The Clarion
Slogan of the week:
Of the students, for the
students, by the students
Volume 74, Issue 18
SERVING THE BREVARD COLLEGE
COMMUNITY SINCE 1935
February 20, 2009
'Voice of Rivers' provides unique opportunity
By Brian Randall
Contributor
Not very often does a professor pause
a lecture to note how many alligators are
splashing into the water
Voice of the Rivers is, and I mean this with
the utmost sincerity, a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity.
What is so great about it? Over the past
several weeks we have seen lots of peer-
and career-related benefits in emails, flyers
and articles, so I won’t touch on those again
except to say they are great benefits of the
program.
I went on the 2008 trip and I did learn a
lot. I have some new great friends, but what
I have that only Voice of the Rivers could
have given me are stories of a lifetime.
In a similar way to Huck Finn, you float
down a river and make the best of afl your
encounters.
I met a man named Keimy Dugger one
very hot afternoon after a 21-mfle paddle.
He came up to ask me why my “boat
In this issue...
FEATURES:
Why was there a bed sitting in the
middle of Coitrane?
Professor profiles; The Shoe King 4
ARTS AND LIFE:
Valentine's Day music reviews 7
NEWS:
Time is running out to get your work in
the campus literary mag 3
Facebook Etiquette 5
SPORTS:
Baseball takes 2 of 3 from visitng
IVIercyhurst 6
Basketball wins on Think Pink night... 6
ODDS AND ENDS:
American Hero 8
Pop Culture Grid 8
Cartoon! 5
Photo courtesy of VOR 2008
The 2008 VOR team reached the Atlantic Ocean at Tybee Island, Ga., on June 4 after 21 days
on the Savannah River. Pictured are Clyde Carter, James Davisson, Margaret Ann Medley,
John Wargo, John Greene, Joe Raymond (VOR alum), Carrilea Potter, Scott Brown, Merek
Slagle, Liz Thompson, Kelsey Bracewell, Brian Randall, Graham Tolbert, Ken Chamlee and
Jenna Pace.
didn’t have no motor” and just where I
was going.
I simply said, “The ocean.”
About that time he threw his Chihuahua
he called Guberhead out of his johnboat
onto the shore. And he started asking us
afl these questions. Where are you from?
What are you trying to do?
Once he figured out we were from a col
lege, he got to quizzing us about the river’s
history. Wefl, he sure knew a lot more about
the river than us fancy coflege folk, but he
wanted to share some of its history with us
so he invited some of us to go in his boat
with Guberhead to see what the river was
afl about.
Clyde Carter and I hopped in that boat and
we went on our way. I opened a couple of
beers for Keimy on the way down the river
and Guberhead looked like George Wash
ington at the front of the boat. We pufled up
to this random shore and hopped out.
Keimy had been explaining afl about the
Civil War and the river’s significance and
some geological history, so I was curious
what was significant about this shore.
He pointed to a fossflized shell and ex
plained it was a couple thousand years
old. He tried to pick it up and it snapped
in half, he shrugged it off and told us there
were plenty.
I was looking at Clyde and trying not to
laugh but his expression made that near
impossible. Then he took a sip of his beer
and a deep breath and told us why that shore
was so significant.
“My daddy used to drop me and my
brother off here when he went off with
his whore.” Kenny was a serious man,
hardened by a life of factory work and I
am just a goofball college kid who was
giving it everything I had not to be like
Jimmie Fallon.
Clyde was standing behind Keimy wide-
eyed with his mouth open and a huge
smfle.
“You afl don’t know much about those
days. But my bother and I would sit here
fishing for a couple days at a time then
daddy would come back and pick us up.
Wefl, that’s it—let’s go.”
We got back in the boat he yelled at Gu
berhead to jump back in and we were on
our way 20 minutes back upstream. Then
Kenny said something I didn’t expect: “Life
is like a river If I could do it again, I would
take it slow like y’afl are doing.”
He dropped us off Scott Brown, who
was writing our daily blog, asked how to
spefl his name and Kenny said, “You’re in
college and you don’t know how to spell
Kenny?” That was the only time when I
was with Kenny when I felt it was safe
to laugh.
“Come on Guberhead!” And just like that
Kenny Dugger was off.
Everyone who went on that trip has sev
eral stories like that. Voice of the Rivers
is a real life adventure. We are afl young,
but it is better to have more stories than
dreams and that is what a trip like that is
afl about.