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Life before Guilford: Serendipitous moments follow Parke Puterbaugh
ByTerah Kelleher
Staff Writer
When he was about 10-years-old, Part-Time Lecturer
in Music Parke Puterbaugh remembers walking into his
house and hearing "Shapes of Things" by the Yardbirds on
the radio.
"I literally stopped in my tracks and felt my knees go
wobbly," said Puterbaugh. "I immediately segued from
collecting baseball cards to buying records."
The shifts in Puterbaugh's life have come together like
a song where each note continues seamlessly to the next.
Three subjects are interwoven into his song, and his love of
writing brings them together.
"I envisioned a tripod," said Puterbaugh. "I thought if I
had music, travel, and environment, that if one thing went
away, I could depend on the other things."
Puterbaugh cultivated his love of writing by double-
majoring in English and Sociology at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After graduating in 1976, he
moved to New York and worked as an editorial assistant
with Oxford University Press.
Puterbaugh enjoyed New York's music scene throughout
his work week. Writing about music began when he took
the advice of a friend, applied to Rolling Stone, and got
the job.
"It wasn't even a possibility that I entertained," said
Puterbaugh. "It was almost too good to be true."
He started as a copy-editor. Luck struck when a co-work-
er asked him to cover an interview with Johnny Ramone.
This was Puterbaugh's first interview, and many more fol
lowed. "I just love interviewing and hanging around
musicians," said Puterbaugh. "They're so brilliant."
Puterbaugh built his career in New York for almost ten
years. One day while looking at a map of America in his
office at Rolling Stone, he had an idea.
"My eye went from Maine to Florida," said Puterbaugh.
"I thought, 'Wouldn't it be fun to drive from the tip of
Maine to Key West and write about the beaches along the
way?"'
He asked his best friend from college, Alan Bisbort, to
travel with him. They had bonded over a British music
magazine while working at the graduate library.
"Being a young man of high standards, long hair, and
good musical taste, Parke often brought imported music
magazines with him to work," said Bisbort in an e-mail
interview.
Puterbaugh and Bisbort collaborated and wrote four
travel books together about the east and west coast beaches.
"We were basically beach bums for six months, working
out of the trunk of the car with an electric typewriter," said
Puterbaugh.
Puterbaugh noticed the over-construction at the beaches
he visited. This led him to get his Masters Degree in
Environmental Science in 1996 and he wrote a book for the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Tennessee
Valley Authority in 1997.
Even after leaving Rolling Stone, he freelanced for them
for the next 20 years. A one-time interview with Phish
turned into writing for the band for 15 years. Their biog
raphy is among the many musical artists' biographies that
he has written.
"It all shakes out that I mostly wrote about music any
way because that's where the work was," said Puterbaugh.
Fittingly, he met his wife, Carol, at a music show at the
Cat's Cradle in Chapel Hill 20 years ago and they have a
14-year-old daughter, Hayley.
With all the other serendipitous moments woven into
Puterbaugh's life, the one leading him to Guilford was a
telephone call from Tim Lindeman, professor of music.
This call would combine two dreams of Puterbaugh's and
that was to teach about what made his "knees go wobbly''-
at 10-years-old: rock and roll.
(Left) Part-
time Lecturer
in Music Parke
Puterbaugh
chats in a King Hall
classroom.
(Right) Puterbaugh
(far right) and his
Editor at Sound &
Vision Magazine
Ken Richardson
(far left) hang
with Phish band
members Jon
Fishman, drummer,
(center left) and
Trey Anastasio
guitarist (center
right).The photo
was taken in April
2000 in Anastasio's
studio, "The Barn" in
Burlington, Va.
Civil Rights: a shared past, present and future
By Aardra Rajendran
Staff Writer
A yellowed and fraying police arrest
slip, worn at the corners, charges a
Guilford College student — one of our
own — Huldah "Beth" Taylor '66. The
year is 1963. The crime is trespassing.
Taylor is not alone. She is joined by hun
dreds of other university students who
are made to line up as patrol vans swerve
around the curb corners and come to a
screeching halt in front of Greensboro's
S&W Cafeteria.
One of only four white students to be
arrested on that fateful day — May 15,
1963 — Taylor was part of the long and
harsh struggle against prejudice and racial
discrimination in America.
The S&W Cafeteria saw massive sit-ins
and protests that challenged the accept
ed norms of segregation in the 1960's.
Greensboro's civil rights movement gained
momentum with the sit-in at Woolworths
lunch counter and turned heads with the
massacre of 1979, which saw the death
of five protestors after a march for fare
wages by the local textile union.
As a Guilford College student, Taylor
was also heiress to centuries of Quaker
traditions and values.
"Human equality is inherently pres
ent within Quakerism," said Max Carter,
director of the Friends Center and campus
ministry coordinator. "The early Quakers
who settled in Greensboro were highly
sensitized to the issue of slavery and abo
litionism."
Vice President for Academic Affairs and
Academic Dean Adrienne Israel remem
bers the excitement and danger of the
1960's and 70's. However, she also remem
bers how many of the youth protested and
marched for fame and attention rather
than the desire to better the lives of those
in need.
"I always tried to remember that what
ever I got involved in should have mean
ing beyond my own life and experience
and should be about something that would
improve life for others," said Israel in an
e-mail interview.
So what does all this mean for the
youth of today? Director of Multicultural
Education Holly Wilson looks at the pro
cess as an ongoing and continuous one that
involves taking chances, making mistakes,
and moving forward as a community.
"Seeking understanding and being open
to new worldviews will have a positive
impact on the ways in which they can fur
ther equality and acceptance," said Wilson
in an e-mail interview.
Tahira Siddiqui, a student from Pakistan,
expressed her desire to increase cultural
awareness in the Guilford community.
She and her friends Blessing Ihedioha
and Gillian M'Maitsi are part of the
International Club at Guilford. Currently,
they are organizing presentations and cul
tural activities in honor of African heri
tage by representing Cameroon, Haiti, and
Nigeria.
Time leaves an imprint upon the minds
of those who have lived to see it and his
tory builds the foundation for the future
over and over again.
Even though there is a great differ
ence in circumstance between the youth
of today and those of the 1960's and 70's,
there is still work to be done.
"We are in the same place in terms of
the need to seek justice and equality in
our larger society," said Israel. "Sexism,
chronic poverty, and racially based injus
tices in our education system and other
institutions still plague our nation and our
world."
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