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Alumnus, ring reunited
As mysteriously as NCSU class ring disappeared in '55, it is returned
Developer
goes on a teardown
Peter Batchelor, architecture
N.C.
State's Yow Closing in on 600th Win
Kay Yow, women's basketball
Raleigh
Chamber Counts On Return Of Textile Industry To Triangle
Beham Pourdeyhimi; Non-Wovens Cooperative Research Center
A salute
to our backers
Computer Training Unit
A mansion
fit for a...chancellor
NC State chancellor residence
Author
denies his novel is about Duke
Susan Nutter, McKimmon Center, NC State activities/events
100 and
counting
alumni
Emotion
rules wrestling room
tailgate shooting
Anti-Arab
witch-hunt on campus
antiwar activists
Purdue
boasts new poinsettia colors
collaberation with Perdue
Flightless
feathered friends
Julia Clarke, marine, earth and atmospheric sciences
Obituary:
Charles Agard Shields
employee
Dec. 2, 2004
News & Observer
By BONNIE ROCHMAN
© Copyright 2004
Nick Scronce was the first in his family to graduate from college, so his N.C. State University class ring was more than just a bauble.
Precious as it was, a series of still-unexplained circumstances led to Scronce, 71, losing that ring the year he graduated -- in 1955.
Now, nearly 50 years later, the same ring has resurfaced, delivered in an envelope with no return address. It's not back on Scronce's finger -- it's too tight after all these years -- but it is tucked safely in a drawer in his Goldsboro home, conjuring up memories of his youth and closing the door on half a century of mystery.
It all started with a girl.
In 1955, Scronce, then a second lieutenant in the Air Force, trained for a month in San Antonio. He took a date, whose name he no longer recalls, to the Officers Club, and he slipped off his ring when she requested a closer look. Conversation bubbled, and Scronce forgot all about the ring with the red stone and the Delta Kappa Phi inscription -- that was his textile fraternity -- until his date came back from the bathroom.
She said she left the ring beside the sink. When she went back to look for it, it was gone. "I thought right away, and I always have thought, she just took it," Scronce said.
He was angry and disappointed, but he didn't have time to dwell on the disappearance.
In the years that scrolled by, Scronce navigated more than 100 missions in Vietnam.
He got married.
He even ordered a new class ring.
Then one day a few weeks ago, he got a phone call from Nick McEntire, assistant director of alumni affairs at UNC-Charlotte.
McEntire had received a package addressed only "University of No. Carolina, Alumni Association, North Carolina." No city was indicated, but somehow it ended up in Charlotte. There was a blurry cancellation stamp from Englewood, Calif., and a ring inside inscribed "Nicholas E. Scr..."
No explanation was included.
McEntire couldn't make out the last name, so he called the alumni office at NCSU.
Randy Ham, who works there, was hardly fazed. "We probably reunite people with their lost class rings as often as once or twice a month," he said.
Not long ago, a woman sent an e-mail message from Indianapolis, where her husband was cleaning out a construction bin. He found a suspicious box and inside discovered an ACC tournament championship ring from 1983 belonging to Sidney Lowe, who played for the Indianapolis Pacers after leaving NCSU. "He didn't even realize the ring was missing," Ham said.
Clearly, the business of reuniting rings with fingers is nothing new for Ham. But in the case of the Class of 1955 ring, even the unflappable Ham was shocked at how long it had been missing.
Ham ran a database search on "Nicholas E.," Class of 1955. Two alumni matched. One last name had too many characters to be a potential fit. The other was Scronce, who initially insisted during the conference call with Ham and McEntire that the unclaimed ring couldn't possibly be his.
"I said it couldn't be anyone else's," McEntire said.
Slowly, Scronce concurred.
"It's something else, I tell you," said Scronce, who retired from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel in 1985.
As for the anonymous date -- still suspect in Scronce's mind -- the ring snafu emphatically ended their budding courtship.
"I never went on another date with her," he said.
Dec. 2, 2004
News & Observer
By DUDLEY PRICE
© Copyright 2004
RALEIGH -- Builder Tom Bland is redeveloping a large cluster of duplexes into expensive homes in West Raleigh in what may be the area's largest single-family residential infill project.
Bland plans to tear down 15 duplexes on Nottingham and Farrior roads, just off Dixie Trail, and replace them with 15 bungalow-style houses costing $750,000 to $1 million. The first ones will be completed in June.
"There will be a new neighborhood where an old one stood," Bland said of his $12 million project, which will be named Banbury Park. "While these are new houses, they'll look like they've been there forever."
Dozens of condominiums and townhouses have been built in previous infill projects, especially downtown and in West Raleigh, but planners say Bland's bungalows are the largest such development involving single-family homes.
Bland hopes it's only the beginning of further redevelopment that would convert roughly three city blocks of duplexes into luxury homes. He is trying to buy an additional 40 duplexes and a seven-unit apartment building on Farrior Road and the adjacent streets of Lewis Farm Road, Leonard Street and other blocks of Nottingham Road for redevelopment.
Bland, who has built hundreds of homes in Apex and North Raleigh, has contacted all the owners in his target area about selling their property. He said his work may attract other redevelopers to the area.
"Can I buy all 62 (duplexes and apartments)? No," Bland said, "but if others do, it transforms the neighborhood even quicker."
Peter Batchelor, a professor at N.C. State University's College of Design and Architecture, said similar infill projects are taking place across the country as urban areas spread out and increased commuter travel times make it more desirable for many people to live near their work.
In the past decade, residents of West Raleigh have become accustomed to seeing smaller houses bought -- often at eye-popping prices -- only to be torn down and replaced with big homes costing a half-million dollars or more.
Since 1988, there have been 1,059 homes and condominiums built in an area bounded by the Beltline, Capital Boulevard and Hillsborough Street. Of that total, about half -- 528 homes and condos -- were built just in the past five years, according to the Wake County Tax Assessor's office.
"All over town, there are similar infill projects taking place, particularly inside the Beltline and some areas just outside it where housing was built in the 1940s, '50s and '60s," said city planning director George Chapman. But now "the style of housing is no longer as popular, and the economics of property values have come together to create pressure to tear down existing houses and redevelop with new infill."
Real estate experts said that in general, land prices have increased far faster inside the Beltline than in other parts of the county. Lot prices have increased so fast it makes sense for some duplex owners to sell now.
For example, a duplex on a 9,150-square-foot lot that was recently demolished by Bland was valued in 1992 at $50,540. By 2000, the valuation had increased to $148,500. Bland bought it this fall for $215,000.
"It's rare for a builder to do more than one home at a time," Bland said. "We're trying to do the whole street."
Five bungalow-style houses will be on Nottingham, between Churchill and Farrior roads, and the other 10 will be on Farrior, where he has contracts to buy 10 duplexes. The houses will range in size from 3,000 to 3,700 square feet. Ed Willer of York Simpson Underwood is overseeing sales.
Bland, owner of Preservation Homes, which has developed the Scotts Mill project in Apex and Bedford at Falls River in North Raleigh, found out firsthand about inside-the-Beltline demand and land appreciation when he bought two adjacent homes with a total of just under one acre of land at Churchill and Chester roads last year. He paid $635,000, which was nearly double the 1992 tax value of $327,700.
Bland demolished the homes and replaced them with two larger homes. One sold this year for $1,040,000. He bought the other from his company for $850,000 to live in himself.
"After the house was framed up, I had a call a week," Bland said of the first home. "A lot more people want to live there than there is new supply."
N.C. State's Yow Closing in on 600th Win
Dec. 1, 2004
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By KEITH PARSONS
© Copyright 2004
RALEIGH, N.C. -- Four decades ago, coaching basketball was something Kay Yow had to do to secure a job teaching English. Now, she can't imagine doing anything else.
In her 30th season at North Carolina State, Yow is one victory shy of 600 at the school, a total only four other Division I coaches have reached. She gets her first chance at the milestone Thursday night, when the Wolfpack host Seton Hall.
"This wasn't a career that I planned on doing from the beginning," Yow said. "I've never thought about the numbers of wins or losses or anything. It was all just try to do the very best you can each and every day.
"And now it's here."
Pat Summitt (Tennessee), Jody Conradt (Texas) Robin Selvig (Montana), and Mike Granelli (St. Peter's) are the other coaches of women's teams with at least 600 victories at the same school, and Granelli retired after last season. At this point, the 62-year-old Yow has no plans to do the same.
"As long as my health stays good and I have a passion that's there for it, I'm just going to keep doing it," she said. "I love it."
In the 1960s, when she was hired as a teacher at Allen Jay High School in High Point, N.C., Yow was asked to coach the girls' basketball team. She had been an all-state player herself, but never thought she might end up on the bench.
"I had planned on just being a high school teacher," Yow said. "When the principal offered me the job, he basically talked me into coaching."
Her boss, along with the boys' coach, agreed to help her plan practices and to sit on the bench with her during games, but halfway through that first season, Yow was on her own.
"Probably, I could use their help now," she said. "Really, it was like love at first sight. It didn't take any time."
After four years there and another at her alma mater in her hometown of Gibsonville, N.C., Yow started her college career at Elon. She went 57-19 in four seasons and was hired at N.C. State in 1975.
With the Wolfpack, Yow is 599-282.
"She is one of those special people that you don't meet that many times going through athletics," N.C. State athletic director Lee Fowler said. "She's just a caring person. We hope that others are coming along like that, but the business is changing. You won't always find people like Kay."
That was one reason Fowler supported Yow despite two consecutive losing seasons from 2001-03, the first time that had happened in her career. The struggles continued through the start of last season, when the Wolfpack started 0-5 in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
They eventually fell to 2-6, but a remarkable run down the stretch -- including a six-game winning streak -- helped the Wolfpack reach the NCAA tournament for the first time in four years.
"We just put everything together," guard Kendra Bell said. "Coach Yow really helped us get focused and realize how good we could be. And that carried over to this year."
This season, N.C. State (3-1) has logged victories over Nebraska and Louisville to win the Paradise Jam in the Virgin Islands over Thanksgiving weekend; the Wolfpack's lone loss was to then-No. 1 Tennessee. With Bell and Marquetta Dickens back, along with talented junior college transfer Tiffany Stansbury, the Wolfpack might be one of the surprises in the ACC.
For the players, it would be a fitting tribute to Yow.
"She's just so great," Dickens said. "She's such a good person, and she really takes care of us. I mean, we all play for ourselves, but I think we all do it a little bit for her, too."
Yow doesn't have any special plans for a celebration when she reaches 600. Anything she does will be her way of honoring all the people she believes help her reach this point.
"Every player and every staff member that has been here has contributed to this, you know?" Yow said. "It just brings back a lot of special memories, and puts a smile on my face to think about all the people that have been a part of making this happen.
"Obviously, I didn't win those 600 games by myself."
Raleigh Chamber Counts On Return Of Textile Industry To Triangle
Dec. 1, 2004
WRAL
By Melissa Buscher
© Copyright 2004
RALEIGH, N.C. -- Disposable facial wipes are a good example of why the non-woven industry is growing by 5 to 8 percent a year. The Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce hopes to capitalize on that growth.
More than 50 business executives from as far away as Japan spent Wednesday at North Carolina State University in the Non-Wovens Cooperative Research Center. Non-woven products are made directly from fibers or plastic and skip the knit and weave process.
"The university, faculty and staff have good relationships with key people at these companies. We hope to work with the university to bring companies and jobs and investment here to Wake County," said Ken Atkins, of the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce.
The Chamber is trying to convince companies to open manufacturing facilities near one of the industry's best resources.
"If you really need to be close to an organization that can assist you in product development, research, training, you cannot go anywhere else," said Dr. Beham Pourdeyhimi, of the Non-Wovens Cooperative Research Center.
The concept makes sense to Walter Chappas who works for Novolon, a division of the German-based company Freudenberg. Novolon was created based on technology invented in North Carolina and will run its production line out of Durham to stay near N.C. State.
"A one-day experience here becomes a three-month experiment somewhere else," he said.
Even before the partnership got rolling, four companies that manufacture wipes decided to move to North Carolina.
Dec. 1, 2004
LocalTechWire
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
LTW’s financial backers have been patient despite the challenges of launching a startup in the post 9-11 recession. They remain committed to the vision of LTW – building a successful business while at the same time providing a source for news that in many, many cases is not made available elsewhere.
A number of sponsors have also been steadfastly loyal, including Peak 10, Daniels Daniels & Verdonik (which also contributes our weekly TechLaw commentary), Alphanumeric, ClearImage, NCSU’s Computer Training Unit and Maverick Marketing, to name just a few. New sponsors such as Time Warner Cable Commercial Services and VeriTest are important.
The Council for Entrepreneurial Development, the North Carolina Electronics and Information Technology Association, the Charlotte Chamber and the Business Investment and Growth Council in Charlotte are also major partners and supporters.
As in most businesses over the past three years, we have gone through many changes, having started as a subscription service then converting to free, advertising-supported.
LTW has also worked with partners to expand our reach. ClearImage and LTW teamed up to launch the TechExec, a quarterly networking event in RTP that has proved to be quite successful. LTW works with the BIG Council to put on TechExecs in Charlotte. We hope to add more events in 2005.
Grant Thornton, Peak 10, Cisco, SAS, RBC Centura, SANDirect, WebsiteBiz, GotSharePoint, Staubach, Southern Capitol Ventures and Mobile Reach are among the firms that have pitched in to support and/or host TechExec events.
Our latest venture is a partnership with The Corporate Investment Center, 919 Marketing and FOCUS Resources to put on a series of capital forums. One event has taken place, and 10 or more will be scheduled for 2005.
A mansion fit for a...chancellor
Dec. 2, 2004
News and Observer
By Jim Jenkins
© Copyright 2004
Look, we're not about to get into tiaras here, are we? Or crowns? Or some test whereby candidates for chancellor of University of North Carolina system campuses have to recline on a set of mattresses and announce to the search committee when they feel the pea?
Various pooh-bahs over at N.C. State University tell us (The N&O's Tim Simmons did a piece last Sunday) that the tab on renovating the stately chancellor's house, which was built in 1928 and doubtless could use a little sprucing up, could be $2 million. Then again, if they built a brand-new showplace out Centennial Campus way, it might be $3 million.
Friends, it's clear this is more than a story about a house. North Carolina is apparently going to be the new home of the British Royal Family.
OK, just kidding. And yes, so as not to cause a stir -- or maybe a revolution -- among taxpayers who are getting higher and higher tuition bills and are watching hundreds of millions of dollars in construction on UNC system campuses thanks to a bond issue they approved, university officials stress that they will raise the money for the house privately. That seems wrong, at least in the case of renovation. If the chancellor's house needs fixing, the public ought to pay for it -- they own it, after all. Building some new palace is a different story.
Lest your correspondent be accused of class warfare, let it be noted that he has been in the chancellor's home on several occasions. I've also visited the UNC-Chapel Hill chancellor's house, the UNC system president's house, and even the Duke president's home, though during the tenure of the late Terry Sanford, who didn't really visit the place much himself. In most cases, I was on official business, though Sanford used to have me over once a year for the famed "Varmint Dinner," wherein he would serve raccoon, possum and squirrel. Then there was "muskrat night," but let's not go there.
Chancellors ought to have nice houses. But where, oh where, did we get the notion that the leaders of public university campuses needed to live in regal mansions? And the weakest argument in favor of it, sometimes made by highfalutin alums, is that if you're going to recruit big donors, you have to court 'em in the manner to which they're accustomed. Or, that chancellors are just like corporate chief executive officers and thus are worthy only of plush digs such as those belonging to the Halliburtons and the GEs and the Enrons (oops...just kidding!) and Microsofts.
Wrong. And wrong. The presidents and chancellors who are revered in these parts were people of humility who left legacies notable for academic excellence, integrity and innovation. (At UNC-Chapel Hill, the list includes Bill Aycock and Bob House; at N.C. State, the late John T. Caldwell and former Chancellor Larry Monteith.) I don't know a one who gave a hoot about chandeliers. And the leaders who have been gifted as fund-raisers -- former UNC system Presidents Bill Friday and Dick Spangler and current President Molly Broad -- haven't gotten the money because they put donors' wallets atop Louis XIV chairs. They got it with the cause.
If I'm trying to convince some gazillionaire that I need a bunch of his or her money to renovate a dorm room, I'm taking them down to the old dorm and getting them a 'dog all the way and a Cheerwine before I hand them a hard hat and warn them to watch for falling plaster. I want them to know I need the money in a big way -- not hint at it over caviar and Dom.
It must be said that NCSU isn't the only place with a mansion malady -- as Simmons reported, Appalachian State University in Boone built a 12,400-square-foot home at a cost of about $2.5 million in 2001. At least in those parts there's the excuse of the air being a little thin, but it seems excessive nonetheless. At UNC-Chapel HIll, alum George Watts Hill's former home, Quail Hill, serves chancellors, and yes, it's a doozie of a place.
The N.C. State place may need some work, but it's nothing to be ashamed of, and any potential donor who might turn up his or her nose at having to dine there can just keep the money. Besides, it's a great location on Hillsborough Street, and easily accessible to campus. To move to some Taj MaPack out at the Centennial site would be a bad symbol in terms of getting the chancellor away from the historic main campus and students. Bad idea. Very bad.
And frankly, if boosters at these public universities share a mindset in this regal direction...well, let us hope someone doesn't look down one of these days from a chancellor's box at the football stadiums in Chapel Hill or Raleigh and ponder the entertainment possibilities (to amuse big donors, you know) of unleashing lions to feast upon faculty members. Surely, at least, they would protect those with tenure.
Author denies his novel is about Duke
Dec. 2, 2004
News and Observer
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
For a copy of this article, contact News Services at 515-3470.
Dec. 2, 2004
The Herald-Sun
By Jim Shamp
© Copyright 2004
DURHAM -- William Clyde Walker doesn't let the fact that he turned 100 on Aug. 4 keep him from tending his garden behind his house on Cole Mill Road.
Walker says his gardening hobby has helped him keep going. And it also means he's been enjoying some unusually nice collards this fall.
A slender 5 feet 8 inches tall, Walker says he never drank or smoked. He's done all the right things to enjoy long-term health, particularly getting born to longevity. His sister died recently at age 93. One uncle, Will Walker, lived to age 105 -- at the time, the oldest person in Orange County.
Walker was born on a farm in St. Mary's Township, Orange County, and attended the one-room St. Mary's School through the sixth grade. Then, after waiting an extra year to help his father tend the farm, he moved to Hillsborough to board with families within walking distance of Hillsborough High School.
He worked at the old Owl Pharmacy on West Main Street in Durham the summer after graduated in 1924, then went to North Carolina State College (now N.C. State University), graduating in business administration. He remains an avid NCSU football fan -- though he says the seats seem to be getting harder every year.
Walker spent most of his working life as an accountant, initially with Carl Delemar's firm in the former Washington Duke Hotel downtown. He subsequently spent 25 years with the Ashlin-Hutchings accounting firm, which included auditing the Durham County ABC Board.
He retired in 1971. His wife, Martha Browning Walker, died in 1985 at 78. They were married about 50 years. Walker continues to be active in the Pleasant Green United Methodist Church, where he served as treasurer for some two decades and also maintained the cemetery for many years.
Walker remains close to his three children -- sons William and Wayne, who live nearby, and daughter Betsy Newman, of Harrisonburg, Va.
"He's always got things to look forward to," said son Wayne. "Grapevines, fig trees, putting up fig preserves, cooking collards. He'll plant something, then look forward to it coming up."
-- Compiled by Herald-Sun science/health reporter Jim Shamp; 419-6633; jshamp@heraldsun.com.
Hopes alive, as US textile fronts embark on new frontiers
Dec. 2, 2004
Fibre to Fashion, India
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
U.S. textile quotas ending January next year have propelled the National Council of Textile Organizations, a protectionist lobbying group sound alarm bells about its state.
On the other end of the spectrum, textile manufacturers are churning fresh ideas ranging from revolutionary bandages that are saving lives in Iraq to tennis shirts that will not stink even after a week.
All agree that U.S. garment plants closed shop or have moved operations out of the country, in recent years. Mills in particular, those supplying fabric, yarn, and fiber mills have also faced layoffs and closings.
But, apparel accounts for one-third, at most, of the gross national textile product, according to Blanton Godfrey, dean of the Textile College at North Carolina State University. The bulk of U.S. textile production is in household and industrial items: everything from diapers, to carpeting, to crop covers, to highway underlining, to the cabin air filter in your Honda Accord.
In fact, any product made with natural or synthetic fibers is a textile. By that definition, many golf clubs and boat hulls are also textile products. Fibers will account for about half the weight of Boeing's upcoming 7E7 airliner. Most of this is still made in the U.S., and many manufacturers performing better, affirming Godfrey's claim that the textile industry is second only.
Dec. 1, 2004
Pioneer Press Online, IL
By JIM EDISON
© Copyright 2004
There was an abundance of emotion permeating Maine South Nov. 24 for the Hawks' double dual wrestling meet with Lake View and Ida Crown.
Aside from all the usual excitement that always goes with the first home meet of the season, it was an extra special occasion for the athletes, coaches and spectators. With ceremonies led by head coach Craig Fallico, the wrestling room that adjoins the fieldhouse was officially dedicated in the name of Brett Harman.
Harman, a 1999 graduate and state-place winning wrestler, was killed on Sept. 4 in a shooting at a North Carolina State University football game. His close friend, and son of Maine South assistant wrestling coach Denny McCann, Kevin McCann, also lost his life in the same tragic incident.
"Our kids took it upon themselves to deliver a great performance in honor of Brett," Fallico said. "This was a very, very important night to the entire Maine South wrestling community. I was so glad we had such a large crowd on hand."
The Hawks wrestlers responded to the significance of the evening with an outstanding effort on the mat. Fallico's squad rolled over Lake View 63-9 in the first round and then shutout Ida Crown 78-0.
Team captains Kevin McMahon, Dan Olszewski and Rick Loera led Maine South's assault on the competition. McMahon (125 pounds) racked up a win by fall and one by major decision, Olszewski (130) had a pair of pins and Loera (171) scored a major decision.
Other wrestlers with two wins for the night were Keith Contorno (103), Russ Cabral (112), Nick Lagattuta (119), Paul Osterberg (135), Matt Heller (145), Alex Friel (152), Alex Gersch (160), Marcos Rios (189), Mark Corsello (215) and Zach Elder (275).
One night earlier, South's matmen opened the 2004-05 season at Buffalo Grove with a 37-24 triumph. According to Fallico, the highlight of this meet was four victories by sophomores Contorno (103), Friel (152), Rios (189) and Corsello (215). Other wins came from Cabral (112), McMahon (125), Heller (145) and Loera (171).
"We start the CSL season Friday night (at 7 p.m. at Glenbrook South)," Fallico said. "And after the spirit demonstrated last week, I am even more optimistic about our chances to do well."
Anti-Arab witch-hunt on campus
Dec. 3, 2004
Socialist Worker, IL
By Nicole Colson
© Copyright 2004
A STRING of incidents on college campuses across the country shows how low the right wing will go to stifle opposition to the Bush administration’s racist policies.
The new witch-hunt on campus includes an attack on Arab and Muslim students at San Francisco State University (SFSU)--where at the beginning of November, College Republicans campaigning for George Bush accused four female Middle Eastern students of being “terrorists.”
As one of the women told Socialist Worker, “I walked over because I heard one of them call [another woman] a terrorist. One of the Republicans asked where I was from. When I said Iran, they ‘oohed’ and ‘ahed’ and said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to a terrorist.’” The Republican thugs reportedly called the women “sand niggers” and “camel jockeys”--and one slapped one of the women’s hands.
But incredibly, SFSU President Robert Corrigan has brought the four women up for disciplinary action. Corrigan demanded that the four apologize to the Republicans--and chastised progressive students for calling out the Republicans as racists.
The four women have been harassed by threatening phone calls and came under investigation by the Department of Homeland Security.
Meanwhile, in Raleigh, N.C., antiwar activists at North Carolina State University have been harassed by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) following a November 5 demonstration of 200 people at the local Republican Party headquarters, where some windows were broken. Afterward, JTTF agents began knocking on doors, questioning members of the Student Peace Action Network, Campus Greens and Middle Eastern-North African Student Association about the vandalism.
To hear the FBI tell it, this kind of random abuse is normal. “It’s just like any other crime or any other type of investigation: You have to interview people who were at the scene,” said Michael Saylor, supervisory special agent in the JTTF’s Raleigh office.
But this was no routine “investigation.” It was crude intimidation tactics.
As a statement signed by Raleigh-area progressive activists and organizations explains, “This is clearly an attempt to silence antiwar activists in the area and to label anyone who disagrees with the Bush agenda as a ‘terrorist.’ It is vital that all who support free speech denounce these tactics and support the antiwar community in Raleigh.”
That same attempt to silence activists is on display at Columbia University in New York City, where a campaign of harassment has been whipped up against Joseph Massad, a professor in the department of Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC), for supposed “anti-Israel bias.”
In reality, the campaign against Massad and MEALAC is a calculated attempt to squelch voices of opposition to Israel’s war on Palestinians. It coincides with recent attempts by some members of Congress--in conjunction with the Zionist Organization of America--to lobby the federal government to file charges against anyone calling on U.S. corporations and academic institutions to divest from Israel.
With the Bush administration claiming a “mandate” from the election, these attacks show that conservatives are feeling more confident in their efforts to silence those who oppose them. We have to send a message that we won’t let anyone--on our campuses or in Washington--get away with tearing up our rights.
David Russitano and Julie Southerland contributed to this report.
Purdue boasts new poinsettia colors
Dec. 2, 2004
Associated Press; Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, IN; WHAS 11
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
WEST LAFAYETTE – With poinsettia season under way, Purdue University is showing off a new painting technique that turns the traditionally red-leafed holiday plant such unorthodox colors as orange and deep blue.
Greenhouse growers from across Indiana and other states gathered Tuesday at Purdue for Poinsettia Day 2004 to learn about new varieties produced through an ongoing collaboration between Purdue, the University of Florida and North Carolina State University.
For 10 years, each school has been growing and evaluating different varieties of poinsettia in search of the best new plants.
Tuesday’s annual gathering showing off those results highlighted a painting technique that, with the aid of a special kit for growers, can give poinsettias shades of orange, deep blue and lilac.
Glitters can also be applied, in a variety of shiny colors.
“The quality is fine. It only changes the color. It doesn’t affect the plant,” said P. Allen Hammer, a Purdue horticulture professor who gave tours of the school’s poinsettia greenhouses.
Hammer said that while exciting colors and glitter finishes might be the newest thing for poinsettias, it is uncertain whether consumers will like it.
“The Europeans have loved it,” he said. “They’ve been doing it for a while. Here, I think typically it’s going to be the younger generation that likes it.”
Bernie Ferringer, who owns North Manchester Greenhouses, in North Manchester, likes the glitter concept but thinks it would be most marketable in large cities.
Ferringer has attended two of the yearly poinsettia shows, which offer growers a chance to ask questions of Purdue’s poinsettia experts and to look for new varieties and trends they might incorporate into their business.
“Hopefully, I’m confirming that I’m growing the right varieties already,” said Ferringer, who has had his greenhouse business for 30 years.
Hammer said Purdue and its two collaborating universities receive about 30 new types of poinsettias each year to evaluate. Three or four are chosen for commercial use based on their growth potential, leaf color and durability in shipping.
Nov. 27, 2004
Science News
By Sid Perkins
© Copyright 2004
If a bird's success is measured by how well it flies, then penguins rank low. Their aerial excursions are limited to hopping from one rock to another or, at best, punctuating their high-speed swims with short, arcing leaps from the ocean's surface to take a quick breath of air. By other gauges, however, penguins are successful indeed. With their streamlined shape, waterproof plumage, and thick layers of insulating fat, penguins are tailor-made for the marine environment. As a group, they occupy prime positions in coastal ecosystems from Antarctica to the equator.
Penguins, for example, account for about 80 percent of the avian biomass in the Antarctic region. The tallest species there is the emperor penguin, which grows to 1.2 meters under some of the coldest conditions on Earth. In contrast, knee-high Galápagos penguins live astride the equator and sometimes, as dogs do, have to pant to lose heat. Macaroni penguins breed in Antarctic and South American colonies that contain millions of individuals, but members of several other species nest alone in burrows, caves, or clumps of grasses in warmer locales. All penguins dine on seafood, but while some choose fish and squid, others consume krill—the tiny, teeming crustaceans that nourish many large whales.Scientists classify the 17 species of modern penguins into six genera. These groups seem so different from each other that scientists haven't been sure which ones are most closely related, let alone their connections to extinct species. Bernard A. Stonehouse, an ornithologist at the University of Cambridge in England, notes that, in the penguin world, "it's tough to tell who matches with whom."
However, using recent fossil finds and analyses of modern species, researchers are now beginning to sketch in the branches on the penguin family tree. What's more, DNA studies of one of the most common penguin species illustrate how forces of nature, such as climate changes during the last ice age, have shaped the penguin genome in relatively recent times.
Of a feather?
Early last century, most ornithologists reasoned that because penguins are flightless, they had evolved from other birds before those lineages took to the air. If that were the case, then the earliest penguins would have predated the 150-million-year-old Archaeopteryx, which most scientists consider to be the first bird.
Today, ornithologists agree that penguins evolved from flying ancestors much later, perhaps 80 million years ago. Their closest living relatives appear to be albatrosses, the graceful, soaring birds celebrated for their ocean-spanning trips in search of food for their young, says Marcel van Tuinen of Stanford University.
Several lines of evidence support that scenario. Fossils of early penguins, some discovered as long ago as 1859, resemble the skeletons of albatrosses. Scientists in the late 1950s noted that, for a short interval after hatching, the species known as the little penguin (Eudyptula minor), have nostril tubes similar to those characteristic of modern albatrosses and their close kin, says David Penny, an evolutionary biologist at Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand. Later, in the 1970s, studies of antibodies in birds' blood supported the view that penguins' closest modern relatives are albatrosses. More-sophisticated DNA analyses conducted in the decades since have bolstered that notion, van Tuinen notes.
Scientists are working to create a detailed family tree that maps out the penguin's evolutionary adventure. Norberto P. Giannini and Sara Bertelli of the American Museum of Natural History in New York recently compared 70 characteristics of each penguin species. The tally included bill shape, structure, and color; patterns of down and plumage for hatchlings, juveniles, and adults; and traits such as nesting behavior and the number of eggs laid in each breeding season.
The results of that analysis bolster a family tree with six major branches. They also confirm a previously suspected close kinship between the genus containing the little penguin (Eudyptula) which breeds along the coasts of New Zealand, Tasmania, and southern Australia, and the Spheniscus genus, which includes the Magellanic, Galápagos, and jackass penguins.
The data also suggest a previously unrecognized pairing between the Eudyptes genus, which includes the macaroni and rockhopper penguins, and the Megadyptes genus, whose sole species is the rare yellow-eyed penguin of New Zealand. The researchers reported their findings last April in The Auk, an ornithology journal.
Since preparing that article, the researchers have added more information to their penguin database, nearly doubling the number of characteristics related to the species' anatomy and including DNA data when available. The team's latest analysis shuffles the penguin family tree somewhat. It moves the emperor and king penguins closer to the base because it appears that they evolved away from the rest of the penguins earlier than the scientists had expected. The new findings were reported in Quebec City in August at a meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union.
Old birds
Fossils have turned up 40 or so species of extinct penguins. These flightless birds are better represented in the fossil record than are most other types of modern birds, for two reasons. First, because ancient penguins were seabirds, many of them died either on a beach or in near-shore waters, where marine sediments quickly covered their carcasses, says Nina E. Triche, a paleontologist at the University of Texas at Austin.
Second, the robust bone structure of penguins increases the likelihood that their remains will become fossilized. Early in penguin evolution, the bones, especially in the wings and hind limbs, became thick and dense. This change would have improved the ease with which the birds could dive to chase underwater prey. In contrast, the bones of flight-capable birds are highly buoyant because evolution has fine-tuned them to be thin, light, and, in some cases, filled with air. These extremely fragile bones tend to break down before they fossilize.
Besides acquiring dense bones, penguin ancestors evolved narrow wings with inflexible elbows that worked as streamlined hydrofoils, says R. Ewan Fordyce, a paleontologist at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. Another bone—the tarsometatarsus, which actually is a set of fused anklebones—is often found in other terrestrial animals but has a distinctive shape in penguins.
Today in the wild, penguins—except for a small number that live and breed just a few kilometers north of the equator on Isabela Island in the Galápagos—live in the Southern Hemisphere. That's also where all fossilized penguin bones have so far been found—a strong clue that the group originated somewhere in that region, Triche said in a review of penguin biogeography at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting in Denver early this month.
The fossil record suggests that penguins first appeared in or around New Zealand and spread from there, says the University of Cambridge's Stonehouse. Even in the warm seas of that region, a diving bird would have needed a significant layer of insulation to maintain its 39°C to 40°C body temperature, which is a couple of degrees warmer than a person's normal body temperature.
Such insulation could have provided the basis for later adaptations suitable for colder seas, regardless of whether a temperature drop stemmed from a move to higher latitudes or from the climate change associated with the formation of the Antarctic ice sheet, Stonehouse notes. Moving to the cooler waters nearer Antarctica would have enabled penguins to exploit the ecosystems where upwelling provided more food and predators were few.
The oldest penguin fossils—including three nearly complete but disarticulated skeletons from New Zealand—date to between 60 million and 58 million years ago. Scientists are still working to remove these fossils from rock and describe them.
None of the three skeletons includes a complete skull, but the remains "certainly look like an archaic penguin," Fordyce notes. Bones in the forelimbs of the species are shorter and broader than those found in modern albatrosses but aren't as short and broad as those in today's penguins. Also, the ancient creatures' elbows seem to have had some flexibility, and other bones farther out the forelimbs closely resemble those in a flight-capable bird, says Fordyce.
Bones of a single penguin recently excavated from sandstone rocks in Tierra del Fuego, at the southern tip of South America, have almost doubled the history of penguins on that continent. The 37-to-40-million-year-old fossils include several leg bones and part of a pelvis, says Julia A. Clarke of North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Some features of the upper-leg bone are similar to those of that bone in albatrosses. Details about where muscles had attached to the bone hint that the ancient creature used its legs when swimming in a different way than modern penguins do. Clarke and her Argentine colleagues describe the fossil in the Dec. 9 American Museum Novitates, a publication of the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
The newly described South American species, which would have been slightly smaller than today's emperor penguins, doesn't appear to be part of a lineage that survived to the modern day, says Clarke. Nevertheless, she notes, the find does provide clues about the distribution of early penguins at an important time in the group's evolution. The seabirds would have inhabited an extremely southern region at a warm period in Earth's history, before the world's climate cooled and a massive ice sheet covered the Antarctic continent.
Bones to pick
"The fossil record is interesting, but it raises more questions than it solves," says Stonehouse. For example, if penguins could spread north to the equator, why didn't they spread to the Northern Hemisphere? Even though the North and South Pacific Oceans are divided only by a line on the map, there may have been—and still may be—an ecological barrier between the hemispheres, says James L. Goedert of the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture at the University of Washington in Seattle.
It's not that flightless seabirds such as penguins couldn't live in the North Pacific, says Goedert. An analogue to penguins, the extinct plotopterids, appeared in the North Pacific about 37 million years ago. This group of birds, which at first glance must have looked like long-necked penguins, had dense bones and inflexible elbows, just as modern penguins do. However, they were descendants of pelicans and not closely related to the ancestors of penguins.
Plotopterids didn't make it in the long haul, however. The plotopterid species with the biggest body size died out about 25 million years ago, just as sea lions came on the scene. While these aquatic mammals may have preyed on the plotopterids, they may also have competed for food with the birds, says Goedert. Or, he notes, the sea lions might have preferred the same sites for breeding grounds, thereby displacing the seabirds and eventually causing their populations to plummet beyond recovery.
The smallest-bodied species of plotopterids disappeared from the fossil record about 19 million years ago, in the same era that a group of toothed whales went extinct. Whether these simultaneous die-offs are related remains unknown, says Goedert.
In the Southern Hemisphere, there are fewer large mammals that eat or compete with penguins.
Evolution marches on
The bones, feathers, and breeding habits of modern penguins aren't the only features yielding clues to the seabirds' evolutionary history. DNA from penguins that died hundreds or thousands of years ago is revealing population distributions.
Blood samples from hundreds of Adélie penguins in Antarctica indicate genetic differences that reflect two distinct lineages. One group, dubbed the Ross Sea lineage, lives and breeds only at sites along its namesake's coastline. The other, found at locales all around the continent, is referred to as the Antarctic lineage.
Penguins from the two groups look alike, often live together, and even interbreed, says David Lambert of Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand. However, the two lineages' mitochondrial DNA—which is passed down only through female penguins—suggests that, in the past, the species lived in two separate populations for an extended period.
To look into the history of these penguins, Lambert and his colleagues scrutinized DNA samples extracted from 96 sets of Adélie penguin remains buried in sediments at 17 Antarctic breeding sites. Carbon dating of the remains indicates when these penguins died, from 275 to about 6,400 years ago. The mutation rates of the mitochondrial DNA suggest that the two groups last had a common ancestor about 75,000 years ago.
That most recent common ancestor probably lived around the middle of the last ice age, when ice would have blanketed coastal Antarctica, says Lambert. Ross Island, which is near the Antarctic coast and today is home to several hundred thousand breeding pairs of the penguins, then would have been iced in and almost 900 km from icefree ocean—and therefore uninhabitable for Adélies which don't nest on ice. Lambert says that, as the ice age began, the Adélies, probably moved northward to remote islands that were warmer and therefore icefree.
The penguins of the two lineages would have lived and bred on isolated patches of rock in separate regions until the big thaw. Then, when sea ice retreated, the penguins moved southward again and together repopulated the fringes of the continent. Although the lineages can't be easily distinguished by looks or behavior, a genetic memory of their ice age exile remains.
So, even though penguins have been immensely successful, the forces of evolution continue to sculpt their genome.
Obituary: Charles Agard Shields
Dec. 2, 2004
News and Observer
CHARLES A. SHIELDS, 82, Nov. 27. Arrangements by Griffin Funeral Home.
MR. CHARLES AGARD SHIELDS, 82, of Pittsboro, NC, passed away early on November 27th after a short bout with cancer.
Mr. Shields is fondly remembered by his wife of 57 years, Jane Clifford Shields; their daughter, Linda P. Shields of Riverside, WA; sons, Charles A. Shields, Jr. of Ottawa, Canada, Andrew C. Shields of Wilton, CT. Mr. Shields was proud of his grandchildren, Ryan, 18, and Carly, 13. He is also survived by his brothers, Robert and Donald Shields.
" Chick" Shields was born in 1922 in New Haven, CT, and graduated from Haverford College in 1947. His productive and contributive life included US Army service in WWII, and 27 years in American foreign service. In retirement, he sat on many trade boards in Connecticut and North Carolina, and directed the NCSU International Trade Center. Mr. Shields also directed executive seminars for the Program for Humanities and Human Values at UNC. In addition, he was active in community support efforts such as Reading For The Blind and Habitat for Humanity.
A memorial service for Mr. Shields will be held at 3 PM, Sunday, December 5th, at The Community Church of Chapel Hill, to be followed by a Celebration of Life in Mr. Shields' honor.
The family requests that remembrances take the form of donations to the Pittsboro branch of UNC Hospice, or to the Haverford College Scholarship Fund.