‘because of all the grease.’ We Both flourished. Although Gore is more actor than just laughed. And Jason said, ‘Well, actually he was an alcoholic, so he probably writer and Bartlett more writer than actor, each can do just exploded.’” a little of both. And Gore seemed to bring out the funny The Dead Dads Club was funny and got good reviews, but it didn’t make in Bartlett. “Jason has a great sense of humor and would Bartlett and Gore overnight sensations. The New York comedy scene is just make me laugh all the time,” Bartlett says. “We were extremely competitive, and funny young writers, actors and joke-tellers are funny people, but it wasn’t necessarily what we were doing moving there all the time. professionally yet.” But their fathers’ deaths put Bartlett and Gore on notice that life is short, Toward the end of their first UCB class, in September so they went full-throttle on their comedy dreams. And just like after she of 2009, Gore’s father died. The couple took the week off to transferred to Wingate, Bartlett found her people at UCB. drive to Radford, Virginia, where Gore grew up, to take care “We took an improv class together, and that was it,” she says. “I will say of all the arrangements and pay their respects. Four months that the sketch program at UCB is incredible and is the basis for what I know. later, Bartlett’s father died unexpectedly. Suddenly, they But when you take improv at UCB, you find your nerd herd.” were back in the South for another week of mourning. Bartlett persevered, spending her extra cash on UCB classes and essentially As a way of handling the couple’s grief, Bartlett penned working two jobs – one she got paid for (S&P at CBS), and one she paid for a 30-minute sketch show about the experience of driving (UCB). After The Dead Dads Club, she made her way onto the “house team” at twice to the South in such a short space of time to bury a UCB and even started teaching classes there. She and Gore also founded Bridge parent. The resulting mini-play, The Dead Dads Club, was and Tunnel, which put on monthly sketch shows. produced by UCB and starred Bartlett and Gore. Eventually, all that hard work paid off when she was asked to interview at “The Dead Dads Club was all Kristen,” Gore says. 30 Rock. “She took all of the weird stuff that happened to us while we were dealing with the loss of our fathers and made something completely special out of it.” LEGENDS OF COMEDY It’s full of pathos and warmth and gallows humor Saturday Night Live is unlike just about any show on TV in the past 50 years. and demonstrates Bartlett’s chops as a comedy writer. It Aside from sporting events and news broadcasts, live TV went out of fashion in includes an elderly funeral-home director who’s jealous the early ’60s, and with good reason: It’s hard to control. SNL doubles down on of the bodies he’s putting in the ground, a mariachi band the degree of difficulty by creating a show from scratch every week – a daunting striking up music at inappropriate times, and the requisite task that the cast and crew pull off admirably. awkward encounters with relatives. Part of the charm of the show is that it airs live. Because SNL is often Bartlett’s friend Hartney played the funeral-home revised up until airtime, the actors and guest hosts all read off cue cards. director. “I read the script and I immediately said, ‘I have to (Donald Trump famously, and disastrously, thought he could improvise, and he be in this show. I have to play the very old funeral director,’ bombed.) Some of the funniest moments occur when an actor “breaks” and gets because the part was so funny,” he says. the giggles. Some sketches hit the mark better than others, but each week there Bartlett and Gore are true comics, in that they can are a raft of singles and the occasional double. When SNL hits it out of the park, laugh even in the most sorrowful situations. They went to though, it’s spectacular, often culture-defining. The . Land Shark. have a sandwich at the same time Gore’s father was being Buckwheat. Wayne’s World. MacGruber. ’s Sarah Palin impression. cremated, and in between bites Bartlett’s father commented The list of who have worked on the show is an American (and that “it takes fat people less time to be cremated.” Canadian) roll call of Hall of Famers over the past four decades: ,

Even when she spent a decade in an office job, Bartlett was a writer at heart. “I wanted to do this when I was my purest, realest self, at age 12.” 23

Bill Murray, , , , , Phil the content of what she wrote was like, ‘Yes, she should Hartman, , , , , Kate McKinnon absolutely interview at SNL. She should absolutely get on (I could go on and on). Those are just some of the ones for whom SNL was their SNL.’ But I thought there was no way it was going to get big break. , Michael McKean, , Anthony Michael Hall, read, because she didn’t have an agent or manager.” Robert Downey Jr., and others all joined the cast after finding SNL’s schedule begins on Mondays, when the writers success elsewhere. And the list of criminally underused or underappreciated cast and cast pitch the host. Tuesday is the longest day in a members includes Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and (until week full of them, with writers routinely staying at 30 Rock the past 15 years or so, women have been primarily background players). all night tightening up their work and making it as TV- The show’s longevity and format stability have made it an institution. friendly as possible. Writing for SNL is a goal for most comedy writers, especially early in their The table read occurs on Wednesday; that takes about career. Here’s a list of comedy writers from just one season (1987-88): Al three hours, during which the producers and head writers Franken, , , , Conan O’Brien, Phil then pick sketches that will (most likely) make the live Hartman, and . Writers have gone on to work on airing. Sets are built on Thursday and Friday. Videos are Seinfeld, The Office, The Simpsons and countless other huge hits, and the shot on Friday, and everything is continuously revised, current crop of writers was nominated for an Emmy for their work during the even up until show time. The pressure builds throughout 2016-17 season. the week, which is why everyone is so giddy afterward, It’s both a destination and a launch pad. especially when a show goes well. “It’s what I’ve wanted since I was a little kid and my brother would pretend “It’s a hard job,” she says. “You don’t want to complain to be Land Shark and knock on my door,” Bartlett says. about it, because everyone wants to do it. But it’s the thing Bartlett has been a writer for as long as she can remember. When she was you wanted to do, and you got it. I think I had that feeling 12, she got a Brother word processor for Christmas. “Even when I was a kid I at the Emmys, getting ready for the Emmys, showing up was writing little plays that I was forcing my cousins to be in,” she says. there, being on the red carpet, which is insane.” At school, Bartlett competed in Odyssey of the Mind, in which teams of “SNL is the biggest, most-sought-after job in the students work for months to create an eight-minute play they use to solve comedy world, so when you hear anybody got it, it blows a series of problems. “I was always the one who was writing the plays,” she your mind,” says Aaron Burdette, who was a director says. “You know, everyone has a different skill (in Odyssey of the Mind). for Bridge and Tunnel and a writer on the cable network That was mine.” FXX’s Man Seeking Woman. “That said, if anybody I In college, Bartlett contributed pieces to Counterpoint, the University’s know could both get that job and then knock it out of literary magazine, and although she was a communications major, she felt most the park, it’s Kristen.” at home among fellow wordsmiths, so with her English minor, she was like an Maybe it’s because that SNL writer had always been honorary member of the English fraternity. “I got adopted by them because of inside her, struggling to emerge while Bartlett made the writing thing,” she says. practical decisions about her life. It took Gore to drag her Add in her years writing sketches for UCB and Bridge and Tunnel, and it’s to UCB, but once there the 12-year-old Bartlett and her clear that Bartlett had paid her dues. A few years ago a friend gave her the e-mail Brother typewriter were back, ready to reel in the next address for submitting a sketch packet to the SNL talent-acquisition department, Land Shark. and in 2016, armed with a load of solid TV parodies, she submitted one. “Basically, I wanted to do this when I was my purest, “It was a great packet, and very Kristen,” Hartney says. realest self, at age 12, really badly,” she says, “and I knew exactly what it was and that’s what I wanted. And then there was a lot of life trying to take that away, and then it PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION AND SNL was about coming back to it.” When Bartlett hit send on that e-mail to SNL, she was established at UCB but SNL writers’ tenures vary, and Bartlett doesn’t know still had no representation. By this time, she had scaled back her full-time job to how long she’ll stay at 30 Rock, but she knows she’ll part-time, knowing she wanted to pursue comedy writing as a career. She was continue writing comedy. The track record of writers who writing for Someecards, which produces Internet memes, and in early spring of have left the show should make her optimistic about SNL 2016 she was hired to write part-time for the radio variety show Prairie Home and beyond. And she was recently named to the Tracking Companion, which needed to groom new writers to take over when longtime Board’s “Young & Hungry” list of the top 100 young writers. host and writer Garrison Keillor retired a few months later. “There are so many things I’d like to explore with Things were going well. In the summer, she was asked to return to Prairie my career,” Bartlett says. “I’m excited to work on other Home Companion, which fit her type of comedy. shows and features, and I dream of creating my own show “She’s not impressed by clever, cerebral, dry stuff,” Hartney says. “She’s someday. I’m so inspired by people like Tina Fey, Julie like a writer of the people, in a weird way. I think that’s why she was hired as Klausner, Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer of Broad City. a writer on Prairie Home Companion before SNL. And SNL is a show of the That’s definitely my next big goal.” people. So she writes about real, regular people. It’s not two hyperintelligent guys in a room gabbing. She mixes smart with silly. “I think what I love about what Kristen does is that it’s a mix of broad and silly with real heart, like true pathos.” Still, when SNL called, it was somewhat surprising. “The only reason I was remotely surprised that she got an interview at SNL was because she didn’t have representation,” Hartney adds. “Certainly 24 25 Griffey’s road to opera stardom and the Grammys began at Wingate

erformers generally prefer not to die on Abundant hardwood forests and cheap labor kick-started stage, but Tony Griffey ’90 is pretty good at the Piedmont area’s rise to furniture mecca in the late it. Griffey, more commonly known in opera 1800s, and today the High Point Furniture Market still circles as Anthony Dean Griffey, is best draws 85,000 customers and exhibitors to the city twice a known for a trio of roles that require him to year. Shoppers come from around the world to peruse the expire before the end of the production – dressers, armoires, bed frames and chairs on display. and whose death, much like Griffey’s clear, The golden era of North Carolina furniture booming tenor voice, is a major part of the manufacturing coincided with Griffey’s youth, and both of opera. He manages the feat with realism his parents were low-wage workers in furniture factories. and the appropriate amount of suffering. “They were not a family of means,” says Dr. Ron Bostic, Griffey is more than just a pretty former head of the Music Department, now retired. “He PP voice. He has received praise from sometimes had to be a leader in the family. That served reviewers for his turns as Lennie in Of Mice and Men and as the title character him well in terms of his maturity.” in Peter Grimes, and he received a pair of Grammys for his work in The Rise Griffey grew up quickly – physically and emotionally. and Fall of the City of Mahoganny, where he played the doomed Jimmy. Now 6-foot-4 and about 300 pounds, Griffey was always a He’s a natural on stage in what could be called the biathlon of music: Opera big kid, and he has a commanding presence on the stage. combines two disciplines, acting and unmic’d classical singing, and Griffey is Emotionally, he was forced to develop earlier than most of accomplished at both. his peers. His parents were barely literate, and Griffey often “His characters seem to die more often than other characters,” says Dr. took on many of the tasks that in other households were Martha Asti, longtime administrator and music professor at Wingate University. attended to by adults, such as reading the mail and paying “And he’s very good at it.” bills. In an interview 20 years ago, Griffey told The New So good, in fact, that Griffey is, as Asti puts it, “the person in the world to do York Times that, as a 9-year-old, he once had to call and Peter Grimes.” When an opera house decides it wants to present a performance beg for his father to get his job back. Later diagnosed with of Benjamin Britten’s 1945 opera about a fisherman accused of murder, it looks schizophrenia, the elder Griffey was prone to lashing out, first to Griffey. and Griffey often had to serve as protector of his mother Griffey didn’t come to Wingate with dreams of becoming an opera star. and younger brother. In the 1980s, you didn’t start your path to the Met at Wingate. There was no Griffey emerged from this relative poverty and opera program at the University, and most music students were eyeing music unstable home life with a golden voice but no clear idea ministries and teaching positions. that there was a path available to him that could lead to Griffey had an amazing voice, but he assumed when he moved into Helms Paris, Sydney, San Francisco and the world’s other great Dormitory in August of 1986, a gentle giant from a family of factory workers opera houses. “I didn’t have stage parents at all, which in in High Point, that he would become a minister of music. Supplying Baptist my case was a good thing,” Griffey says. “My mom and churches with talented musicians to help spread the Gospel was one of the family, they just wanted me to graduate from college. Doing Music Department’s specialties – still is, though the department has grown in what I’m doing now, they had no idea.” both number of students and in scope since the mid-1980s, when Griffey found Others had an inkling that a wider world awaited out about it through a member of his church. Although his goal was to one day Griffey. Lloyd Thayer, who was superintendent of High set the tone for Sunday services, the young tenor from High Point was a special Point City Schools and attended First Baptist Church of performer, and several members of the music faculty recognized that. They High Point with Griffey, also happened to be a Wingate nurtured and encouraged the hard-working Griffey, introduced him to opera, College trustee (the University’s School of Education is even helped him dip his toe in the acting waters for the first time. named for Thayer and his wife). He encouraged Griffey to And then they followed him around the world as he became a star. check out Wingate, which proved to be a good fit, especially with Griffey pursuing a career as a minister of music. Once Griffey got there, more than a few people could FINDING HIS PASSION envision him on the stage. Judy Hutton taught Griffey Anthony Dean Griffey feels that one of his biggest assets as a high-profile opera piano theory, and she became close with him when he singer is that he has always remained Tony Griffey from High Point. His honesty served as her student assistant. helps make him such an appealing performer. Hutton says that Griffey, a large man but somewhat “That and my individuality,” he says. “I didn’t hide the fact that I came shy, came alive when he stepped on the stage at Wingate. from North Carolina. I didn’t ever deny what I came from, and I always knew “He obviously had a beautiful voice as a youngster, and my truly who I was deep down.” observation was that he seemed more comfortable on the High Point is the self-proclaimed “Home Furnishings Capital of the World.” stage when he was going to perform than he did walking WINGATE TODAY

26 the halls,” she says. “He was a natural performer.” mental confusion of the slow-witted Lennie,” Anthony Tomassini wrote. “He was coming into a new world coming to Wingate Carlisle Floyd, the composer of the opera, told that and needed encouragement,” Bostic says. “He got it from Griffey’s performance “was as perfectly realized a portrayal as anyone could Dr. Thayer, and then ultimately he got it from faculty. He hope for, both musically and dramatically.” got it from everybody who would hear him perform.” “He was always Lennie,” Floyd continued. “Other tenors sort of attack Such encouragement helped fuel a determined work the role. He embodies it.” In the spring of 2013, Griffey brought Floyd, a ethic. While at Wingate, Griffey often camped out in South Carolina native, to Wingate to teach a master class (and to receive an Burnside Dalton, the building where the Music Department honorary doctorate). was located before the Batte Center opened in 1999. “My Jessie Wright Martin, director of Wingate Opera, was surprised to learn name should be on the Burnside Dalton building,” Griffey when she arrived on campus a decade ago that Griffey was an alum. says. “I practically lived on that first floor.” “He’s a really, really good actor,” she says. “He fully immerses himself. One “I’d come over and work on Sunday afternoon and of the roles he’s most known for is Lennie in Of Mice and Men. He just totally he’d be practicing, and he and I would be the only two commits to that character. Beside the fact that his voice is gorgeous. I mean, it’s people in the building,” Bostic says. “He was just driven.” so beautiful to listen to. There are so many singers out there who have beautiful voices, but they don’t convince you. And he just commits so much to it.” Griffey has the stature to play Lennie, but he also has the acting chops. MASTERING LENNIE For that role, he drew upon the many summers he spent working at a camp Griffey has never angled to be Three Tenors famous, but for children with disabilities. For others, he simply lets his natural acting talent opera fans know his work. His popularity begins with his shine through. full, clear voice. Griffey had done very little acting before coming to Wingate, but he Dr. Ken Murray, now retired but a music professor proved to be a natural when former professor Larry Coleman decided to during Griffey’s undergrad days, says the secret lies in put on a musical, Little Mary Sunshine, back in the late ’80s. Wingate’s Griffey’s ability to enunciate clearly while also hitting his opera program was not started until 2007, and Coleman’s production was notes and reaching the back of the opera house. Griffey’s Griffey’s first opportunity to start developing the acting component of his voice, Murray says, is known for “fullness and clarity, performance repertoire. especially the diction, being able to understand the words “He was terrific,” Asti says. “He stole the show.” he was singing, no matter what language it was.” “I was delighted at his acting and dancing,” Murray says. “Light on his feet, “It was important, because my voice developed for a big man especially. That was the first time I was aware of how good an operatically, that people understood me,” Griffey says. “So actor he was.” on Saturday night, before I’d sing in church on Sunday, I’d He brings that same combination of muscular musicality and accomplished sing for my little brother and the family, and then I’d have dramatic skill to opera – which is no mean feat, considering that opera singers him raise his hand if he didn’t understand every word.” do not have the benefit of microphones. “Opera houses are huge, and to a lot of The result is a voice that is memorable. But it isn’t people you look like you’re an inch tall, if you get seats way in the back,” Asti showy. Griffey is content being known in the opera says. “It’s really a challenge for an opera singer, and I think he does that as well world, rather than being recognized by non-opera-fans, as as anybody today.” Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras are. Had Griffey not stepped out of his comfort zone and applied to grad school, “His voice has a rather unique tenor quality,” Hutton his voice might never have filled the world’s great opera halls. says. “Tony always says, ‘I don’t try to be Pavarotti. I don’t try to be anybody. I just try to be me.’” When someone mentions opera to the uninitiated, EASTMAN AND JUILLIARD the first thought is often of a large woman wearing a Viking Griffey had his eyes opened to opera at Wingate. Hutton took students to Opera helmet attempting to shatter a wine glass, or Pavarotti Carolina, and on a Great American Heritage trip to New York, Asti took Griffey hitting a high-C in Italian. Most often, it’s in a foreign tongue. and a group of students to the Metropolitan Opera for a performance. But operas are written in many languages and cover a He had ambition even then. “We got tickets – they were so far from the variety of themes. Griffey has chosen to primarily perform stage, we thought they were in the Bronx – but we were in the theater, and that English-speaking operas from the 20th century, mostly was so special,” Asti says. “Tony turned to me and said, ‘I’m going to be on a because the roles in those operas tend to suit him best. first-name basis with everybody on that stage.’” The better-known dramatic tenors, such as Pavarotti and Hearing opera sung in a true opera house helped Griffey see a fully realized Domingo, made their names playing larger-than-life roles vision of where his career could go. But he was also practical, and it took some of derring-do. Griffey, often referred to as a “lyric tenor,” convincing for him to decide to pursue a singing career. brings a more understated depth to his roles. “One time he said, ‘Mrs. Hutton, I’ve learned that I can go to seminary free,” In 1997, Griffey played Lennie Small, a large, Hutton says. “I said, ‘Tony, I don’t think that’s what you want to do. Let’s at least mentally handicapped migrant worker, in an operatic try for more than that.’” rendition of John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men at the “More than that” turned out to be a master’s program at the Eastman Glimmerglass, a small opera house in Cooperstown, New School of Music, in Rochester, New York, one of the two best-known music York. The New York Times was glowing in its review. “The schools in the country (we’ll get to the other in a bit). After singing at a local star of this show was Anthony Dean Griffey, a dramatic National Association of Teachers of Singing audition, Griffey was encouraged by tenor with beautiful, free high notes and lovely portamento, an Eastman faculty member, the late Marsha Baldwin, to apply. He was given a who embodied the physical ponderousness and childish full scholarship. 27

Hutton and her husband caught Griffey’s debut at the Met, back in the ’90s, and Asti and Hutton have traveled the world to experience several other of Griffey’s vocal triumphs. Asti saw Griffey perform at Carnegie Hall for the first time, heard him at the Kennedy Center and flew to France alongside Hutton for his Paris Opera debut, when he performed Peter Grimes. “It was fabulous,” she says. At Eastman, Griffey excelled as a student and learned that he could survive In March 2008, a Met production of Peter Grimes was outside of his comfort zone. “My classmates back in the 90s called me ‘Country simulcast in theaters, and Wingate Opera students watched Come to Town,’” he said in an interview with a Rochester classical-music the performance from the Stonecrest cinema in Charlotte. station. “I had plaid shirts on and blue jeans and was just thrilled to be here.” Griffey gave the University a shoutout during intermission, At Eastman, Griffey studied with world-renowned teachers and attended and the theater erupted in cheers. master classes with opera stars, such as Renee Fleming. Griffey began to In 2007 Asti, Hutton and Jane McCoy, Griffey’s first understand fully what an opera career entailed, and toward the end of voice teacher at Wingate, were in the audience when his program at Eastman, he took a chance and went to to Griffey starred in the Los Angeles Opera’s performance of audition for Beverly Johnson, a famed classical-music teacher at Juilliard. Kurt Weill’s The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahaggony, She was 87 at the time. “She said, ‘You have a hell of a lot of talent and a hell of alongside Patti Lupone and Audra McDonald. The a lot to learn,’” Griffey says. performance was captured on DVD, and the recording of it Johnson became Griffey’s mentor, working with him for the next eight was nominated for two Grammy Awards, for “Best Classical years. She taught him the voice component of his craft but also valuable Album” and “Best Opera Recording.” life lessons. “She was like a football coach,” Griffey says. “She prepared me Griffey initially decided to blow off the ceremony. emotionally and physically – and financially.” She knew that Griffey had never “I wasn’t going to go to the Grammys,” he says. had much money in his life, and she helped him learn to handle sudden financial “There were four other people in the category, Placido success. “She prepared me for all that,” Griffey says. “She’d seen and heard it all, Domingo being one of them, and I thought, I’m not going but she had the energy of a 16-year-old. And she saw something in me that she to win. My manager said, ‘You know, if you win it’s one felt was major career potential. of the best days of your life. If you lose, it’s one of the “I always said if I moved to New York City and had a weak teacher, I never longest days of your life.’” would have had a career.” Griffey decided two days before the event that he He also had the benefit of a stable foundation. “Wingate was a good place would attend, and the recording wound up winning in both for me to kind of simmer and hang out, kind of in a crockpot setting, to simmer categories. (Griffey added two more Grammys in 2010 for for four years and figure out what I wanted to do and where I was supposed to his work as the principal soloist on a live recording of a San go,” he says. “It was a good place for me and really gave me a good foundation. Francisco Symphony performance.) I wouldn’t have been prepared emotionally to go to Juilliard when I was 18. I’ve Griffey’s manager was only half right, though. Feb. seen many students do that, and they kind of burn out.” 8, 2009, was indeed one of the best days of Griffey’s life, Griffey earned a second master’s degree at Juilliard, in 1994, and was but it was also one of the longest, as he gave interview immediately accepted into the Metropolitan Opera’s Young Artist Development after interview after the ceremony. The trophies are now Program, a three-year apprenticeship. The program is essentially a training displayed in his studio at the Eastman School, but for years ground for the Metropolitan Opera, and it’s where Griffey’s career really took off. Griffey kept them in a closet at his home in High Point. “You work side by side with the professionals in the business,” he says. “They’re very nice, but they’re quite fragile, because every “Sometimes you cover them. I covered Pavarotti and sang on a recording with one of them is handmade,” he says. him. It really launched my career.” Griffey reached probably his biggest audience ever And what a career it’s been. soon after leaving the Young Artist Program. In 1998, he was selected by Seiji Ozawa, director of the Boston Symphony, to be one of four soloists in a performance of ‘SANCTUARY OF THE WORLD’ Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the opening ceremony of These days, Griffey, 50, is pulling double duty in the classical-music world. He the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. still performs, and he has returned to Eastman as a tenured professor, teaching Griffey has been all over the world to enchant private voice lessons in the same classrooms where he refined his craft as a audiences with his golden voice, an aspiring minister of student over a quarter-century ago. “I think it’s important as educators to give music who found a congregation much larger than a young back the knowledge that you’ve learned during your time of working in the son of factory workers could have ever imagined. professional world,” he says. “I’ve always known that my voice was a gift from God, Griffey has scaled back his performance schedule a little bit, but thanks to but I thought the only way for me to use it was in a church a careful lifestyle, his voice is still pristine. “My voice is as fresh as it was when I setting,” he says. “I didn’t realize that my sanctuary would was 20 years old,” he says. be much bigger than just seeing the same congregation Although he continues to travel the world singing with philharmonics, he every week, that it would be the sanctuary of the world. did no opera performances in 2017. He was partially saving his vocal chords “The career I chose – or it chose me – was not the for this fall, when he’ll create the role of Mr. Strutt in an operatic performance easy way out by any means. It took a lot of blood, sweat of Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie at his old stomping grounds, New York’s and tears to get where I am today, but it was well worth Metropolitan Opera. the trip.” WINGATE TODAY

28 29 Crooke takes gift for commanding an audience into corporate music world

ohn Crooke ’90 has an impulsive streak. Hills High School, and he knew he wanted to continue Or maybe he just knows when the universe playing at the next level. After making college visits and is trying to tell him something. Either way, talking to coaches, Wingate appeared to be his best bet. “I the trajectory of his life has been radically wanted to play hoops, and I felt like at the time I probably altered on more than one occasion by a had more of an opportunity to play at Wingate,” he says. nearly on-the-spot decision. The transformation of Crooke the athlete into The moment that Crooke realized his Crooke the musician is familiar to any fan of Hardsoul rock ’n’ roll dream was – if not over, then at Poets or Jolene. As Crooke tells it, he was playing pickup least in need of a reboot – remains crystal basketball at Helms Dormitory one day during his clear, 16 years after the fact. Crooke and his freshman year when the ball sprung loose from the group band at the time, Jolene, had just finished a of players. When the energetic Crooke bounded over to JJ rousing set at the famous Borderline club in retrieve it, something caught his eye in a nearby garbage London, in support of their fourth album, “The Pretty Dive,” and he was feeling bin: A cassette of R.E.M.’s third album, “Fables of the both exhilarated and pensive. Reconstruction.” He pocketed the tape and went back to “We were literally on stage in London to a sold-out house,” he recalls. “In playing ball. the bowels of the club, in the dressing room by myself after the last song – it was From the first listen, Crooke was hooked. Essentially, encore after encore – I just remember having the feeling that this is all I ever he knew he wanted to be in a band, and before long he was wanted to do, but I’m going to have to reinvent myself. This might be the last in head coach Steve Hudson’s office, telling him he was show that we play.” quitting the team. Crooke called a few friends and formed Jolene had released one major-label album, had toured the world and had a band called The Delegates, which morphed into The made some compelling, hard-to-pigeonhole southern alt-rock in the half-dozen Beatnics, featuring Chris Michael ’88, Brannon Helms ’93 years they had been together. But Crooke, by now approaching his mid-30s and and Tim Hilton ’87. a veteran of the music industry, could tell the band was at a turning point. Crooke had always had a love for music. He was a So, just like that, they called it quits. drummer in a band as early as elementary school. “He was “Nobody was mad,” he says. “It was just one of those things where the last second, third grade or something,” says Michael, who was thing that I wanted was to end up at 50, playing for 35 bucks on a Tuesday night in middle school at the time. “We had to put stuff over his in Gaffney. I could just feel it.” snare because he played so loud.” Crooke and the band flew back to the States, and less than a month later That band lasted only two gigs, but Crooke’s later he got a job offer with the Charlotte-based design firm Shook Kelley, at their creations had more staying power. The Beatnics eventually new office in Los Angeles. It was an office job, but it came at a crucial point morphed into the Hardsoul Poets, a band much loved in in Crooke’s life. He took the gig and, ever since, L.A. has been his home base Charlotte that stayed together for over 8 years in some as he has climbed the corporate ladder. These days, instead of creating the form or fashion, touring up and down the East Coast. chords and harmonies and cryptic lyrics himself, Crooke is taking the music Crooke was encouraged by his Wingate professors created by others and packaging it for a new audience: coffee lovers, clothes to follow his rock ’n’ roll dreams. “In my core of a clumsy hounds and travelers. 18-year-old who was trying to play basketball, I think As vice president for global brand development with PlayNetwork, a (former communications professor) Walter Woodson company best known for curating music and creating original content for global recognized that there was an artist somewhere in there and retail brands, Crooke helps shape the creative and music strategy for brands like encouraged it early on,” Crooke says. Starbucks, Levi’s, Adidas, NYX, Gap and Marriott. Crooke persuaded Woodson to let him write an end- It’s a gig he has found himself ideally suited for. And in a way, he’s still of-year paper on R.E.M., from a business standpoint. “I said performing – only now, his stage is a boardroom. a band is a business. A band has four people who are the board of directors, and they have a product and a service they have to take out to an audience, and they have to R.E.M. REDUX go on the road to do that. They have profit and loss and John Crooke’s early performing days involved squeaky gym floors and no-look income and outgoings,” he says. “He was like, ‘Do it, man. passes, not distorted guitars and catchy riffs. Crooke, who “grew up a sand wedge Write it.’ You’re not going to get that kind of runway at a from Sanders-Sikes Gymnasium,” is royal-blooded Wingate. His grandfather bigger school.” was C.C. Burris, longtime president of the institution who helped save Wingate Eventually, the Poets begat Jolene in 1995 – by Junior College from financial ruin after the Great Depression. which point Crooke was the only remaining member Still, despite his lineage, Crooke had his eye on larger schools, where he from the Beatnics genesis – and that band ultimately was hoping to play basketball. He’d been a standout point guard at nearby Forest signed with major label Sire Records and cultivated its WINGATE TODAY

30 own loyal following. Michael is stumped as to why neither Hardsoul Poets Jolene was definitely a rock band, but whereas the Hardsoul Poets leaned nor Jolene quite made it to the big time. “He had the toward pop, Jolene incorporated more country elements into its sound, placing drive,” he says of Crooke. “He had the talent. He had the it at least near the “Americana” genre. voice. He had the chops. He had everything. Why Hardsoul Critics were for the most part favorable. “All I wanted was for someone to Poets didn’t push through, I don’t know.” hear it and go, ‘That is awesome. I can’t articulate why that moves me, but I love Crooke became a brand strategist for Shook Kelley it,’” Crooke says. “And there were a few of those.” – a job for which nothing on his resume should have There were also a few detractors. And with a major-label album, In the prepared him. “I mean, my first job as an adult – my very Gloaming, on record-store shelves – yes, in 1998 there were still physical first job that wasn’t washing dishes in Marshville at the stores where CDs, cassettes and LPs were sold – the critics on both sides were Palomino restaurant – was when I took that gig in Los more prominent. Angeles,” he says. “When In the Gloaming came out, Mojo or Q or one of those Brit magazines Shook Kelley was an ideal landing spot for someone compared us to the second coming of R.E.M.,” Crooke says. “The same week, who had never had an office job. Crooke had met one of in another publication, the opening thing was, ‘The worst thing about Jolene’s the firm’s founding partners, Kevin Kelley, on the Charlotte In the Gloaming is Crooke’s incessant caterwauling.’ Two extremes. They both music scene and had subsequently done side work for him, were hearing the same thing, but this guy hated us to the point where we were scouting out what was hot during his global touring and so insignificant, and a quality magazine writes that these guys might figure out writing trend reports. Crooke says, “I would come back and the next coming of R.E.M. ‘They’ve got the formula that no one’s doing.’ And say, ‘Hey, I was in East Berlin. This is what they’re listening really where it lies is somewhere in the middle.” to, these are the shoes they’re wearing, this is what’s going on. I went to this cool Indian martini concept.’” Kelley knew that Crooke didn’t have a business OFFICE JOB background – Crooke majored in communications at Jolene also lay somewhere in the middle sales-wise, never quite taking off the Wingate – but he also knew that he was a leader and an way comparable bands R.E.M., Wilco and even Hootie and the Blowfish did. artist. “I can teach you the business, because you know Sensing that the tide might never turn in Jolene’s favor, especially with the how to get in front of people,” he told Crooke. “You’re not advent of file-sharing services such as Napster, the band called it quits. afraid of a room. You know how to take creative thought “There wasn’t a lot of opportunity beyond touring and making a record by a and turn it into a lyrical idea that people can rally around. major label in the conventional way,” he says. ‘It’s hard to sustain a career. So it “At the time I was just going on gut,” Crooke says. was as much a business decision as it was a life decision. It was just time.” “Credit to Kevin Kelley. He knew that I had that. He wasn’t afraid of throwing me into a situation, because he knew that I could paint myself out of a corner, so to speak.” Shook Kelley specializes in urban planning, design and branding. Twenty years ago, it had the vision of what Charlotte’s South End could become when the area was still just a collection of derelict warehouses. It even placed its own headquarters there and helped reinvent that section of the city. In 2002, just as Crooke was parachuting out of the rock ’n’ roll world, Kelley opened an office in Los Angeles, persuading Crooke to join him. Crooke completed one last rock ’n’ roll obligation – serving as tour manager for the band Longwave, which was opening for the Strokes in Europe – and then joined Shook Kelley, learning on the fly as Shook Kelley pitched retail strategies to national companies. “I was one day on stage at Brixton Academy with the Strokes tour,” Crooke says, “and 30 days later I was in a boardroom with the president of the New York Jets.” “I had that fearlessness Crooke leaned on the communication skills he learned at Wingate and on the confidence developed as a basketball and sort of blind point guard and rock-band frontman to relay Shook Kelley’s vision of a company’s brand identity. “I think I had that fearlessness and sort of blind confidence to make it FRQåGHQFHWRPDNHLW happen,” he says. happen.” CONFIDENT SALESMAN Eventually, Crooke tried to incorporate more of his true passion, music, into what Shook Kelley was doing. He 31

Crooke started playing in bands in elementary school and eventually toured the country and the world with the band Jolene.

proposed developing what he calls an “experiential music design element” at the had music chops. I knew I could get into a room and firm, but it wasn’t a perfect fit. drive ideas.” So, he teamed up with some other musician friends and developed a small, PlayNetwork creates the curated music collections boutique music-design firm. They signed only a few clients. “We barely got it off you hear as you sip coffee in Starbucks or try on sweaters the ground,” he says. in the Gap. Its list of clients is a who’s who of global retail: “That was my entrepreneur side,” Crooke adds. “That was me going, ‘I Adidas, Levi’s, Hilton Hotels, Forever 21, Victoria’s Secret, just want to start a band.’ I want to build. I have an entrepreneurial spirit I just REI, Urban Outfitters, Converse, Marc Jacobs, L’Oreal, tapped into. ‘I’ve got a band now. Me, Chris, Brannon and Reid (Mansell). What Nike. “We have a group of guys and gals across the are we going do? Well, we’ve got to get gigs. I’m going to be the booking guy. Get world and all day long they are ears in the headphones a fake name, call from a different number and I’m going to get us gigs.’” and speakers curating music for every single one of our “John could sell anything,” says Michael, who was in Hardsoul Poets brands,” Crooke says. from 1987 to 1991. “He was always very influential. He was always the guy Crooke plays a couple of roles with Play. He runs who you would go, ‘John, you talk to them.’ He was very confident. The rest A440, PlayNetwork’s internal brand and content-marketing of us, not so much.” studio, which makes sure that a customer’s “brand That confidence and willingness to take chances saw Crooke through a experience” is consistent across a Play client’s stores, apps, difficult patch early this decade. He left Shook Kelley for another firm, where he digital channels, mobile and other outlets. stayed for two years before the firm was bought out. And as vice president of global brand development, “Within about six months they shut us down and fired everybody,” Crooke Crooke is responsible for articulating the brand strategy says. “I had no job. I had just bought a house. My wife (Dianna) was pregnant. for Play’s clients, finding himself in board rooms from LA The competitive side of me said, ‘No. This is not going to happen.’ I told Dianna, to London and once again getting to play the frontman, 15 ‘Not only will I have my next job in the next 30 days. I will have the job in the years after his rock ’n’ roll days ended. next 30 days.’” “I get to go get on a plane and be on tour for a week,” Crooke tapped into his network of contacts and wound up landing a job as he says. “I get to scratch that itch.” an assistant producer at Channel M, which produced video content for retailers And he jams occasionally with friends, former such as Macy’s and Nordstrom. Crooke didn’t know much about video editing. “I members of the Bangles, Squirrel Nut Zippers and faked it till I made it,” he says. Longwave. It’s not world touring, and it’s not dreaming of Crooke was also dealing with record labels at Channel M and realized, from platinum albums and rock stardom. But Crooke is more his brand-strategy days at Shook Kelley, that Channel M was lacking in a real than content with his life in Northeast L.A. defined content-strategy approach. “So I started drifting into driving content “I’m extraordinarily happy,” he says. “I’m strategy for our retail clients on the video side,” he says. immeasurably happy with my life.” A year or so later, Channel M was acquired by PlayNetwork, which saw Crooke as more than just a video editor. He quickly advanced up the company ladder. “I knew retail,” he says. “I knew design. I knew the physical store environment. I knew brand strategy. I knew how to build a brand strategy around music and apply the same principals I used at Shook Kelley. And I WINGATE TODAY

32 33 Azeredo using gift of gab to push for social change in Brazil

razil’s biggest cities, Rio de Janeiro developing countries, but Azeredo, bitten by the rap bug and Sao Paulo, are infamous for their in high school, didn’t exactly jump at the chance to sign favelas, or slums – row after row of with the Bulldogs. He was already eyeing a music career. small, makeshift houses stacked on top “It probably took the better part of four or five months of each other. The lack of government to convince him to do it,” says Gary Hamill, Wingate’s oversight in these favelas breeds vibrant longtime men’s soccer coach. underground economies, dangerous Once he got here, though, he was committed. On gangs and creative, resourceful residents. the field, Azeredo was a starting forward, helping lead It is out of this mixture that most the Bulldogs to a Southeast Region championship and a Brazilian rap artists emerge. place among the final eight teams in the NCAA Division II Then there’s Fabio Azeredo ’14. In his tournament in 2012. B high-school years, Azeredo – well-heeled He scored three goals and had three assists in 16 schoolboy,B grandson of a famous Brazilian poet – made visit after visit to the starts that year, but it was off the field where his infectious legendary “Batalhas do Santa Cruz” rap battles held near Sao Paulo’s Santa Cruz personality and musical ability helped keep the tone light metro station, in which participants try to vanquish their foes with rhymes that as Wingate charged through the South Atlantic Conference mock their opponents. and the Southeast Region. At times, it was like Azeredo was “Everybody was making fun of me,” says Azeredo, whose stage name is part of a traveling musical show. As a freshman, he won a Fabio Brazza. “I was a white boy. I was in the wrong place.” But he won. His student talent show with a freestyle English/Portuguese rap. strong vocabulary and eagerness won the day. And he kept winning. For a He carried his ukulele around with him on campus, and in month, he went back each week, winning each time. When he finally lost, he the locker room he would create rhymes just before kickoff says, he felt “humiliated,” but that state of mind didn’t last. that sent his teammates out onto the pitch in the right “When I lost my fourth championship I felt bad and thought about frame of mind. giving up,” he says, “which never happened, because after the feeling of being “His positive message, in the last minute before we humiliated I continued to battle, and in every win or loss I was improving my left the locker room, kept everybody upbeat and happy,” skills, making friends, and learning what the hip-hop struggle was about. “I was Hamill says. “To me it lightened the mood. Obviously, disappointed, but I thought, Man, I love this. This is what I want for my life.” before you take the field everybody’s serious, especially That life is happening. One day in early October, Azeredo relays through in the NCAA run that we made. He had a great knack for a crackling phone line from Sao Paulo how a day earlier he’d appeared on Altas telling jokes and keeping everything in perspective.” Horas, a long-running variety show on one of Brazil’s biggest TV networks, Rede It would be easy to assume that Azeredo’s happy-go- Globo. Audience members shouted out words, and Azeredo freestyle-rapped lucky demeanor translated to classroom apathy. And, for according to the topic. He had the audience cheering, applauding and cackling a while, he did struggle academically. Azeredo admits that with laughter. it took him a long time to figure out the true purpose of Between the Santa Cruz rap battles and his appearances on national TV, education. As a schoolboy, most of his academic efforts Azeredo spent four years at Wingate University, starting for the soccer team and were parent-motivated. finding his way academically. During those four years, Azeredo honed his skills “I had the attitude that I just need to go to school as a rhetorician, learning to get his point across persuasively and confidently. He because my parents want me to,” he says. “I acted out of is now an established star of the underground rap scene in Brazil, with nearly obedience and fear. ‘If I don’t do the homework, I won’t half a million subscribers to his channel on YouTube, where several of his songs have the grades and my parents will get mad.’” have more than a million views apiece. He has released three albums, rapped Azeredo’s next sentence hints at something deeper face-to-face tributes to Brazilian soccer legends, and been commissioned by Nike underneath that carefree surface. “When you act out of to create a song for a Brazilian commercial. YouTube commenters liken him to a obedience and fear, you are not free,” he says. “One day, I Brazilian Eminem. became free, because I didn’t have my parents there, and if And although he felt a lot like the famous American rapper in the movie 8 I didn’t want to go to a class or do homework, it’s my fault.” Mile during those Santa Cruz rap battles, Fabio Brazza is looking to forge his own Azeredo, a philosopher at heart, simply needed a legacy in the worlds of rap and poetry, in his own style and on his own terms. framework and a course of study that interested him. After a freshman year in which he “was in, like, random classes and some classes I didn’t like, like math and business,” he KEEPING THINGS LIGHT discovered courses that were more to his liking. With an Azeredo was one of a contingent of Brazilian soccer players – all from Sao eye on a career as a lyricist and performer, Azeredo chose Paulo – who came to Wingate in the early 2010s. The chance to get a college to major in communications. By his junior year, he was education in the U.S. is enticing for many non-Americans, especially those from making A’s and B’s. WINGATE TODAY

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“I started to do these classes because I thought they passed along a love of literature and poetry to his grandson. were interesting for me, and I want to learn those things,” “I wanted to be like him,” Azeredo says. “He was the biggest influence. I he says. “I never thought I was doing communication was a bad student, but outside of school, I was schooling myself with books and because I wanted to be a journalist or I wanted to do literature and poetry and samba songs and rap songs.” this or I wanted to do that. I didn’t pick communication; As he devoured Brazilian and Portuguese literature (Machado de Assis communication chose me.” and Jorge Amado) and poetry (Oswald de Andrade, Sergio Vaz and Fernando Pessoa), Azeredo was unwittingly laying the groundwork for what would become his career. His vocabulary was growing, and he was getting an innate feel for his POETIC GENES native tongue. Azeredo says that, while making his rap and spoken- In his videos, he spits out words rapidly, punctuating them with typical hip- word videos, he uses techniques he learned in speech hop hand gestures and an expressive face. and persuasion classes at the University. Education “People see my great quality as I’m very lyrical,” Azeredo says. “I don’t have is a strong theme in his work. He says it is the key to the best voice, but I’m good lyrically. Whenever I went to the first rap battle reducing the disparity between the haves and have- and won, the compliment the guy gave me was, ‘Your vocabulary is so rich.’ I nots in his country, and even if you don’t understand realized I was studying to be a good rapper.” Portuguese, it’s easy to see how his confident demeanor He also realizes that, growing up white and in a good neighborhood, he had on screen would be persuasive. an advantage. And that’s why, once he earned his communications degree, he Growing up, Azeredo got an education both in and headed straight back to Brazil, rather than looking for work in the United States. out of the classroom. He was greatly influenced by his “Brazil is such an unequal country,” Azeredo says. “Some people have grandfather, Ronaldo Pinto de Azeredo, one of the original money, and others don’t have the opportunity at school, or the cultural “concrete poets.” The concrete-poetry movement came privilege. I felt like when I was in Brazil I had so much privilege in my life to about in the 1950s, when Ronaldo Azeredo and others have a good family, to study in the best schools, to have a grandfather who produced work that was as visual as it was verbal. To is a poet and who could teach me and show me poetry. All this privilege that concrete poets, shape, texture and material are at least as I have, I need to give back somehow. I would be selfish if I got married and important as the words in a poem. Azeredo’s grandfather stayed in the United States. wrote his poems on cloth, maps and other items. “My goal in life, my mission, was to go back to Brazil and give back my The words, of course, mattered as well, and Azeredo privilege somehow. I think in the rap and in the poetry I have given back my learned much from his grandfather, who died when privilege. I think that I can help more.” Azeredo was 16, about how to write lyrics. Mainly, he THE FIGHT FOR BRAZIL Azeredo’s privilege has allowed him to pursue a career in rap. When he returned to Sao Paulo with his communications degree in hand, one of the first things he did was to record a CD. He wasn’t exactly an overnight sensation. “I thought everyone would recognize my talent,” Azeredo says. “That’s not what happened. Everywhere I go, the places were empty. They don’t want to listen to you talk about social problems.” He had resigned himself to finding an office job, but his mother convinced him to continue pursuing his hip- hop dreams, since the family wasn’t hurting for money. Azeredo started making videos, a few of which went viral on the Internet. His big break came when he showed up in 2016 at the Florida Cup – an exhibition soccer tournament featuring huge clubs from around the world, with an emphasis on Latin American teams. Azeredo had prepared lengthy rhymes extolling the virtues of some of the game’s great players, such as Brazilian legends Ronaldinho and Ronaldo. He “ambushed” the players and had someone record him rapping to them. The resulting videos became big hits online, and Fabio Brazza was suddenly an Internet star. “I went without tickets,” he says. “I made some poems for some great players – kind of raps for them. It went viral. They hired me for 2017 and for 2018.” So this year Azeredo got paid at the Florida Cup for 35

“and we have big words in Portuguese.” The second challenge was to rap using words starting with A, followed by words starting with B, all the way through Z. The resulting video has had 850,000 views. He followed that one with a palindrome, but he complains that it did not go viral. “I think people didn’t understand what I was doing,” he says. “It was hard to explain.” For those who don’t speak Portuguese – and that’s 99.9 percent of the readers of Wingate Today – Fabio Brazza’s videos probably make little sense, though the accompanying electronic beats are recognizable enough. But Azeredo has already discounted the idea of trying to break into the English-speaking rap universe, for several reasons. “First of all, I don’t have the knowledge of the language,” he says. “I don’t master English enough to be as good in English as I am in Portuguese, because I was born here. I read Portuguese literature and study the language, so I’ve mastered the language, and my vocabulary is very good. In English I will never get to the same level, unless Azeredo is comfortable freestyle rapping in front of large crowds but still enjoys really I studied hard and read American literature. playing his ukelele for friends, as he did during his Wingate days. “Another thing in rapping, whenever you write a rap, you use cultural references and stuff that connect you to the people that listen. And the message that I bring his lyrical talents, and his CDs are starting to sell, he’s getting airtime on connects to the Brazilian people. But if I translate most TV and he’s getting commissions to create songs for commercials. of my songs to English, some people wouldn’t understand As he’s become more and more successful, Azeredo has begun creating what I’m saying, because the historical and cultural content that is more and more political and social. reference I make won’t make sense.” Having studied in the U.S., he says he realizes that education is the biggest In Brazil, Azeredo has the chance to make Fabio difference between America and Brazil. In Brazil, he says, education is more of Brazza a star. The hip-hop firmament is much more a privilege than a right. That’s why someone like Barack Obama can grow up crowded in the United States. to become president in the U.S. “That’s where the fight is,” Azeredo says. “The “Here, in Brazil, the rap is something that’s still fight for a good, strong Brazil is the fight for education.” improving,” he says. “And then I think, if I try to rap in To further that cause, Azeredo uses entertainment to educate others and English, I will compete with Eminem, Jay-Z, Kendrick prompt them to think. Azeredo has recently recorded a series of five songs that Lamar – you know, the best in the world. Hip-hop was deal with some pretty heady topics: power, the Big Bang, Auschwitz. “I always invented there, and you guys mastered this. Here, I have bring a philosophical and a moral reflection in every song,” he says. more room to grow than I will have in America, because One song in the series is about Gyges’ ring, a tale told by the Greek my accent is bad. If you listen to me rap in English, you will philosopher Plato about a man who finds a ring that can make him invisible. The laugh. You won’t take me serious. protagonist makes himself invisible in order to do selfish things and then visible “It’s like an American trying to play samba. We whenever he does something worthy. At the end of the song, Azeredo reveals were born literally with samba. We invented samba. If an that the modern-day Gyges’ ring is the cell phone. He says that what you do American tried to be a samba player, in America you can behind the shield of the phone reveals your character. be successful, but if you come to Brazil to compete, I don’t The final song, about Auschwitz, came from a memoir Azeredo had recently think an American will have a chance.” read by a Holocaust survivor, who said that even prisoners in concentration Samba itself, along with other established musical camps had to choose between being good or evil. Some prisoners, the book genres, such as bossa nova, sertenajo and funk carioca, reveals, stole the bread of other prisoners. presents another obstacle. Rap is still somewhat in its “So the author is saying that evil is a personal choice and you can never infancy in Brazil, and it’s hard to predict whether it will rise blame your circumstances for how you act,” Azeredo says. to the level there that it has in the U.S. If it does, it just might do so on the back of Fabio STICKING WITH PORTUGUESE Brazza – poet, rapper and Bulldog. Similar to how his grandfather helped usher in a new form of poetic expression, Azeredo likes to experiment and keep his lyrics sharp. In addition to spoken-word poems, which he also records and posts on YouTube, and his traditional rap songs, Azeredo periodically creates songs under an ethos he calls “the challenge of the rhyme.” In the first “challenge” song, he tried to rap using the longest words in the Portuguese language – WINGATE TODAY

36 37 Crumpton keeps a cool head to make sure events go off without a hitch

n the middle of the biggest gig of his life, venues, with each show featuring multiple performers. when he was responsible for performers at “When I sit back and think about it, I think, How a dozen venues in one night, ignoring the did we do that?” Crumpton says now. That weekend, he developing blisters on his feet as he made also served his biggest regular Labor Day customer, the sure the various bands, singers, DJs and Matthews Alive festival, so he does have a point. How did comedians were comfortable and ready he do it? to perform, all while remotely managing Well, the extra work did land him in the hospital, but a 40-show festival across town, Brandon there’s always a price to pay for success. Crumpton ’03 had an artist go all diva on him. A promised wine-bottle opener was nowhere to be found, and the performer FINDING HIS PASSION I was stomping his feet. Like many people who toil in the background of the “He said,I ‘Until I’m made whole, I’m not going to go on,’” the affable and entertainment industry, Brandon Crumpton started out normally unflappable Crumpton recalls. “I said, ‘OK.’ At that point, I’m like, as a performer. He sang in a four-person a capella group at I’m fine with that. I’ve got 11 other shows to do. ‘You see all these people sitting his middle school in Columbia, South Carolina, where he out there? Have your people go out there and tell them you aren’t coming on grew up. He and his bandmates crooned hits from Boyz II because you couldn’t open your bottle of wine.’” Men and other ’90s-era harmony groups, and Crumpton The gambit worked. “He went on,” Crumpton says. “And we did get him his continued singing in choruses and choirs throughout wine-bottle opener.” his high-school and college years. “I have trophies for It was a rare moment of conflict for Crumpton in an industry that presents each stage as my voice was changing: Outstanding male the potential for nightly contretemps. The easygoing, hard-working Crumpton ensemble member. Best tenor. Tenor I. Tenor II. Baritone.” is ideally suited for dealing with even the most temperamental artists and But by his senior year at Richland Northeast High harried tour managers – and it’s a big reason that his business, Key Signature School, Crumpton knew he wanted his career to involve Entertainment, is so busy these days. Between April and September, barely a making the moment happen, rather than being in the weekend goes by that Key Signature isn’t handling at least one festival or event, spotlight when it does. He was considering a couple of other and year-round he works weddings, corporate parties and other private events. schools with music-business programs – the University of Crumpton has managed to claim a big chunk of the entertainment-booking Miami and Full Sail University – when he decided to visit business in Charlotte and the surrounding region. Crumpton’s company is on Wingate. It was (pardon if you’ve heard this one before) retainer with Mecklenburg County to handle all county-owned events at Romare love at first sight. “They get you once you see the school,” Bearden Park, in uptown Charlotte – which translates to close to 30 events a he says. “Once they get you on campus, it’s a done deal.” year. He also puts on three jazz festivals at Freedom Park and other events at In the now-defunct music-business program at festivals and parks throughout the region. Wingate, Crumpton learned the ins and outs of recording He books the acts out of his bulging roster of musicians, magicians, and managing. He stood out for his ability to think outside comedians and other performers. He rents the sound boards, lights and stages the box. “He loved to create things,” says Dr. Ken Murray, and arranges to have them delivered and set up. And he makes sure the artists former professor of music, now retired. “His creative reach the site and have everything they need to put on a good show. assignments in class were always outstanding.” These days, Crumpton and his staff can take all of that on without batting It was through Murray that Crumpton took his first an eye – even at multiple venues – but in 2012, Key Signature was still a one- steps into the entertainment industry. Doug Daniel, a man band. Crumpton had to be virtually arm-twisted into signing on for what Charlotte-based talent booker, was looking to expand has essentially turned out to be a career-making event: the 2012 Democratic Daniel Entertainment Group, and he called Wingate National Convention, held in uptown Charlotte. Crumpton, as practical as ever, looking for interns. Murray suggested Crumpton. knew that taking on such a high-profile, extensive gig could stretch him nearly to Crumpton proved so useful that, after graduation, he the breaking point. continued working for Daniel, in addition to interning at Having been made an offer he couldn’t refuse, Crumpton and his Key a recording studio and working a retail job, at Kohl’s, in Signature Entertainment made the most of it. Key Signature handled the the evenings and on weekends. (“My closet is pristine,” he entertainment for seven delegate parties and all aspects of CarolinaFest, a Labor says. “I can fold shirts like nobody’s business.”) Day festival on Tryon Street at which James Taylor, Jeff Bridges and Janelle Crumpton had arrived at Wingate with designs on Monae performed. a career as a sound engineer, but working in a recording But the most challenging part of the week, for Crumpton, was the studio convinced him otherwise. “It’s like working in a customary party for members of the media, being held at the North Carolina cave,” he says. “There’s no windows. In some, there’s no Music Factory, on the edge of uptown Charlotte. It involved shows at a dozen clocks. It doesn’t matter what time it is. It really doesn’t. WINGATE TODAY

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You’ve just got to get it done. plumbed his contacts list, joined industry organizations and even taught himself “It’s really cool what they do, but I realized it wasn’t to code because he couldn’t afford to hire a web developer. “Slowly and surely I my passion,” he adds. “You make your money on startup started to grow this thing,” he says, “and then all of a sudden, 2012.” bands, commercials, movie redubs. So you are sitting in there listening to some things you probably wished you could forget.” NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT Eventually, Crumpton hooked on full-time with Daniel, Crumpton didn’t really want the DNC contract. Well, that’s not quite accurate. but after a few years his relationship with the owner frayed. It’s more that he was reluctant to bite off more than he could chew, and he is One day, Crumpton found himself suddenly out of a job. loyal to his repeat customers. For several years he’d been handling Matthews “I didn’t understand it then,” Crumpton says. “I was Alive, a community arts festival that featured more than 40 performers over 26, 27 at the time. I was very bitter. I helped him build that four days. But even having several years handling the festival under his belt, it company. That’s how I felt about it.” wouldn’t run itself. “At the time, I was a one-man company,” Crumpton says. With 20/20 hindsight, Crumpton gets it. He’s learned It took multiple phone calls from former classmate Stacey Harris ’00 from the experience. “I was immature, entitled,” he says. “I to persuade Crumpton to listen to a pitch from Harris’s boss, Mary Tribble, a think I got to the point where I felt like he needed me. You longtime event organizer in Charlotte who was handling the convention for the realize in business that no one needs anyone. DNC host committee. “My head got too big. I was good at it – really good “They sent out requests for proposals, and I guess they just didn’t like the at it. But if you don’t do what you’re being asked to do ones they got back,” Crumpton says. “I didn’t send one because my plate was when you’re asked to do it, that’s a problem. … I was an already full. I had 40 shows to do, and it’s just me. Also, this (Matthews Alive) is employee. I should have acted like one.” my repeat business. I don’t want to neglect them for a one-time thing.” “And I got fired the year I was getting married,” he Tribble convinced him that the DNC was more than just a one-off adds later. “I’ve got a wedding to pay for. I’ve got this and challenge; it could take Key Signature to a new level. “This was huge, and I’m that. What am I going to do?” being asked for the third time, and this time by Stacey’s boss,” Crumpton says. Crumpton leaned on people he’d met in the industry “I said, ‘OK. I’ll figure it out.’ And I did.” to get by for the next 12 months, until his non-compete Leaning on his nine years of experience, Crumpton planned meticulously, clause expired. To pay the bills, he worked for a couple of knowing that the logistics would be a nightmare. He hired friends in the industry hospitality-industry publications, writing articles and selling to be on-site at Matthews Alive and then wrote out a mini instruction manual for ad space, before emerging from exile to start Key Signature. them. Then he created an instruction manual for himself for the DNC, leaving Once Crumpton formed his own company, he nothing to chance uptown. The planning paid off, but Crumpton worked himself so hard that he wound up spending a night in the hospital in the middle of the DNC. After Crumpton started feeling a weird pain in his hip and becoming nauseous, his wife, Rosanny Crumpton ’05, rushed him to the hospital. He was dehydrated. “I was running on adrenaline, to get me through that weekend,” Crumpton says. “To get me through Matthews Alive, to get me through CarolinaFest, “The DNC to get me through all those delegate parties – I mean I was everywhere.” He was hooked up to an IV and forced to rest. “I needed to sleep it off,” he says. The episode taught Crumpton a lesson: “Work springboarded us. smarter, not harder.” Soon after, he hired his first employee: Audrey Robinette ’13. “She’s a Wingate grad,” Crumpton says. “How bad can she be? We turn out a good product. She wound up being my right-hand person for two ,KRQHVWO\WKLQNLW and a half years.” When Robinette decided to leave the industry and move into interior design a year and a half ago, Crumpton hired Carlton Burt ’16. Burt and Robinette both majored SXVKHGWKHFRPSDQ\ in music. “He knows the kind of training Wingate students have had in musicianship and the kind of discipline they’ve developed to be able to complete that degree,” Murray says. DKHDGåYH\HDUV× “Having that in common with him, I think, helps things go well in the workplace.” Working the DNC also enabled Crumpton to expand his business. Most of Key Signature’s pre-DNC work was small in nature: country-club parties, weddings, that sort of thing. Matthews Alive was his biggest event each year. 39

After the DNC? “Like this whole explosion went Handling several incompetent sound people, incompetent lighting people, off. OK, people know who we are now,” he says. “It large events and things go wrong,” he says. “It’s almost like they’re springboarded us. I honestly think it pushed the company during 2012’s bracing themselves for, ‘How is this going to be jacked up?’ ahead five years.” Democratic And when it isn’t, and everything goes well, all of a sudden Suddenly, in addition to the weddings and corporate National it’s like, ‘Brandon, you’re great. Your staff’s been great.’” events, Crumpton was managing the Romare Bearden Convention That’s not to say things don’t go wrong. Weather events and larger concerts. interference is a big problem, but Crumpton has learned to helped roll with it. And although technological advancements have Crumpton’s made setup and take-down much less time-consuming, HANDLING THE UNEXPECTED business take off. mechanical failures still occasionally throw a wrench into Crumpton grew up listening to hip-hop and R&B, so it’s things. For years, even before Key Signature, Crumpton interesting that about the only type of act he doesn’t assisted with pre-race shows at the Charlotte Motor book is hip-hop. “For our part, there’s no market for Speedway, where time is of the essence. it,” he says. “Our corporate clients and festivals are not “People don’t even think of the logistics it takes to looking for that.” make some of this stuff work,” he says. “Somebody might They’re after just about everything else, though. turn on the TV and go, ‘Hey, such-and-such is doing a “We’re all over the place: bluegrass, classic rock, concert.’ They don’t realize that it is on the track. Then southern rock, Dixieland,” Crumpton says. He’s worked they cut to commercial and come back and the stage is with rock bands the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Train, the gone. We’re doing that stuff. Spin Doctors, and John Mayall and the Blues Breakers, “At a race, same situation, concert happened, cut to country bands Blackhawk, the Band Perry and Little commercial. You’ve got two minutes to get it all off. But Texas, and jazz artists Stanley Jordan, Kim Waters and the trailer hitch to the semi broke. Truck goes off, stage Branford Marsalis. stays there. And everyone saw what needed to happen and And he’s dealt with all kinds of people, such as the jazz pitched in. Even the pit crews ran to the stage. Everyone musician who drew Crumpton a diagram detailing how the got a piece and drug it off the track.” green room should be set up. But Crumpton understands The key, Crumpton says, is staying composed. musicians, and he gets why they and their managers are a “There’s no manual that teaches you how to do this,” little prickly in the pre-show hours. he says. “They’re focused. It’s a job,” he says. “They’re getting No, but there is experience, smarts and planning. Rest paid to be there. They want to go to the green room. As assured, Crumpton will get you your wine-bottle opener, long as everything there is how they want it to be, they’re and the two of you will put on a heck of a show. fine. You start off on the right foot. You start to build that trust. You’re there when they need you.” In a way, Crumpton is in the customer-service industry more than the music industry. “I’m sure they’ve had enough bad experiences: 40 41 Winters starting to make waves in Hollywood movie business

he way Ed Winters ’10 fell into the movie high school. Then one day Winters was having coffee in business is like something out of, well, a a Starbucks in when a man approached him movie. In fact, there are many elements to ask if he’d ever done any modeling. No, Winters said, a of Winters’ story that could be scenes out little surprised. The man gave Winters his card, and the of a film lampooning Hollywood: being dominoes that led to Winterstone Pictures began to fall. approached by a modeling agent in a coffee Winters did some catalog and runway modeling, and shop; a chance first-night-in-L.A. meeting then his agency merged with another one, which also with a rep from a big management firm; represented actors. Before long, Winters’ agent encouraged Winters’ wife’s daredevil drive through him to audition for a low-budget feature film, The Last Beverly Hills to meet a big-shot producer. American Guido. He figured he was in a discovery phase of Of course, that movie shouldn’t be his life, so he took a shot at it. “I said, ‘Why not?’” Winters T produced yet, since the script is unfinished. says. “That’s what these last couple of months have been WintersT is only 29; his wife, Ashley Avis, 30. They’re making a decent living about, so sure.” producing commercials and feature films, but they’re also still in the early stages The fact that he’d never acted before didn’t scare of development, so to speak, with their production company, Winterstone him off. He played a minor character named “Chase,” Pictures. They have made two feature films, have three more in various stages of and to get tips on the nuances of acting, he enlisted the development, and have a host of advertising clients. help of a childhood friend who’d appeared in Blue Bloods, What they want to be is a Hollywood duo that can get their films made Boardwalk Empire and other hit shows. simply because of their body of work, and Winters feels they’re ready to take “The lines were really simple,” he says. “It was a kid another step toward that goal. “I think we’ve built the base,” he says, “like the from Italian descent from New Jersey, which is what I am. foundation’s built, and we’re starting to build up now.” It felt pretty natural.” A finance major at Wingate, Winters’ biggest concern on most days is what The following spring, Winters’ agent suggested that he calls “making the day” – a reference to getting all the scenes shot that a film he head to the West Coast, for “pilot season” – the annual production is slated for on any given day, and shooting them on budget. Working push by networks to produce potential hit shows for the for a small company, he’s a jack of all trades, handling just about every logistical following fall. With each network casting for 20 or more aspect of the production, aside from writing and directing, which are generally shows, there are plenty of opportunities for young actors in Avis’s domain. Hollywood in the springtime. It’s a long way from where Winters envisioned himself after he walked Still, it was something of a risky move: Winters was across the stage on May 8, 2010, having received his Wingate degree. But then extremely new to acting and modeling, had very little again, perhaps only a Hollywood producer could have dreamed up his path. training, and was in a strange environment. But on his first night in L.A., Winters was in a bar with his agent when he randomly met Tim Taylor, who worked for Luber CHANCE MEETING Roklin Entertainment, which at the time was managing Seven years ago, Winters thought he was ending his Southern adventure by Paul Walker, in addition to a number of other well-known returning to his old stomping grounds, New Jersey. He got an entry-level job with actors. The plane had barely landed, and Winters had Merrill Lynch, and a year later he moved to Manhattan to work for the wealth- representation. management company Folio Dynamix. “I got some pretty close calls, big movies. I was almost He lasted there about a year before his first dose of the real world kicked the red Power Ranger,” he says, laughing. “But I ended him in the teeth. up booking another feature, called Gone Doggy Gone – a “They were downsizing, preparing to sell, and I was the youngest guy there midsized role, similar to the first one.” by a lot,” Winters says. “One day, 10 or 12 of us got let go. It was a situation He didn’t know it, but he wasn’t long for the acting where the day I got fired was the best day of my life.” world. “What ended up happening was, because I booked Winters’ father is a financial advisor in New Jersey, and in the back of his that role, I was available for another director, who booked mind, Winters thought that one day he might take over the family business. But me on a commercial shoot during my off days on the film,” two years into his career in finance, he was already having doubts. Winters says. “And that director is now my wife.” “I wasn’t completely thrilled in that role (at Folio Dynamix),” he says. “I’d been talking to my dad off and on about it for a few months. When I called my dad to tell him I’d gotten laid off, his response was, ‘Good.’” WINTERSTONE IS BORN But what to do next? Winters spent the next couple of months figuring out Ashley Avis didn’t study film or drama either. She double- his life and career. He spent two weeks in South Korea visiting a cousin who majored in marketing and international business at was teaching English there, and he worked as an assistant golf coach at his old Manhattan College, but she loved to write and in the back WINGATE TODAY

42 of her mind always harbored a desire to work in film. A couple of months went by before Avis asked him to a film premiere, and In 2012 she wrote and produced a TV pilot, called they’ve been together ever since. Before long, Avis had changed the name of her “The Cynical Life,” that by chance was seen by Frank production company from Alchemy Productions to Winterstone Pictures, and Giustra, founder of Lionsgate Films. “He thought it was Winters had stopped acting in order to concentrate on producing. funny,” Winters says. “She got a call one day asking if she “When we started dating, I started taking over the production duties,” could meet Frank Giustra at the Beverly Hills Hotel in half Winters says. “It was kind of a natural fit from my business background. I was an hour.” She was in Marina del Ray, a 45-minute drive a relationship manager with some pretty big clients when I was working in New from the hotel on a good day. And it was rush hour. York, and producing is just a lot of logistics and problem solving and being able “Her story is that she was driving the wrong way on to think on your feet, and it just came naturally. one-way streets and rolling through stop signs,” Winters “Because we’re smaller, I have to be kind of a jack-of-all-trades. It depends says. “She got there in a very Hollywood cliché – at the on what stage of production you’re in,” he says. “For the films we’re doing pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel, the founder of Lionsgate, development on, it’s a lot of trying to find investors and trying to find money. in a blue suit with little spectacles and a fedora, pushes a That’s the hardest part of the whole deal.” lemonade he had preordered at her and said, ‘Whaddya So far, Winterstone Pictures has completed two films: Deserted, starring The got?’ She on the spot pitches her story and he finances O.C.’s Mischa Barton, came out in 2016, and Adolescence was in postproduction three episodes.” last fall and is likely to be released this year. “Nothing really came of it,” Winters adds, but Deserted had a limited release in theaters and is available primarily on- the dominoes continued to fall. Giustra wound up co- demand. Winters expects a bigger market for Adolescence. “We think it will producing a documentary Avis directed, Making Opus have more of a festival run and have a better chance at a wider theatrical X, about four female classical musicians. The violinist release,” he says. in the quartet happened to be married to a founder of Another promising project is 800, about Zambian distance runner Prince Caliburger, and Avis soon found herself directing the Mumba, a two-time Olympian. The genesis of that project is a very Hollywood- burger chain’s commercials. esque story in its own right. Avis had ordered a Lyft, and as the private hire car That’s where she met Winters. pulled up, she sprinted to her own car to retrieve her phone charger. The driver “It was still a little awkward,” Winters says. “I was asked her if she used to run. “In high school,” Avis answered. “Did you?” so new to that world. I didn’t know how appropriate it For the next 30 minutes, Mumba told her his story: of growing up with was to ask out the director. I didn’t know if that was 10 siblings, living in extreme poverty and not owning a pair of shoes until he something I was allowed to do. And she felt similarly was 10 years old – and a used pair of left-footed shoes at that. She found his about asking me out.” rise to Olympic middle-distance runner inspiring, and the plan is to make a documentary on Mumba first, followed by a feature film. INCREMENTAL STEPS Ultimately, Winters and Avis hope to turn these passion projects into moneymakers. They’ve been making connections, but the wheels of Hollywood can turn slowly. They’ve been talking to David Winkler, one of the producers of Creed, about producing a movie with him, and Avis is working on other screenplays. “We just feel really close,” Winters says. “It’s been years now, but it feels like we’re on the verge of something. “It’s kind of like each project gets a little bigger than the one before. We’re taking a nice-size step. We haven’t gone from one little indie to running blockbusters. We’re “I felt like I was kind of taking these steps to where David Winkler is interested in our projects. Slightly bigger actors, slightly bigger budgets. NYWXKSMRK[MXLXLIÀS[- We’re on a nice trajectory.” Until they reach their goal, the company will continue to make its money by filming commercials. “It’s our bread- sometimes look out and look and-butter, really,” Winters says. “It’s what pays the bills. On Deserted and Adolescence, they were really small budgets. We didn’t even pay ourselves. They were career at the palm trees and think, builders and resume builders.” Winters says that for one advertising job Winterstone handled in New York, for a how did I get here?” pharmaceutical company, the budget was $175,000 per day. That compares with $32,500 per day for Deserted. Winters and Avis are happy doing commercial work, for now. “It’s still production, you know,” he says. “Of course we want to be in the position that we can make any WINGATE TODAY

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A Jersey kid with a background in finance, Winters feels at home on set in Hollywood.

movie we want and we’re getting to tell the stories we want to tell. But it’s still a of respect from people on the business side because I come lot of fun, and you still get to lend your creative touch to it.” from a business background and have a business degree. None of this was on Winters’ radar when he first stepped foot on the It’s definitely helpful, because there are a million people Wingate campus in the fall of 2006. He knew he wanted to play golf in college, who went to film school, but there aren’t many who went and he knew he wanted that school to be in the South. He’d been corresponding the route that I did.” with Dr. Jerry Surratt, the University’s golf coach at the time, and was That route, which began in Wingate and was pushed considering trying out for the team. along by a chance meeting in a coffee shop, still seems Then, one day while hanging out with some high-school friends, he asked somewhat surreal to Winters. about one of his classmates, Phil Jacobson ’10. Jacobson, he learned, happened “I didn’t see it (modeling and acting) as a big deal to be visiting the University at that moment. Winters immediately texted him at the time,” he says. “I felt like I was kind of just and asked him what he thought of Wingate. going with the flow. But it’s led to those days where “I love it,” Jacobson texted back. “I think it’s beautiful.” I sometimes look out and look at the palm trees and That sealed the deal for Winters, who wound up playing on the golf team for think, how did I get here? four years and earning a finance degree that has come in handy as he handles “I graduated on May 8 of 2010, and if anybody would the logistical side of the film business. have told me on that day that I’d be living in L.A. doing “The fact that I have a degree in finance rather than film is an interesting this, I wouldn’t have believed them.” thing for some people,” Winters says. “I’ve had situations where I gain a little bit WINGATE TODAY

44 45 Gray finds a way to connect fans to country music

ark Gray ’05 might be a millennial, but Republic Nashville, a joint venture of Republic Records he’s old enough to remember the thrill of and Big Machine Label Group. flipping through cassette and CD cases in a Gray’s timing was impeccable as he moved to record store, spending a half hour or more Republic in 2011, after breaking into the industry doing deciding which one was most worthy of promotions for 96.9 The Kat in Charlotte. The first song the money burning a hole in his pocket. he worked on at Republic was the Eli Young Band’s He still remembers the first cassette “Crazy Girl,” which hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts (Garth Brooks’ Ropin’ the Wind) and CD and earned the band a Song of the Year award from the (The Fugees’ The Score) his parents ever Academy of Country Music. bought him. “Those are memories my kids At Republic, he came up with innovative ways to are not going to have,” he says. promote the label’s bands. One time in Kansas City, M In a few years, Gray’s children, both where Florida Georgia Line was opening for Taylor Swift, underM 3 years old right now, will probably scroll through lists of songs on Gray organized a softball game between “Florida” and Spotify or some other streaming service to discover tunes. Or they’ll simply tell “Georgia,” giving fans a chance to win a spot on one of Siri or Alexa (or some not-yet-invented substitute) to surprise them. the rosters and play alongside members of the band. “A Gray, 35 and now a dozen years into his career in the music business, is couple of thousand people came out to watch,” he says. seasoned enough to know that the industry will go on, even if brick-and-mortar Gray found it easier to attract people to a softball record stores are going the way of the gramophone. And Gray will be in the game than to get radio stations to embrace McBride’s song thick of it, in one form or another. “I’m Gonna Love You Through It,” a 2011 release about Since he fell into the music business 13 years ago by taking a summer a woman in her late 30s whose husband sticks by her as internship as a rising senior at Wingate, Gray has seen the industry from she battles breast cancer. “A lot of stations around the several angles. He competed for listeners’ loyalty as a promoter for 96.9 The country had a hard time playing it,” Gray says. ”Their Kat radio in Charlotte, pushed to get air time for artists’ songs while working whole thing was, Why does my listener want to hear a for a major label, and handled the day-to-day management of country artists song about breast cancer at 9 o’clock in the morning?” the Eli Young Band and Ryan Hurd. Gray accepted the challenge and dug in. He His most recent gig, which he started in December, is “head of tour researched every sales aspect of the song and collected activation” for Blue Chair Bay – a company owned by the country singer testimonials from fans. Ultimately, the song broke Kenny Chesney that markets a line of rums. Blue Chair Bay is the lead sponsor through, peaking at No. 4 on the Billboard country charts on Chesney’s 2018 tour, and Gray’s job is to get Chesney fans at all the tour and becoming McBride’s first top-10 hit in five years. stops to take notice of the drink. “That’s one of the most gratifying singles I’ve gotten to Gray will undoubtedly find a way to make that happen, the same way he work with,” Gray says. “It was an uplifting song.” got country fans in Charlotte to listen to The Kat and got Florida Georgia Line To promote Eleven, the album containing “I’m songs played in Kansas City and Dallas and got the Eli Young Band’s album Gonna Love You Through It,” Gray helped arrange cover to look so cool. an Amtrak tour that stopped in 11 cities. The album, In the case of Hurd, a relatively new artist, Gray helped formulate a McBride’s 11th studio LP, was released on Nov. 11, 2011. strategy of slow-releasing Hurd’s debut singles only via the digital services At every stop on the tour, they met a representative from Spotify and Vevo, to build up a substantial audience before taking those the Susan G. Komen Foundation and a breast-cancer figures to the 96.9 The Kats of the world. By mid-2016, Hurd’s songs had been survivor. streamed 30 million times. But after three successful years at Republic, Gray “The new age of digital only helps us in the breaking of an artist,” Gray started sensing that he needed a change of pace. He sent says. “Whenever you can go into these radio stations and show a track record, out some feelers, and before long he’d accepted an offer a proven track record, you have a leg up on your competition.” from Triple 8 Management to handle Eli Young’s day-to- Gray has proved an adept hand at getting that leg up, no matter what day business. The move shifted his focus dramatically. he’s promoting. “It’s going from a broad, general, ‘Here’s a single. Go,’ to I’m working with one specific artist and responsible for everything going on in their day-to-day life,” Gray CREATIVE PROMOTION said a couple of months before leaving Triple 8 for Blue Before last summer’s release of Fingerprints, the last time the Eli Young Chair Bay. “I enjoy that part, because to me that’s what Band had an album out Gray was still trying to get airplay for Florida I’m good at: full-on planning and trying to elevate the Eli Georgia Line, Martina McBride and the Band Perry. That year, 2014, Young Band’s career, and now start Ryan’s.” Gray was finishing up three years as director of Southwest promotion for And that included a lot of creative work, such as WINGATE TODAY

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figuring out how to market an artist’s album. For Eli his work kind of fit the concept of the album and the Young’s Fingerprints, that meant breaking some of the direction we wanted to go with it. He hit it out of the rules to make it stand out. park the first time, so we didn’t have to go back and forth with that.” The resulting cover – an artistic thumbprint with TAKING CARE OF EVERYTHING the words “Eli Young Band” and “Fingerprints” in “Whenever you’re looking at iTunes, you’re looking at between the lines – looks more Radiohead than Florida a very, very small picture,” Gray says. “You want to do Georgia Line. something that sticks out.” You could say that, when it comes to the Eli Young For Fingerprints, that meant not putting the band’s Band’s career, for three years Gray’s fingerprints were all picture on the album cover at all. Country songs are over it. “My responsibilities were all creative: approving often very personal in nature, and it helps fans connect shows, finding people to do logos, everything that deals with the artist if they see them on the cover. For many with on the road, off the road, music, dealing with the artists, the singer or band is front and center on every labels, dealing with the business managers,” he says. One album. Check out most country artists’ records and day last summer he had to get publishing clearances to you’ll see them staring into the camera lens, leaning on a use a song for a commercial. “That was my day shot, truck or holding a guitar. because I had to call around to all publishers that had For Fingerprints, the Eli Young Band went in a writers on the song,” Gray says. “Basically taking care of different direction, to make the album jump out at everything for their career is what I dealt with.” country-music fans when they are swiping through album Gray relished the creative thinking and risk-taking after album looking for something to stream. involved with that job. For newer acts, like Hurd, that “For this one, I found the artist that did the album meant matching what’s unique about Hurd’s sound to the cover,” Gray says. “I kind of put that all together with visuals that accompanied it. him. All the logistics stuff, making sure we hit all the Hurd was a successful songwriter in Nashville for a deadlines. I was usually the first person who saw the few years, writing or co-writing hits for Blake Shelton, stuff, kind of the first line of defense. If I didn’t think Dierks Bentley and Tim McGraw (not to mention Maren that the guys would like it, then I’d say, ‘No, let’s try Morris, the Country Music Association’s new artist of something else.’ the year in 2016 and Hurd’s fiancée). But he can sing, “Luckily, I found this designer out of Atlanta, and too, and with songwriters pretty far down the totem pole in music’s economic structure these days – another consequence of the move to digital – Hurd has been making a go of performing the past couple of years. He’s got a rock-heartthrob look and a sound that merely hints at country, at least compared with, say, Merle Haggard or George Strait. “The biggest thing with him is the look and feel of “Studying people, videos and photos,” Gray says. “If you look at all of these trade magazines and everything that have artist photos and videos, they all look the same. One thing that we reading body language, wanted to do was be different, because Ryan is different. His sound is different. His music is different. It’s not a total 180 from country. It’s country with a little rock and soul. His songs are all true to heart. He’s got a couple that sort of thing. of songs that you don’t hear from a male perspective in country music.” Hurd is gaining popularity, too. He’s so far released only an EP, but he has been getting notice in the press, It’s all the personal and his videos get hundreds of thousands of views. Hurd is a very hands-on artist, and he joined Gray and the rest of the team at Triple 8 to develop his look for VWXII,UHDOO\WDNH photos. “He has this specific mindset of what he wants everything to look like, the feel and the vibe,” Gray says. “Whenever we got 500 photos, I’d go through them and pick the best, send it to him, and we kind of went from IURP:LQJDWH× there. We A-and-B’d everything. He might have seen something we didn’t, and vice versa. It was a full team effort. It had to be.” 47

of common sense and a lot of really sitting back and thinking through scenarios of what happens here and what happens there. “To me, Wingate was awesome for that, being a small school. And being able to actually have relationships with professors and deans was great, because you know you could talk to a higher figure and not have to have an appointment for six weeks. It’s one of those cool things about Wingate that really helps out.” Gray also grew up a lot during those four years. “Me in Wingate vs. me now – totally different as far as procrastinating,” he says. “Getting older and wiser, I guess, has helped me in my work ethic.” In the spring of his junior year, Gray was reminded by his advisor, Dr. James Coon, that he needed an internship in order to graduate the following year. Gray scrambled for a gig and wound up being part of The Kat’s “street team,” setting up for events and doing general promotion. “I loved it,” he says. “That’s why I stayed with it. I loved going out in the community, talking to fans of the station, going to the concerts and setting up. It was kind of cool.” Gray hadn’t thought of music as a potential career before (“I can’t play anything,” he says. “My attention span is too short to learn guitar”), but it was as if a lightning bolt had hit him. He knew he loved the work and wanted to make a career of it. Gray worked part-time for The Kat throughout his senior year and then took a job with the station as an assistant a couple of months after graduation. He took over as marketing director once his boss moved to another company, but eventually he started wondering about the people who were bringing artists into the station, plugging their records. “I asked my boss, ‘What are they doing?’” Gray says. “He said, ‘They’re record reps. They bring the artists in, handle everything for them.’ I said, ‘I want to do that.’” Realizing he wanted to be on the label side, he moved to Nashville, where he hooked on with Republic. Now four jobs Now, two jobs later, Gray is starting a new adventure, INTERNSHIP LIGHTS THE WAY into his career, working alongside his wife, Monica, who is marketing Thinking creatively about product placement, photo Gray has director for Blue Chair Bay. Gray’s primary responsibility lighting and record promotion couldn’t have been further is figuring how best to get fans attending Kenny Chesney worked in just from Gray’s mind when he landed at Wingate University concerts at Busch Stadium, Heinz Field and Arrowhead about every in the fall of 2001. Back then, he wanted to become Stadium to give the singer’s rum a go. Even that, he says, an athletic trainer. He says he was initially somewhat area of music has a modern edge to it. aimless and unmotivated in college, but he eventually promotions. “In this day and age, in a digital world, the best thing became heavily involved in numerous activities. He you can do for a brand or company is to get things to go sang in the choir, became an officer in the Student viral,” Gray says. “That’s one thing that we’re trying to Government Association, joined the cheerleading squad do: find cheaper ways to get the word out there. Whether (after initially coming to Wingate to play football) and it’s inside the venue, using hashtags or viral videos, giving was named president of his fraternity, Kappa Alpha away upgraded tickets, that’s going to be the biggest thing Order. Academically, he eventually gravitated toward we have to do.” communications as a major. Naturally, he applies many However the music-industry landscape changes in of those comms skills to his work now, but his minor, the future, Gray will be right there, angling for a way to sociology, comes in pretty handy too. grab your attention. “Studying people, reading body language, that sort of thing,” he says. “It’s all the personal stuff I really take from Wingate. You can’t teach what I do. It’s a lot WINGATE TODAY

48 49 Press makes sure fans get their money’s worth at Brooklyn Nets games

hen professional basketball was just Chicago Bulls, so a lot of her workload, stuff that she was getting off the ground in the ’40s, back doing, it needed to get done and she was leaving. The vice when the big game might have pitted president was like, ‘Hey, man, we’re really going to need the Chicago Stags against the Syracuse you to step up.’” Nationals, you had the game itself and He parlayed that internship into a part-time gig doing not much else. During timeouts and at floor direction for the Charlotte Bobcats – during their last halftime, fans discussed the on-court season before they reclaimed the Hornets name – and, action with each other or went to buy after graduating with a sport management and recreation popcorn. degree in the spring of 2014, he went to work as assistant Today, it’s more of a short-attention- floor director for MSG. :: span affair. Music even sometimes thumps Having worked mainly with the lower-key Liberty out of arenas’ massive speakers while the in the slower summer months and with the smaller- game action is going on, and timeouts are filled with kiss cams and T-shirt market Bobcats, Press found the Knicks’ first home cannons and fan-of-the-game interviews. It’s coordinated chaos. The spotlight game eye-opening. guys have to be in sync with the singer of the national anthem. The dance “We had the Blue Man Group, (deejay, drummer team needs to know which routine they’re doing and precisely when to take and Tonight Show bandleader) Questlove, and the whole the court. The halftime act needs to know exactly where to stand and when to arena was all wearing a band that could change to any start the show. color we wanted at the touch of a button,” Press says. In the midst of all this pandemonium, a steady stream of dialogue “And pyro. We had it coming from the scoreboard.” filling his headset, is Troy Press ’14. As coordinator of game presentation All of that just to introduce the players for a team for the Brooklyn Nets, Press might as well be directing traffic at a Bangkok that wound up winning 20 percent of its games. That’s intersection. how it goes when you’re the most valuable franchise in “A lot of people just go to a game, and they expect everything to kind the NBA. of be a certain way,” he says, “but they don’t realize how much ‘behind the Press stayed with the Knicks for a year before moving scenes’ there is: lighting, music, deejay, dancers, mascot, in-arena host, P.A. to the Nets, where he stepped up a level, essentially taking announcer, sponsors – how everything comes together and takes you on that the word “assistant” off his title. With Brooklyn, Press is nice ride throughout the show. Intros, any presentations, color guard, national the floor general for the event-presentation crew. anthem, halftime performances – it goes on and on and on.” “I’m kind of the on-floor engineer,” he says. “We Press’s job is to make sure the “on and on” goes off without a hitch. He have somebody at the table, sitting next to our P.A. spends game nights moving pieces around like a chess player – positioning a announcer. So it’s me on the court, one person at the singer here, schmoozing with celebrities there, coordinating with the camera table, and we also have one person getting a bird’s-eye guys over there. It’s hectic, but Press is built for it. view to see how the whole thing’s going.” “I’m up, I’m moving, I’m shaking-and-baking,” he says. “I don’t see myself If you take in a Nets game, you’ll see Press busy from sitting down during a game. I have too much energy for that.” before opening tip to after the fans have filed out into the That’s just his day job. On his days off, Press channels his energy another Brooklyn streets. He’s in the tunnel with the national- way, pursuing his real passion: acting. He’s in one of the best cities in the world anthem singer, he’s courtside visiting with hip-hop star in which to chase that dream. Sammy Adams or boxing legend Floyd Mayweather, he’s introducing Team Hype, the Nets’ in-house break-dance KNICKS GAMES, crew. All the time, he’s communicating with the Nets’ deejay, the lighting crew and other members of the event- DIDDY AND BIGGIE SMALLS presentation team to make sure everybody hits their Press grew up a Knicks fan in Briarcliff Manor, New York, and he started his marks – and always dressed to the nines. career with his hometown team, working for the Knicks for a year before And since his Knicks days, he’s been drafted in each moving to their rivals a borough over, the Brooklyn Nets, before the 2015- year to do floor direction during NBA All-Star Weekend. 2016 season. Press also lends a hand when it comes to booking He hooked on with the Knicks thanks to an internship he secured with acts and playing host to the various celebrities the Nets Madison Square Garden/Liberty Event Presentation the summer after his invite to the game. Recently, he used connections made junior year at Wingate. He spent a couple of months at the Garden earning during the filming of a movie to get the rapper and actor minimum wage and learning the ropes during New York Liberty WNBA games. French Montana courtside seats. Press has brought in “I really just busted my butt,” Press says. “At the time, one of our national-anthem singers he knew from other projects. directors was leaving to take over as vice president of entertainment for the And he was in on the discussions as the Nets planned WINGATE TODAY

50 their first ever Biggie Smalls Night. remember thinking, You might have just won me over “Biggie Smalls was almost like the mayor of Brooklyn with that line.” at one point,” Press says of the rapper, who was murdered Press played three years at Wingate, registering 20 in the mid-’90s. “He spoke to the community.” goals and 12 assists as an attacking midfielder. The Nets honored Smalls, also known as the Having interned at Madison Square Garden, he Notorious B.I.G., by hanging a banner in his honor decided in his senior year to concentrate on his future from the Barclays Center rafters. Smalls’ friend P. career rather than play lacrosse. He took what he’d Diddy, a rapper/entrepreneur himself, was part of learned at MSG and applied it to a floor-director role with the celebration, along with several of Smalls’ family the Bobcats. members and other entertainers. Press performed tasks that are similar to what he “My role was executing the on-court management does with the Nets, such as making sure the national- of it: walking Diddy and the crew out there, making sure anthem singer is being taken care of and mapping out they’re all lined up perfectly, making sure the microphone every little detail for timeout spots. He found the work is all set for them, going over their lines with them, staging exhilarating and right up his alley. stuff,” Press says. “You have to be bold and be able to multitask,” he For the occasion, Press showed up in a colorful Coogi says. sweater, which was Smalls’ trademark attire. That elicited Press is a natural behind the mike. At Wingate, he a big hug from Diddy, whose Bad Boy Entertainment co-hosted “The Fitness Doctor,” a half-hour radio show worked with the Nets to pull off Biggie Smalls Night. featuring Dr. John Acquaviva, professor of exercise “For me, I always like to play it to the theme,” science. Acquaviva was the heart of the show, providing Press says. “That’s my personality, and the actor in advice about exercise and fitness, but Press helped keep me as well. If it’s a Christmas game, you’ll see me in a the show moving, essentially playing emcee. Christmas suit.” Press loves playing to the audience. “You give me a microphone and tell me what you BOBCATS, FITNESS want to talk about, and I can do it,” he says. “That’s just kind of the confidence I have.” DOCTOR AND MONSTER JAM He’s filled in as the in-game host for the Nets, a job Press came to Wingate to play lacrosse for former head normally handled by Ally Love, who interviews the fan of coach Sonny Ziegler. He ventured south from Briarcliff the game and does other interviews during timeouts and Manor, a Hudson River Valley suburb that lies an hour’s halftime. He also played that role for a year for the Nets’ train ride north of Manhattan. At Briarcliff High School, minor-league affiliate, the Long Island Nets. Press excelled at lacrosse and basketball, and he figured Press has also emceed Monster Jam events at NRG he’d get plenty of playing time at a school in the South, Stadium in Houston, BB&T Center in Florida, Rupp Arena where lacrosse was a blossoming sport. in Kentucky and other large venues across the country. When Press met with Ziegler and former assistant He would climb up on the large piles of dirt that serve as coach David Oliver during a Southern road trip with his the track and gee up the crowd while announcing the next dad, he said it “just felt right.” contestants. “They said, ‘We like your game. You’re like a “I knew nothing about Monster Jam,” he says. “I basketball playerayer seseeingeing tthehe fifield,’”eld, Press says. “I couldn’t tell you who Grave Digger was, Carolina Crusher.

“You give me a microphone and tell me what you want to talk about, and I can do it. That’s just kind of the confidence I have.” 51

I knew nothing. I just got a script. I loved it. The energy of Press feels worth. In New York, that means making everything top- the crowd – that was an experience.” right at home notch, since there are so many other entertainment So is acting, and that’s where Press’s heart lies. schmoozing with outlets available. celebrities during Among those alternatives are plays and musicals, and Brooklyn Nets Press is slowly working his way into that world. Last fall, BOUNCE games. while the Nets were on a road trip, Press was in the cast Every season, before the opening game, Press takes a of Bounce: The Basketball Opera, a creation of Grethe seat in the upper reaches of the Barclays Center and Barrett Holby, founder of the American Opera Project imagines what the in-game antics below would look like and mother of the actor Ansel Elgort (Baby Driver). Press from up there. had been involved with the workshopping of Bounce a few “I think about the person who’s sitting in that seat,” years back, and luckily his Nets schedule enabled him to he says. “It could be their first time ever coming to travel to Kentucky to participate. Brooklyn. It could be somebody coming from Spain or In Bounce, Press didn’t have to stretch his Greece and they’ve never seen a basketball game in their imagination too much, playing the “game announcer.” life. It could be someone who’s never had the opportunity But he says he can play all sorts of roles and is an all- to come see the Nets before.” around entertainer. “I sing, I dance, I act,” he says. “I’m a Press wants to make sure they get their money’s triple threat, as they say.” In addition to Bounce, Press has gotten roles in a couple of short films and has a few lines in The Second Sun, which will be released later this year after doing the film-circuit rounds. “I get a high off performing and being on stage,” he adds. “I love telling stories. I feel like acting is so old- school. I got the opportunity to go to Greece two summers ago and sat in the oldest theater that’s known to man. It’s just a real special feeling that people even back then were acting and putting on shows for each other. I still find a strong connection to it. If I can do that full time at some point, not to do something else to pay the bills, be it in theater or film, that’s a goal of mine.” Well, he’s in the right place. “It’s a hustle, but that’s what New York’s about,” Press says. “If you’re not here hustling, you’re wasting your time.” WINGATE TODAY

52 53 Long career at HBO begins with chance W’International encounter

rian Venable ’06 has always been “We started writing each other,” Venable says. something of a wanderer. He left his native “This is pre-internet. I would actually go to the language Winston-Salem in the late ’80s to attend department and have one of the Spanish professors a boarding school in Charleston, South translate letters, and we would write each other letters Carolina. While there, he worked as a back and forth my senior year in college.” Senate page, living in Washington, D.C., for When Valenzuela came to Atlanta to visit in 1996 long stretches. and decided to stay for a while to take English classes, By the time he got to Wingate Venable knew he needed to move there as well, “to date University in the early ’90s, Venable this girl and prevent her from moving back to Chile.” had been bitten hard by the travel bug. Venable, a history and political science major, He eagerly took advantage of the study- was working in the legal department at NationsBank in BB abroad opportunities afforded to WU Charlotte at the time, but it didn’t take much convincing students, spending a semester in London and traveling to South America on a for him to look for employment farther south. When he W’International excursion. “Being from a small town in North Carolina, I just was offered a position in HBO’s finance department, he wanted to see the world,” he says. jumped at it. “I basically took it just so I could move to These days, Venable’s world revolves around travel – his, yours and mine. Atlanta with a job,” he says. As director of domestic network distribution for the cable-TV giant HBO, It turned into an unlikely career that has seen Venable travels the country and the world cutting the deals that ensure that him make steady progress up the ladder at perhaps you can catch up on Game of Thrones or Veep while you’re stuck in a Holiday the most highly regarded premium channel in the Inn or Marriott on your own travels, in just about any town or city in America. multichannel-TV universe. In that role, Venable is constantly on the move. “The logistics for getting After launching quietly in 1972, HBO expanded in the me from point A to point B is a lot of work,” he says. He spends a week each ’70s and ’80s by providing a steady diet of movies, boxing month in New York and a week every other month in Los Angeles, with trips matches and children’s programs. In the 1990s it began to to other cities and countries sprinkled in generously. “Without exaggerating, change tack, moving into original programming and really I bet I’ve traveled to at least 25 different countries, all but one continent, and making its name as a purveyor of quality and I’ve been to all but three states,” he says. Heads up, Alaska, Maine, Wyoming dramas. Since then, HBO has brought the world a host of and Australia – you’re on Venable’s to-do list. critical and commercial smashes: Sex and the City, The It’s fitting that travel is so central to Venable’s work. He recently finished Larry Sanders Show, The Sopranos, The Wire, Girls, his 20th year at HBO, working his way up from auditor in the finance Band of Brothers, True Detective and many others. department to his current position. But he probably never would have started That quality has made HBO, for the past 30-plus on that path had it not been for a trip he took in college to South America. years, a lure hotels have used to reel in weary travelers. There, he found love, and ultimately a career. We’re all familiar with the “free HBO” lettering that appears on hotel and motel marquees throughout the United States. Occasionally, you might run across the ‘FREE HBO’ phrase “free Showtime,” but not nearly as often. “Free Venable has held several positions at HBO over the years, in different Starz”? Fugetaboutit. departments. He started out in finance just to get his foot in the door, and he eventually moved into marketing before landing in “bulk distribution,” where KEEPING UP he is now. That career began, indirectly, with a plane ticket, purchased as part WITH TECH CHANGES of his Wingate University tuition. Venable was on a W’International trip to Just because HBO is still so highly regarded doesn’t mean Chile, Argentina and Uruguay when he met a young woman named Cecilia Venable has it easy negotiating contracts with hotel Valenzuela, in Santiago, Chile. She beguiled him, even though verbal owners. The hotel industry operates on thin margins, and communication was difficult between the Spanish-speaking Valenzuela and the it’s difficult for hotel owners to change with the times English-speaking Venable. when the changes come so thick and fast. “After only spending a few hours together trying to communicate, I knew In years past, a family might have felt that getting to a spark was ignited in me,” Venable says. “I knew that, regardless of language, watch HBO in their hotel room was a treat, but that’s less distance or culture, I had just met someone very special and I needed to find a and less the case these days. way to explore and develop the spark into an everlasting flame.” “The problem with the hotel industry is that at one When Venable returned to Wingate at the end of the 10-day trip, he and point they gave people a better experience than they Valenzuela corresponded – by snail mail. got in their homes,” Venable says. “Now technology is WINGATE TODAY

54 changing so fast that hardly any hotel can keep up. Hotels now no longer can give a better experience. It’s, ‘How can STRONG WORK ETHIC we give an adequate experience?’” Nothing about Venable’s Wingate days pointed to an eventual position with HBO, Venable says, can still play a role in finding HBO, unless it was in the channel’s legal department. Venable was considering that answer. It is the crown jewel of movie channels. “We law school upon graduation but decided instead to take a job in the legal have about 80 percent penetration in the marketplace,” department at NationsBank (now Bank of America), where his history/political he says. “Our biggest competition has about 10 percent.” science degree makes sense. That makes Venable’s job a piece of cake, right? Well, it’s But he knew he wanted to be near Valenzuela, and accomplishing that not so simple. took a job offer from HBO, where he has moved up pretty quickly. “The reality is that in the business I’m in, it’s a cost,” “HBO’s a hard company to even get a job at,” he says. “Everybody and Venable says. “And you’ve got hotel companies that are their brother wants to work in the entertainment industry and is willing to scrutinizing how big of a shampoo bottle they give people, take any job. But there’s also not a lot of turnover at HBO. HBO does a good because 10 cents times a hundred thousand adds up. job of taking care of you and giving you opportunities, but there’s not that huge “Even though HBO is an amenity that people corporate ladder that you’re striving for. There’s not that many layers, and appreciate and people value, no one’s checking into a people don’t leave.” hotel so they can watch television. So it’s very much Nevertheless, Venable has steadily moved up the ranks. And there’s no challenging.” huge secret why: He busts his hump. Soon after he took the auditor’s position And these days, when people do want to veg out once at HBO, he started working part-time as a front-desk clerk at an Atlanta-area they’ve checked out the minibar and collapsed on the Marriott. Venable worked that job for two years, all the while impressing his bed, more and more they’re using the hotel’s free Wi-Fi to bosses at his day job. stream content to their own personal device. His mindset, he says, translates to: “I’m not the smartest person here, but To counter this, HBO is working to introduce its own if I work the hardest there’s a chance for me to advance.” streaming service in hotels, though with a slight difference “Wingate proved to me that that mentality works, and I’ve taken that compared with the Netflixes of the world. “Netflix makes mentality and said, ‘I don’t have to be the smartest one,’” Venable says. “Half you use your own credentials, or someone else’s that of my staff are from Ivy League schools. That doesn’t mean anything to me. you’ve borrowed or stolen,” Venable says. “We’re trying to What do you bring today? That’s probably what has driven me the most. I’ve make it so that a hotel guest, as a perk for staying at that proven to myself, and Wingate proved to me, that your personality, your drive hotel, gets access to our streaming content without having and your ambition will overcome obstacles that are put in front of you.” to put in passwords or anything like that.” Venable chose Wingate because it promised small classes, and he assumed he’d thrive in that setting. He did. At Wingate, Venable helped found Delta Sigma Phi, and he has great memories of living in The Pit. He also served as a presidential ambassador, which, he says, “gave me a lot of exposure to adults.” “That in itself taught me a lot about relationship building and sales and marketing,” he says. “I was around Rhett and Dr. McGee as they were working with alumni “Wingate proved and corporations. I think those life lessons have served me well in the corporate world.” to me, that your And Venable uses more of his degree in his everyday business life than one might assume. “The thing about personality, your my degree, history and political science, it required a lot of analytical skills and a lot of research when I was in drive and your college,” he says. “But I think the ability to analyze things, public speaking – those overall skill sets that I learned at Wingate made the degree that I have almost irrelevant.” ambition will And then there’s the travel, which he still loves. He found at Wingate that traveling opened his eyes to a overcome obstacles world that is far different from the one he saw around him every day. that are put in front “It exposes you to a bigger, broader world,” Venable says. “It makes you appreciate what you have. It makes of you.” you realize that the world doesn’t revolve around you. Differences are good. And understanding different perspectives is a good outlook on life.” Also, you never know who you might meet. Samantha Schipman

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Jody Sullivan Joe Piver

Taylor Dorcas

Zachary Vanderburg 'H·0DUNHV'RJDQ

How Wingate set you on your career path JODY SULLIVAN I have to credit Dean Bill Nash for encouraging me and Forest Major: Psychology and Human Services (Sociology minor) Kenley ’89 to be a part of the Activity Planning Board (APB) and for encouraging me to follow my passions of music, dancing and Graduation year: 1989 entertainment.

Claim to fame Hurdles you’ve overcome Started a mobile DJ business during my years at Wingate, working Before the internet and social media, advertising consisted of as DJ “Jody Jam.” After graduating I opened my own DJ business, street marketing, a lot of mailers, and word of mouth. It took a lot of “Jody Jam Show and Sound,” and specialized as a music and video time and dedication to build my business and reputation. DJ. Several years later I expanded my business to work also as a karaoke MC. After that I took a chance on my dreams and opened Etc. several nightclubs, including the Breakfast Club, the first and only Most people are surprised and find it interesting that I do not drink, all-’80s retro dance club in uptown Charlotte. even though I own a bar and have been in the entertainment business for over 30 years. Current position After 10 years, I closed the Breakfast Club and began a new The day I graduated from college my career began. That night I had adventure by opening the Roxbury, a retro ’80s- and ’90s-themed a gig to DJ in Myrtle Beach ... and I was off to work. dance club. I continue to DJ at the Roxbury every weekend, spinning vinyl records and playing music videos ONLY – NO computer in this DJ booth! SAMANTHA SCHIPMAN Major: Communication, with a focus on journalism Best thing about your job Doing what I love and entertaining a crowd. I enjoy watching Graduation year: 2011 customers smile, have fun and dance – especially to old-school music. Making people enjoy their night out has always been Claim to fame my motivation and No. 1 goal as a DJ and nightclub owner. Radio promotion/social-media ninja at Howard Rosen Promotion

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Best thing about your job Etc. Finding and working with unsigned/independent artists. I also really My career has been one that I would have never dreamed up. I’ve enjoy working from home. It’s an environment that I thrive in. attended the Grammys four times, while several of my artists have won, including For King and Country, Casting Crowns and Francesca How Wingate set you on your career path Battistelli. My artists have done tremendous at the KLOVE Fan I started as an intern during my junior year. I was an intern for three Awards over the past several years, including the last four Artist of the semesters (Dr. Keith Cannon was an excellent mentor) and never Year Awards. We’ve won countless Dove Awards as well as Billboard left. I use things I learned at Wingate every day in my job, whether Music Awards. Since I started at JRA, I have received multiple gold, it’s via e-mail, a social-media post, or a phone conversation. platinum and even double-platinum albums from artists I worked with, like Casting Crowns, Skillet, Lauren Daigle and For King and Hurdles you’ve overcome Country (15 total), including a recent one with Casting Crowns for The social-media position didn’t exist and was created specifically over 10 million albums sold. I’ve been able to go around the world for me. I had to learn how to create social-media campaigns for seeing my artists perform at amazing venues with amazing crowds. artists, a children’s book, an AirBnB property, and an exclusive living community on my own. There was a lot of trial and error, and there still is! What works for one client doesn’t necessarily work for ZACHARY VANDERBURG another. Major: Vocal Performance

Etc. Graduation year: 2010 I was named Best Intern by the NARIP in 2011 and got to attend the CMJ Music Festival as an intern. I also launched a blog in March Claim to fame/current position as a resource for people with dietary restrictions, particularly while Classical singer – tenor in Fourth Coast Ensemble, tenor with Music traveling (www.glutenfreespirited.com). I was inspired after my of the Baroque, soloist with symphonies and opera companies in the sister had to go gluten-, dairy- and soy-free. Seeing how much she U.S. and Europe. struggled (especially while traveling) made me realize that this is a huge issue for many people. Best thing about your job What I get to do is touch lives and hearts in a unique way. Music has the ability to connect with people, to bring them to a new JOE PIVER understanding or to awaken old memories. It joins the head and the Major: Music heart, and what I do is create that connection.

Graduation year: 2001 How Wingate set you on your career path Wingate University started this whole thing. You know you’ve been Claim to fame bitten by the performance bug immediately when it happens. For Senior booking agent at Jeff Roberts & Associates me, that happened when I was on my W’International. The trip was to Salzburg and Vienna led by Dr. Kenney Potter, and the focus Best thing about your job was the music and culture created by the Hapsburg dynasty. While Getting to travel the world to see my artists perform in venues ranging in Vienna I saw my first opera, Rossini’s Barber of Seville at the from Carnegie Hall to major arenas around the world, from Disney Vienna State Opera House, and I was hooked. When I came back, World to a Texas Rangers baseball game. I love that while I am not I asked if we could start an opera program at Wingate, and long actually on stage every night as a performer, my work puts artists on story short, one year later I starred in my first opera on stage at the the stage so they can make a positive impact for so many others. Batte Center. Wingate gave me not only the tools to perform well as a professional musician but the skills to work hard and make How Wingate set you on your career path opportunities happen for myself. It is central to being a musician. While being a member of the Christian Student Organization my Oh, and the poster from that night’s performance of the Barber of sophomore year, I booked my first tour that played in Cuddy Arena: Seville in Vienna still hangs over my bed today as a reminder of Caedmon’s Call. I went on to book other artists and tours at Wingate where I’ve come from and an inspiration of where I want to go. over the years, including another tour stop with Caedmon’s Call (in Austin Auditorium), Jars of Clay (Cuddy Arena), Satellite Soul Hurdles you’ve overcome with Clear (Batte Fine Arts Center) and Bebo Norman with Justin The hurdles don’t stop! But, the hurdles are often what makes the McRoberts (Austin Auditorium). Also during my time there I used art happen and gives it purpose. The biggest hurdle as a musician, as the experience I had gained to run a festival the summers of ’98, ’99, anyone can imagine, is the financial part of this business. Combine ’00 and ’01 in Shallotte, N.C., called Re-Genesis. an unstable, volatile market like the entertainment industry with being in a very niche part of that market, and it’s nearly impossible Hurdles you’ve overcome to break into the performing-arts field, let alone make money The biggest hurdle to get to where I am today was taking the leap of doing it. Most of my colleagues around the world have found their faith to actually move to Nashville and put it all on the line. way into this market by creating opportunities for themselves. They’ve started opera companies, festivals, ensembles, etc. My first 57 real break into the Chicago classical-music scene came with my have any direct experience in television. classical vocal quartet, Fourth Coast Ensemble. I started it with three other incredibly talented and business-savvy colleagues who I also feel like my communication skills were developed at Wingate, are passionate about performing high-quality art song in intimate giving me the ability to thrive as a leader and effectively manage venues. Since then, we have performed world premieres by major teams in a fast-paced environment. composers, been chosen as a top performance by the Chicago Tribune, and put ourselves on the map in the art song/recital sector Hurdles you’ve overcome in Chicago and the Midwest. The hurdles are constant, but they I’ve had to combat my personal need for perfection. There are many make us stronger and more purpose driven. times where I realize I am overthinking a situation and taking way longer on a task than needed. So, I take a step back and focus on the Etc. final goal and make a task list to get to that goal. It’s so easy for me I actually started singing as a backup singer in Charlotte while I was to get lost in the minute details. Sometimes, less is more. in high school, and Wingate gave me the opportunity to continue doing that at the weekly worship service, “Breathe.” I’ve loved I’ve also had to develop confidence in my own opinions, whether singing backup and exploring a different side of myself, branching creative or executive. I’d say that I’m still learning how to be a better away from my classical career and enjoying the music that got advocate for myself. me singing to begin with. A few years ago I received a call asking me to join the Rolling Stones as a backup singer on their 50 and Etc. Counting tour in Chicago. After I picked myself up off the floor, I I have actually been Danica Patrick’s stand-in on a shoot. I spent immediately said yes. It’s how I end my bio, and it’s always the first the day in front of cameras and lights as the crew prepped for the thing someone asks me after a concert. They’re surprised that this interview. Once the lighting and camera angles were perfected, guy who just sang an opera role in a foreign language also has sung Danica would take my place. I was out of my element, as I’m normally with the Rolling Stones, and I like to tell them that backup singing is behind the camera, but it was a cool experience all the same. where my voice began. It’s an outlet I still love today! One of my favorite projects to work on each year is the Charlotte- based 100 Words Film Festival. Professional and student filmmakers TAYLOR DORCAS from around the world enter films that follow one rule: They must Major: Communications (Art minor) be 100 words long, no more, no less. It’s kind of like the Twitter of film festivals. It’s incredible to see the stories that people can tell Graduation year: 2014 with only 100 words.

Claim to fame/current position Susie Films associate producer/production coordinator and 100 DE’MARKES DOGAN Words Film Festival logistics and event coordinator Major: Broadcast Journalism

Best thing about your job Graduation Year: 2003 I love meeting and working with unique and creative people. I’m always entertained by the different walks of life each member of Claim to fame the crew or team comes from. The work is always different. From Working actor in Hollywood. developing pitches and executing events to working on set – the variety keeps me on my feet, which is a situation I thrive in. I’m a Best thing about your job creative problem solver, working with other unique creatives toward I get to express myself artistically every day. a common goal to materialize a creative vision. How Wingate set you on your career path I also love the feeling of effectively planning for maximum efficiency. I came to Wingate to play football and acting kind of choose me. I At the fruition of an event I get a sense of accomplishment knowing set the all-time tackles record during my playing days and am even a the work I put in made it successful. member of the Wingate Sports Hall of Fame.

How Wingate set you on your career path Hurdles you’ve overcome I worked in the Batte Center for two years, running lights, sound, stage Hollywood is a hurdle itself. It’s a lot of lows and very few highs. management, etc. This gave me the skills that helped me thrive in “on Hollywood is tough because imagine 30,000 people all applying for set” life. After graduating, I was working as a server and waiting to find the same job and they only select 30 to 50 people at a time. It’s something that interested me to put more of myself into careerwise. tough but I love it. I took a random opportunity to work on a DIY commercial, and after the shoot the producer asked me to join the crew for the next couple Etc. of projects. That led to more shoots, with more production companies I’ve appeared in The Mindy Project and worked with Ariana Grande and eventually to where I am now. The tech and problem-solving skills in the Nickelodeon show Sam & Cat. I was one of 10 finalists for I developed in the theater directly correlated with shoot etiquette and BET’s “Fresh Faces” search, and even interviewed the Black Eyed the production world. It gave me an upper hand, even though I did not Peas on 106 & Park. Q WINGATE TODAY 58 Standing Up for the Disadvantaged Golesorkhi’s NGO battles religious discrimination in her native land by Luanne Williams

Lara-Zuzan Golesorkhi ’10 was born in Germany to a scarf and helps counter what amounts to institutionalized discrimination German mother and an Iranian father. Even as a child she against women who choose to wear a headscarf. The group’s mission is to had a feeling she didn’t quite fit in in her native land. give women an equal chance in the job market, regardless of their attire or “When you are really young you don’t realize it their surname. until a lot later, when you notice that the teachers have Golesorkhi’s work has taken her places already. In late November she had difficulty pronouncing your name and the first thing they a seat at the table during the European Commission’s Annual Colloquium on say is ‘Where is that from?’” Golesorkhi says. “Actually, Fundamental Rights, whose theme last year was “Women’s Rights in Turbulent two blocks away is where it’s from, but that’s not the Times.” Held in Brussels, the assembly included “key policy makers in the answer they are looking for.” European Union, researchers and journalists, as well as representatives from Golesorkhi, a Ph.D. candidate at the New School civil society, businesses and international organizations.” for Social Research, understands what female Muslim Golesorkhi, who majored in sociology and psychology and minored in job seekers are going through in Germany today. international studies at Wingate, was invited to the two-day roundtable after The scholar-activist – or is it activist-scholar? – has spending much of her post-Wingate years researching the intersection of addressed these women’s challenges while putting her immigration, religion and the state and finding ways to advocate for those research into practice. disadvantaged because of their beliefs or their culture. In 2015, while attending graduate school full-time in It’s a topic that hits close to home. Outside of school, in Golesorkhi’s New York, Golesorkhi founded a Germany-based NGO, formative years she spent much of her time with other German-Iranian kids, called WoW, which stands for With or Without the Head- who celebrated Persian holidays. But seeing her father struggle to find work 59

even though he had earned his engineering degree in Germany made her two-page proposal that would lay the groundwork for realize that her family was not really accepted by society. WoW. As a winner, she was handed 20,000 euros (roughly “There were times when he applied for jobs and there was no positive $23,000) to bring her ideas to life. response without any explanation, when he had the qualifications,” she says. “Here I was just this Ph.D. student trying to make it by “What sets you apart is your name. And in Germany, you include a picture in in my small apartment, and then all of a sudden I was sup- your application, and you also write your nationality and where you were born posed to go home and implement this project,” Golesorkhi on every application.” says. Before she knew it she was presenting the WoW con- She was 14 when the 9/11 attacks led to growing discrimination against cept at the United Nations and having dinner with German people from majority-Muslim nations. Within four years, Germany’s Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel at the UN General Assembly. Statistical Office had assigned the designation “with migration background” to everyone who settled in the country after 1949, all “foreigners” born in REAL RESULTS Germany and anyone who has a parent who was an immigrant or who was Once on the ground in Germany, she began implement- born in Germany “as a foreigner.” The designation applies to roughly 20 ing WoW’s three-pronged approach: preparing women percent of German citizens, a growing group that Golesorkhi says has started for the German job market via seminars and workshops, to build a sense of solidarity. encouraging employers to open more doors to dis- “I think it is almost like this collective identity of being told that you don’t advantaged workers, and helping raise awareness of the really belong even though you were born here,” she says. “Germany doesn’t issue via online and offline social engagement. talk about ‘race’ because of our history, so now we use ‘migration background.’ She spent over half of 2016 in Stuttgart getting her “It’s so weird to Americans, this idea that even if you are German-born, NGO up and running and is pleased to see its growing you are supposed to identify as something other than German.” influence. The organization now has representatives It’s this understanding of what it feels like to be an outsider in your in several locations across Germany, and some of the native land that has, in some ways, given Golesorkhi a passion for her work women who started out as recipients of its services and has helped her build trust with those she is reaching out to, both to are now helping to translate seminars for others. Her gather information and to offer help. volunteer staff has grown from six to roughly 15. The diversity contest supplied only first-year funding, FIRST, THE RESEARCH but WoW earned help with its second-year marketing Recruited to Wingate as a swimmer, Golesorkhi excelled in the 50-meter and and financing by finishing third in a separate competition 100-meter butterfly, but she also made a splash in the classroom, earning the offered by a network platform for startups by young Jerry and Alice Surratt award for making the most significant contributions in Muslim entrepreneurs. the area of international education through scholarship and service. “The fact that we are continuously getting funding “As I got more involved in international studies, I wanted to change the for our work and for our programs, to me that’s a form of world, and that was nurtured at Wingate,” the 30-year-old Golesorkhi says. success and impact,” Golesorkhi says. “People think this Golesorkhi went on to earn a master’s degree in international affairs from is important and they are willing to invest in it because the Milano School of International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy and they believe in our mission.” a master of philosophy and politics from the New School for Social Research, She says the work has greatly informed her scholarly where she is on track to finish her doctorate this spring. pursuits and challenged her to take her research to the She initially attempted to do research in Muslim-majority countries next level. but ran into roadblocks because people were reluctant to go on record with “This is what I’m writing about and I’m critically their opinions. In the growing Muslim diaspora in Europe she saw plenty of analyzing these institutions and seeing what is happening, unplowed ground. but then it’s good to kind of switch that perspective and “Muslim immigration isn’t a new thing, but it hasn’t been a topic for major say, ‘OK. What can we actually do?’” Golesorkhi says. “It scholarly inquiry, so for me, I’m now part of a group that is trying to understand is great to analyze this and uncover what is going wrong. what has happened and what are the implications for the future,” Golesorkhi It’s one thing to study and to learn what is happening, but says. “That’s what you have to do in any field: find a gap and go for it. Being part it is not complete until you figure out how you can fix it.” of the community and sharing some of these experiences myself has helped me Golesorkhi says she thinks WoW will continue to grow. to gain access.” “I’ve seen support from the community; people are In her master’s thesis, Golesorkhi looked at Islamic religious garb in interested,” she says. “We’re getting invited to high- public employment through an economic lens and was able to document the stakes meetings.” struggles that women who wear a headscarf face in finding jobs. Meetings such as the Brussels roundtable in Novem- She says that many women in her country face an ultimatum: go unveiled ber, where Golesorkhi got to speak briefly during two or be unemployed. A 2016 Institute for Labor Economics study showed that different sessions, issuing a call-for-action in discussions women with a headscarf and a non-German last name had to send out more about closing the gender pay gap and promoting women’s than four times as many applications as those with German names and no rights through inclusive civil society. headscarves to receive the same number of callbacks for an interview. “Just for this reason alone, it is totally worth it,” Golesorkhi’s strategies to help combat the problem got international at- Golesorkhi says. “If I can sit at the table and just say one tention when she was named one of 10 winners of a Global Diversity Contest thing, it is better than me not being at the table. Who else sponsored by the UNHATE Foundation and United Nations Academic Impact would bring that point across?” Q in 2015. She had entered the contest almost on a whim, putting together a BullDog Nation WINGATE TODAY

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Coach’s blood stem cells save a life

save a life started in April of 2016 background. The markers are important because the with a Be The Match registry drive immune system uses them to know which cells belong to held at the LaVerne Banquet Hall as the body and which do not. part of Wingate’s inaugural “One Day, To prepare to receive Cabana’s blood cells, the One Dog” Day of Service. leukemia patient underwent chemotherapy and radiation. W “I heard about it and thought it The marrow-donor program doesn’t release patients’ was for a good cause,” says Cabana of names or detailed information but may help them meet the National Marrow Donor Program their donors a year or so down the road, if all goes well. that connects patients with potential “I definitely would be open to that,” Cabana says. donors all over the world. He said “Hopefully it all works out.” Wingate tennis coach Michael he forgot about the drive until the A father of daughters ages 4 and 7, Cabana says Cabana ’08 (MASM) scored perhaps last minute, then rushed in and had knowing that his blood stem cells will be going to a child his best win ever last August – for a his cheek swabbed as the event was makes the donation even more meaningful. He’s also glad young boy battling leukemia. Cabana coming to a close. to know that his willingness to undergo the procedure has donated peripheral blood stem cells A few months back, he received inspired others to consider joining the registry. to help save the child’s life. word that he was a potential match “My family is proud of me; I’ve got a bunch of texts “I’ve never even given blood. for a patient in need. He went to from family members who support me,” he says “A That’s the funny thing,” Cabana said Matthews for blood tests and then to couple of them said, ‘How do I go about getting into the on the day he began a series of five the Comprehensive Cancer Center program?’ It’s definitely brought awareness.” filgrastim injections to move more at Wake Forest Baptist for further Cabana is not the first Bulldog to be called on for a blood-forming cells out of his marrow medical exams to make sure he was marrow donation. During the summer of 2014, basketball and into his bloodstream. “It’s the best donor for the patient. player Jasmine DeBerry ’15 donated bone marrow to a exciting to be able to help someone.” According to Be The Match, 9-year-old girl with sickle cell anemia. Earlier that year, At the hospital, his blood was 70 percent of patients who need a 135 Wingate students and staff members joined the removed through a needle in one transplant don’t have a fully matched registry during a drive on campus. Another 30 signed on arm and filtered through a machine donor in their family. Thanks to the the same day as Cabana. to capture the needed cells before registry, their likelihood of finding According to Be The Match, the chances of registry being returned via his other arm. The someone with human leukocyte members donating are about 1 in 430. process, called apheresis, took six to antigen (HLA) markers nearly Cabana is in his 12th season as men and women’s eight hours. identical to their own ranges from 66 head tennis coach. Cabana’s opportunity to help to 97 percent, depending on ethnic 61

Bulldogs make postseason in football

or the second time in school history, last fall Wingate hosted an NCAA Division II playoff football game. F The Bulldogs started the season 9-0, including back-to-back 44-20 South Atlantic Conference victories, over Mars Hill and Limestone, to capture wins No. 8 and 9. At that point, Wingate was ranked 14th in Division II, its highest ranking ever. Although the season ended on a down note, with a road loss to Tusculum in the regular-season finale and a 31-0 loss to West Florida in the playoffs, it registered as one of the most successful seasons since the program was resurrected in the mid-’80s. Bulldogs head coach Joe Reich says he wouldn’t have been shocked before the season had someone told him that the team would make the playoffs. Reich is now 110- 75 in 17 years at Wingate. “I don’t think I would have been surprised,” he says. “The coaching staff thought we would have a pretty good team. I would say winning the first nine games in a row, and clinching the SAC title, would have been a surprise to me. Anytime you have success, things have to Senior Daniel Owens (75) won the SAC’s Jacobs Blocking Trophy as he paved go your way and bounces have to go your way. We had the way for Bulldog runners to average 213 yards per game on the ground. key players step in and fill roles we needed filled. These players filling key roles made us a stronger team.” Wingate has won two SAC titles during Reich’s the year for the third time, 10 Wingate players were named first- or second- tenure, and both times (2010 and 2017) the Bulldogs team All-SAC. Senior running back Lawrence Pittman was named offensive made the postseason. player of the year, and senior offensive lineman Daniel Owens won the In addition to Reich’s being named SAC coach of Jacobs Blocking Trophy and was named second-team All-American. Honors and awards

unior goalkeeper Pablo Jara earned the NCAA Student- Also last fall, four WU athletes Athlete Sportsmanship Award last fall. Jara was one of earned the South Atlantic Conference J only six athletes across all NCAA sports (in all divisions) Elite 20 Award for their respective to earn the prestigious honor. sports. This award honors the student- “Out of all the players I’ve coached, Pablo deserves this athlete with the top cumulative grade- award more than anyone I can remember,” head coach Gary point average who is competing at the Hamill says of the two-time All-American Jara. “His genuine final site of each of the Conference’s 20 appreciation for his teammates and his opponents is team championship sports. exceptional.” David Fairgrieve (men’s soccer), During the first round of the 2015 NCAA Division II Valerie Griesche (women’s cross tournament, Jara made Wingate’s clinching penalty kick to country), Anna Holmquist (volleyball) and propel the Bulldogs to the regional semifinals. Immediately Wade Johnson (football) all took home after, he approached Lander’s goalkeeper to congratulate him honors for Wingate. Q on a match well played. Jara is the first player in program history to earn Pablo Jara All-American honors as a freshman. Class Notes WINGATE TODAY

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Accomplishments

a retired lieutenant colonel in the team, Hamill has compiled a 306- U.S. Air Force, is the technology 148-27 overall record, including a director for business development 19-1 record in 2016 as the Bulldogs and mission support at Tap Here! captured the first team NCAA title in Technology, LLC. school history. Hamill has coached 19 NCAA Division II All-Americans Jerry Beal ’84 has been appointed at Wingate. vice president, relationship manager and private banker at the Johnson Grady Hardeman ’96 has been City, Tennessee, branch of Mountain named a finalist for the Carolinas Commerce Bank. HealthCare System Pinnacle Award, the system’s top award. Hardeman is John Stockett ’84 recently a certified athletic trainer and client completed 20 years working for service manager for CHS. Caleb Barnhardt Bill Crowder Loomis Armored. Brian Allen ’98 was inducted into Caleb Barnhardt was named is published by Heritage Books, is Larry Abernathy ’85 was ordained the Loudon County (Va.) High an honorary alumnus during available on Amazon.com. at Pullen Memorial Baptist Church School athletics hall of fame. He had Homecoming weekend. Barnhardt, in Raleigh. He continues to serve as more than 3,000 yards rushing in a retired tax accountant, has given Kevin Wilson ’72 earned the director of music and arts at Kirk of his high-school career and played generously to the University over Brantley Pearce Memorial Award at Kildaire Presbyterian Church in Cary. four years at Wingate, rushing for the years, in addition to supporting the Emergency Chaplains’ annual more than 1,500 yards. He helped numerous organizations in Union Called to Care Banquet in Durham Rosanah Zeigler Foster ’87 lead Wingate to a then-school-record County. He and his late wife, on Oct. 22. Col. Wilson, who serves completed her master of arts in eight wins in 1997. Lorene, established scholarships for on Wingate’s Board of Visitors, joined American history and government at women’s basketball and music, and Durham EMS in 1976. He retired Ashland University in Ashland, Ohio, in February of 2017 the University last year but continues to teach on Aug. 26. dedicated the Caleb and Lorene across the state, inspiring medics to Barnhardt Athletic Office Suite in be passionate about taking care of Kim Deese Holt ’88 was named Lorene’s memory. hurting people. a distinguished alumna during Homecoming weekend. Holt is a Bill Crowder ’68 received the Dale Robertson ’73 is stepping three-time Emmy Award winner as a Alumni Excellence in Service Award down as secretary/treasurer of the producer and manager at WSOC-TV during Homecoming weekend. North Carolina Pastor’s Conference. in Charlotte. Owner of Crowder Construction He has held the post for the past Company, Crowder is a member of 25 years. Robertson is the pastor Gary Hamill ’94, ’08 was inducted several boards and organizations, of North Main Baptist Church in into the Wingate University Sports including the Alexander Youth Salisbury. Hall of Fame during Homecoming Network, for which he serves as weekend. In 25 years as head coach board chair. Crowder was recognized Dennis Huggins ’75 is director of of the University’s men’s soccer Gary Hamill by former President George development for Wilkes County H.W. Bush and has received the Schools. Since retiring from Lowe’s Governor’s Award for his volunteer Companies, Inc., in 2000, Huggins service. has helped with fundraising efforts at Yadkin River Greenway, the Wilkes Lanny Ross Cook ’69 was Heritage Museum and now the posthumously inducted into the Wilkes County Schools. Mount Tabor High School Hall of Fame on Sept. 21, 2017. Cook, who Wayne O. “Butch” Farrah III ‘83 played soccer at Wingate, taught has been named the director of the and coached in the Forsyth County Small Business Center at Richmond Schools for 34 years. Community College.

David Hughes ’71 has written a Greg Rhoney ’83 was named a book, Chronicle of the Kings and distinguished alumnus during Queens of Britain. The book, which Homecoming weekend. Rhoney, Greg Rhoney Kim Deese Holt ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

63 ‘The hardest worker in the room’

lifford Blanquicet Jr. ’12 is turning heads in the C world of Charlotte real estate. Named one of three “Brokers to Watch” by the Charlotte Region Commercial Board of Realtors last year, he earned the group’s Deal Makers Silver Award for producing more than $5 million in sales in 2016. Last year, the Charlotte Agenda put Darren Pierre *UDFH&XQQLQJKDP0HVVHU Blanquicet on its “30 Under 30” – a list of young movers and shakers Sarah Featherstone ’00 has been of his book The Invitation to Love: leaving their marks on the Queen City. named senior program coordinator Recognizing the Gift Despite Pain, Honored by the accolades, the Clifford Blanquicet Jr. for Rowan Crosby Scholars, a Fear, and Resistance. marketing graduate has a strategy for nonprofit college-access program for capturing the Deal Makers Platinum Award (production volume over $15 middle- and high-school students in Chris Charity ’05 (MBA) has been million) before reaching 30: “Be the hardest worker in the room.” It’s a the Rowan-Salisbury Schools. She promoted to vice president of sales principle the 28-year-old learned from his grandparents while growing will help seniors with the college- with Continental Tire. Charity will up in Sanford, North Carolina, and one he has put into practice on the admission process. be responsible for managing and golf course and in the office. directing the company’s sales efforts Kevin Cain ’02 is the men’s golf across all replacement market “I had a very tough childhood,” says Blanquicet, whose parents coach at Sage College in Albany, channels in the U.S. divorced when he was 3. He eventually moved in with his grandparents, New York. who, he says, “put a lot of responsibility” on him. Grace Cunningham Messer ’06 He got his first job on his 15th birthday, paid his own phone Casey Seagrove ’02 has been was inducted into the Wingate bills and bought his own gas. By the time he was 17, he was helping named an assistant basketball coach University Sports Hall of Fame to manage a golf shop with a half-million-dollar inventory and was for varsity and junior varsity at during Homecoming weekend. operating his own lawn-care service. LaSalle Academy in New York. In 2006, Messer, a four-time all- Blanquicet studied at Sandhills Community College before conference selection, posted school- transferring to Wingate, where he went from a walk-on on the golf team Rob Stover ’02 has been inducted record totals of 16 home runs, 84 into the Asheboro High School Hall of to captain during his first season. hits and 67 RBIs while batting .412 Fame. Stover was all-South Atlantic as the Bulldogs recorded the most The Bulldogs won the South Atlantic Conference championship Conference twice at Wingate, after hits in SAC history. his senior year, and Blanquicet went on to play professionally in the transferring from UNC-Chapel Hill. In top mini tours in the Southeast and on the PGA’s Latin American Tour. high school, Stover threw three no- Tanetra Barrett ’07 was inducted He still plays two or three qualifiers a year but shifted his energy to real hitters and went 20-3 overall. In one into the Wingate University Sports estate after taking a job managing properties in Concord. American Legion game, he struck out Hall of Fame during Homecoming Already driven to succeed, he got his real estate license in 2014 20 batters. weekend. Barrett, a two-time all- and met his future wife when he leased her some business space. American, scored 2,005 career As the parents of two little girls, the Blanquicets spend a lot of time Randi M. Davis ’04 has been elected points to help the Bulldogs win at Disney World. Both Clifford Blanquicet Jr. and his wife, Anna, are treasurer of the North Carolina four consecutive South Atlantic chapter of the National School Public business owners. “We work hard and we play hard,” he says. Conference regular-season titles. Relations Association. Davis, an In the past year he’s opened his own firm, Blanquicet Real internal-communication specialist Estate and Commercial Property Management, and BlanqCanvass for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, CoWork, a business incubator. He uses his marketing know-how in is also on the NCSPRA’s Board of all three ventures. Directors. Blanquicet says that all day, every day he is marketing his firm, himself, three dozen or so commercial listings and multiple properties Dr. Darren Pierre ’04 received the under his management. He has more than 30 tenants in the 250,000 Champion of Diversity Award during square feet under his care and now employs four people. Homecoming weekend. Pierre, “I’m honored to be creating jobs and love working with our co- clinical assistant professor of higher education and student affairs for working space that serves as a home for 15 startups and sales people,” Loyola University in Chicago, has Blanquicet says. He hopes to expand his property-management provided college students across the business to a million square feet over the next couple of years and have country with guidance and inspiration 50 entrepreneurs working out of BlanqCanvass. through his conference involvement, and the composition and publication Tanetra Barrett 64 Class Notes

Rebecca Brezovec Bass David Jones Holly Leigh Stegall Laura Gold Waterson

Rebecca Brezovec Bass ’07 named all-Bluegrass Mountain American Physical Therapy was inducted into the Wingate Conference 16 times. Association. He will serve for the University Sports Hall of Fame next two years. during Homecoming weekend. After Kelly Mottola ’08 has been named her senior volleyball season, Bass director of ticket operations for the Dr. Mandi Campbell ’14, ’15 was named Academic All-America College of Charleston. (Ed.D.) is the Kannapolis City of the Year by the College Sports Schools principal of the year for Information Directors of America Mark Crocco ’10 has been named 2017-18. Campbell is the principal (CoSIDA). That same academic head baseball coach at Erskine at Fred L. Wilson Elementary year, she was SAC Player of the College in Due West, South Carolina. School, which she is leading as it Year, Wingate Athlete of the Year, becomes a magnet school. an NCAA post-graduate scholarship Grayson Tanner ’10 and his recipient, and a SAC Presidents’ wife, Brittani, are opening their Kacie Hatley ’16 is working for Award winner. own Chick-Fil-A restaurant in the North Carolina Cooperative Sacramento, California, in February. Extension of Stanly County as a White, Helms, Clontz David Jones ’07 was inducted into 4-H agent. the Wingate University Sports Hall of Addison Smith ’11, ’14 (MBA) Fame during Homecoming weekend. published and presented a Emily Parrish Taylor ’11 has received Jones became the first NFL draft conference paper Sept. 20 at one of only 10 Maytag Dependable pick in the University’s senior-college the 12th International Conference Leader Awards presented nationwide history when he was selected 145th on Computational Semantics to staff members and volunteers at overall, in the fifth round, by the (IWCS) in Montpellier, France. The local Boys & Girls Clubs. Taylor is New Orleans Saints. Jones played six paper is titled “Can You See the the operations director of the Boys & seasons in the NFL after being named (Linguistic) Difference? Exploring Girls Clubs of Transylvania County first-team all-American as a senior. Mass/Count Distinction in Vision.” in Brevard. Smith also presented the work on Holly Leigh Stegall, M.D. ’07 Oct. 12 in Rovereto, Italy, as part Rita Koryukova ’16 has been named was named an outstanding young of his thesis and will graduate from the interim head coach for the alumna during Homecoming the European Master program in University of Sioux Falls’ swimming weekend. Holly is a member of Language and Communication program. Koryukova was a three- the board of the North Carolina Technologies. Smith spent the first time NCAA Division II national Academy of Family Physicians year of the master’s program at the champion at Wingate. Foundation (as a trustee) and of the University of the Basque Country, Board of Health for Anson County. Spain, and the second year at the Hannah White ’16, Valerie Helms University of Trento, Italy, on a ’15 and Josh Clontz ’16 took part Laura Gold Watterson ’07 was full scholarship from the European in the White Coat Ceremony of the inducted into the Wingate Univer- Commission. Edward Via College of Osteopathic sity Sports Hall of Fame during Medicine (Spartanburg, S.C., campus) Homecoming weekend. Watterson Will Stokes ’13, ’16 (DPT) has on Oct. 29. The ceremony marks the was the University’s first NCAA been appointed to the Leadership start of their clinical studies. swimming all-American. She was Development Committee of the ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

Class Notes 65

Wallace leading the Bulldog Club Weddings

hen Shannon Wallace ’03 first came to Wingate W in 1999, it felt like home. Back in the Charlotte area as a transition-support partner for LPL Financial, Wallace, a four-year starter on the Bulldog offensive line, is now calling on other alumni and supporters of the blue and gold to return to their roots by joining the Shannon Wallace Bulldog Club. Wallace is the new chairman of the Bulldog Club. “There are so many new and exciting things going on on campus, people should come back and visit,” he says. “And when they do, we hope that they’ll get involved and rally around the school.” Josey Enwall Wedding Wallace, who graduated with a degree in business administration and has more than a decade of experience in banking and investments, Jennifer Josey ’96 and Erik Enwall were married on knows growth potential when he sees it. July 9, 2017. “I’ve looked at the numbers, and there are over 900 former football players that live within a two-hour drive of Wingate. So coming back should be no problem,” he says. “I also want people to know they don’t have to give a high-dollar amount to contribute. It’s all going to a good Engagements cause. It all matters.” When they do come back, Wallace says, alumni will not only Megan Levy ’13 is engaged to Jordan Robinson. The be reminded of the beauty of the campus but be impressed by the wedding is planned for March 10, 2018. new McGee Center, top-notch facilities for athletes, expanding expertise in the Athletic Training Department and the growing exposure that sports programs are getting via the University’s contract with ESPN. “It’s great to be able to livestream the games, and I know a lot of Those we’ll miss people are following the Bulldogs through social media,” Wallace says. At one time, those social-media connections were his primary link with Wingate. A longtime Clemson football fan, he had joined that Ester Rogers Tomson ’56 – July 30, 2017 university’s famed IPTAY booster club and attended their games. Then Steve White ’60 – Sept. 19, 2017 he attended a Wingate alumni event at BB&T Ballpark in Charlotte, and he started feeling nostalgic. Ray Judy ’62 – Dec. 9, 2017 “I saw a lot of people I graduated with, sitting around, talking and reminiscing,” Wallace says. “For the next year, I kept thinking about that, about what would draw people back to Wingate … to make them come back frequently and have the same kind of reunion experience that my friends at Clemson were having.” Let the Bulldog family know Also a veteran of the restaurant industry, Wallace decided to take his tailgating ventures to the next level. He bought an enclosed trailer about all the great things and installed flood lights, a 60-inch television, a sound system, a water happening in your life! tank, a grill, an awning and more. The trailer became a “rallying point” Email Brittany Bumgarner at for the One Dog Club, a nonprofit Wallace formed to create momentum [email protected] for Wingate fan support and camaraderie. As his involvement with the University grew, so did his relationship by March 15 to be included in with Bill Nash, director of Wingate’s Athletic Foundation. the next issue of “I began to understand more about the goals of the University and Wingate Today. wanted to help more, so instead of re-creating the wheel with the One Dog Club, I dissolved it and started working with the Bulldog Club,” Wallace says. ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

66 Class Notes Births Old friends reunite behind the pulpit

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pend an hour with Mark Carnes ’93 and Bill Coleman ’93, and you’ll see that they bring out the best in each other. The pastors Washburn Allison Steinbracher S of He’s Alive Church in Kannapolis say the inspiring friendship they’ve shared for a quarter century would never have come about without Wingate’s W’International program. Carnes and Coleman became co-workers this summer and began to live out a dream born during their junior year. “We had both lived on campus for two years and had never talked,” says Coleman, a Winston-Salem native who was pursuing a business management degree at the time. “It’s not a huge campus, but we had different groups of friends.” But when their junior year rolled around, both wound up in Martha Asti’s W’International seminar headed for a 10-day adventure in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. They randomly chose each other as Watson 0HUULWW roommates for the trip, and by the time they boarded the plane to leave the states – the first international travel for either of the North Carolina Robert “Dart” Hemrick ’77 and Ginger Hemrick, a grandson, Jacob Rush natives – the friendship had clicked. They were virtually inseparable for Izor, on April 29, 2017. the next year and a half until graduation. “W’International forced me out of what I was comfortable in Leslie Elliott McPeters ’05 and Steven McPeters, a girl, Emery Grace, May 16, into another sphere of people,” Carnes says. “During that whole 2017. experience, I met people and became friends with people I never Lindsey Miller ’08 and Tracy Miller, two girls, Tenley Grace and Harper would have otherwise.” Faith, on May 24, 2017. Coleman says the time overseas whet his appetite for foreign missions. “In me, it planted the first seeds of what was to become a Jamie Washburn ’11 and Jay Washburn, a girl Claire Jayne, on May 31, love of stepping into other cultures, which has led to 20-plus mission 2017. trips and traveling all over the world training pastors,” he says. They went their separate ways after graduation, Coleman to Katie Brown Allison ’14 and Casey Allison ’13, a boy, Rawlings Casey, on seminary and Carnes to Nashville to pursue a music career. But they July 19, 2017. stayed in touch, and eventually both wound up in the ministry. Alike in some ways but with different skill sets, the ministers Darcy Kuykendall Steinbracher ’99 and Brett Steinbacher, a boy, Levi say they sensed at Wingate that their personalities complemented Hampton, on July 19, 2017. one another and talked about the possibility of one day doing some Michael Watson ’08 and Kristin Watson ’07, a girl, Blakely Nicole, on Aug. type of ministry together. 22, 2017. Carnes is thrilled to have the chemistry of the friendship that started so long ago sparking even greater creativity at He’s Alive. Ben Merritt ’96, ’01 and Stephanie Merritt, a boy, Graham Stephen, on “Our work atmosphere here is that I just can’t wait to get here to see Nov. 2, 2017. what happens today,” he says. Begin Your PHILANTHROPIC JOURNEY Take a Turn in the Right Direction

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