PAGE 2 — THE DECREE — MARCH 15,1996
1
Fulfilling a historian’s fantasy,
President Thomas Jefferson
fielded tough questions from a
panel of professional reporters in
a public performance Feb. 21 at
N.C. Wesleyan College during his
second visit to Nash County.
Sponsored by the Spring Hope
Enterprise and hosted on campus
by the Decree student newspa
per, the free hour-long “inter
view” with the author of the Dec
laration of Independence was held
before a tiny crowd in the Powers
Recital Hall.
Colonial Williamsburg charac
ter interpreter Bill Barker, the of
ficial “Thomas Jefferson” for both
Williamsburg and Independence
Hall in Philadelphia, portrayed
Jefferson in the year 1809, the
last year of his presidency. This
allowed the interviewing panel
ists to ask him questions cover
ing his entire political career.
Three award-winning editors
participated in the interview, in
cluding Hal Tarleton, editor of
the Wilson Daily Times', Rick
Stewart, editor and publisher of
the Kenly News weekly newspa
per; and Ken Ripley, editor and
Zarr appointed center’s
new technical director
Jan Zarr, one of North Caro
lina Wesleyan’s newest faculty
members, is the Dunn Center’s
new Technical Director.
Zarr will be charge of design
ing all sets and of arranging the
various crews. He is also in charge
of booking all events that will
take place in the Dunn Center as
well as making sure all needs will
be met.
In the fall, Zarr will also be
come an adjunct professor.
Zarr attended college at the
University of Southern Colorado
where he received his B.A., then
received his MFA Degree from
Texas Christian College in Fort
Worth, Tex. He became interested
in the theater while he was act
ing.
“I like working behind the
scenes,” he said.
■
■1
JANN ZARR
publisher of the Spring Hope En
terprise, who also acted as mod
erator.
The evening Jefferson inter
view was part of a three-day visit
by Barker to Nash County. “Presi
dent Jefferson” held “press con
ferences” and visited classrooms
for three days at Southern Nash
and Northern Nash Senior High
Schools, Southern Nash Junior
High School, and Bailey Elemen
tary School.
The school visits were co
sponsored for the second year by
the Spring Hope Enterprise and
Nash-Rocky Mount Schools.
Ripley said he had the idea for
the evening interview when he
joined Barker in visiting high
school classrooms last year.
“Jefferson appears in charac
ter, in the year 1809. The stu
dents really enjoyed asking him
questions, and occasionally so did
I. We would even continue our
discussion when the students
weren’t present,” Ripley said. “It
occurred to me that it would be
entertaining as well as educational
to see how Jefferson would react
to real, unrehearsed questions
from a panel of real veteran re
porters.”
Ripley said he wanted the for
mat of the evening to be a lively
cross between “Meet the Press”
and “Crossfire.”
“The point was to have a lively
exchange of questions and an
swers that probed into the mind
and character of one of America’s
founders,” he said. “I really en
joyed the evening and I hope the
few people who showed up did
too.”
Wake-up call
from ‘God’
annoys college
INTERVIEWING A PRESIDENT — “President Thomas Jefferson,” played by Williamsburg char
acter interpreter Bill Barker (left) answers questions from professional journalists (from left) Ken
Ripley, Hal Tarleton, and Rick Stewart during an hour-long interview in Powers Recital Hall.
‘Jefferson’ visits Wesleyan
By MOLLY McCLUSKEY
Clinton King and John
Bracken have hung a computer
generated sign on their door in
South Hall. On this sign a quote
from JFK states, “Those who
make peaceful revolution impos
sible make violent revolution in
evitable.”
Revolution is hardly, however,
what happened on campus as calls
from “God” began mysteriously
appearing on campus wide voice
mail several times in the early
hours of the morning of Feb. 18.
The callers — King, Bracken,
Christian Skinner, Jack Herbert,
and Marshall Murray —tapped
into Nash’s study room and sent
the messages from there.
The calls themselves, said
SGA President Terrell Adgers,
were “more of a nuisance than
anything else. It wasted my time
to hear what they were and delete
them, and it wasted their time and
energy to call. The fact that they
used God’s name on the voice
mail didn’t bother me.”
He continued that the only
thing which upset him about the
situation was “invasion of space.
It bothers me to a small degree
that there was something ftiere
that 1 didn’t want there.”
However, it bothered others
when they awoke and found
“God” reminding them that they
were being watched. Grant Long,
for one, thought, “Anyone who
would use God or religion in con
text to make it a joking matter
needs psychiatric help.’’
King said the using of God’s
name wasn’t a religious statement
but a political one. “It fit,” he
explained. “It (God) was an all
knowing, all-powerful being, and
it was everywhere.”
Some people still didn’t be
lieve or accept the explanation.
Several answered the voice mail.
King admits there were some
threats on the answered messages.
To this he replied with e-mail
messages, calling those who were
offended derogatory names and
saying they were taking things
too seriously. There was an ob
lique reference on the e-mail mes
sage to a “Monday is Writers’
Day” reading, but nothing was
made clear.
When the e-mail inboxes were
deleted. King believed that eras
ing of the Internet material was a
direct response to the God e-mail
messages and that it violated FBI
codes of e-mail privacy. But Pat
Boyd said it did not.
“Any e-mail belongs to the or
ganization which provides the ser
vice. We erased the e-mail only
as a last resort when someone off
campus began sending mail that
overloaded the system,” he said.
“We complied with the North
Carolina Wesleyan policy which
states we must request permis
sion from the Vice President of
Admissions, which was done.”
Most students quickly forgot
the incident. Mohammed Said
said the whole situation was “ba-
'Sically harmless.”
■ The charges will not be pur-
su^a.^i^ Christian Skinner e,\-
plained, “The charges are not be
ing pursued because of the way
we presented ourselves as a group
and as individuals to Pam
Gourley. We realized the serious
ness of our actions.”
He was careful to point out,
however, “Not that we learned
our lesson. That sounds infantile.”
Adgers said, “For their own
safety, I sincerely hope they won’t
do it again. It may agitate people
to do something we may all re
gret when it’s done.”
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