Newspapers / Gardner-Webb University Student Newspaper / Dec. 1, 1954, edition 1 / Page 3
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November, 1954 t H £: P I L O T Page Three UK. ROBERT ELLIOTT Professor Of The Month On November 7, 1915, Robert N, Elliott was born in the Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte. Today, still an active Presbyterian, he is known as Dr. Bob, professor of history at Gardner-Webb College. Dr. Bob graduated from Sharon High School, Charlotte, ini 1933, and from Appalachian State Teach ers College in 1938. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of North Carolina. While at Appalachian, Dr. Bob played the trumphet in the band, was business manager of the annual, and asso ciate editor of the dramatic maga zine, the Playbill. In 1942 Dr. Bob entered the Unit ed States Air Force where he achieved the rating of corporal. While in the Air Force, he worked in photography as a motion picture cameraman at Hal Roach Studios in Hollywood, Calif. Dr. Bob work ed with Alan Ladd, who was also in the Air Force at that time, in making orientation, propaganada, and publicity pictures. After his re lease from the Air Force in 1946, Dr. Bob worked as Studio Manager of Dunbar Studios in Charlotte. In 1945, he was married to Elizabeth Harris of McCormick, S. C. Mrs. Elliott is a graduate of Erskine Col lege, where she majored in Fi-ench and education. Dr. Bob’s list of past occupations includes work as a short order cook in Boone, driving a bus on scenic mountain trips in 1939, and tutor ing athletes for $2 an hour at the University of North Carolina. At one time Dr. Bob played the trumphet with “Freddie Moore and his Caro-lome,” a band which travel ed and played at hotels and other resorts. At the beginning of each performance the listeners had t,he pleasure of hearing Dr. Bob do the trumphet solo introduction to the theme, “Stardust.” Writing, reading, and teaching are Dr. Bob’s hobbies. The first of these is evidently a serious one, because a book, Raleigh Register, with Dr. Robert N. Elliott as its author, comes off the University of North Carolina Press this spring. The book treats the history of the Raleigh Register, ante bellum, before the war. Dr. and Mrs. Elliott reside on Greene Street in Boiling Springs, and attend the Shelby Presb^erian Church where Dr. Bob is a deacon. Because of his campus-wide popu larity, his position as personal friend of the students, and his ever present and pleasant personality. Dr. Bob has been chosen by the Pilot staff as Professor of the Month. DRAMATIC PLAY SUCCESS (Continued from page 2) awakens, and realizing Romeo’s er ror, kills herself with his dagger. At the tomb, over these sacrifices of their emnity, Montague and Capulet clasp hands and are at last reconciled. Thus the play ends. Congratulations, cast, on your performance in this great drama. 1954 Declared Best Year For Baptist Colleges (From the Fall Semester Bulletin to Baptist College Personnel) The activities in the work of the seven Baptist colleges are very num erous and interesting, and it is evi dent that this school year is one of the best the colleges have had. The present enrollment figures indicate on the whole an increase of 10% over that of one year ago. This percentage is expected to rise considerably in the second semester of this year, for already the col leges are beginning to feel the ef fect of that rising tide of youth who will continue to knock at their doers for many years to come. At this particular time the height of this wave rolls through the elemen tary schools and is approaching the high schools. Its full force will not reach the colleges for some few j,ears yet. The costs for operating these col leges ar3 too numerous to list, and reduction of the costs is not anti cipated in the near future, for with the ever-increasing enrollments the potential deficit in operations rises accordingly. The day cannot be ex pected to come when the students can provide the total cost of their education. In fact, it is imcumbent upon the college, if possible to as sume a greater share of this edu cational cost in the future than it has in the past. Chiefly, the seven Baptist colleges have three sources of operating in come—students, endowment, and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina. Certainly students con tinue to present courage and de termination as they carry a greater part of this financial burden. It is becoming increasingly difficult to secure adequate endowment, and in the family of seven Baptist colleges only Wake Forest has endowment support of any consequence. The Nine-Year Financial Prgram of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina continues to be the hope not only for the ever-increas- ing needs of the colleges but for every department, institution and agency of the total Convention pro gram. Surely it is the one great unifying challenge and should be protected and cherished as the backlog of the financial undertak ings in the Kingdom work. The goal through the Cooperative Program for 1955 is $2,840,000. Of this amount a little more than one- half would be retained for work within the state, the balance going for Southwide objects. Of the amount remaining in North Caro lina, the seven colleges will receive $440,000 for operating purposes and almost $700,000 for capital outlay. The amount for operation is reason ably assured and becomes a first claim upon our Cooperative Program funds, with any shortage coming in capital funds. John Charles McNeill irntl,V"^lqutr™k’^r i^° Poet, Reporter, Humorist By F. B. DEDMOND COLLEGE STUDENTS Meet Your Friends At The College Snack Bar FLOWERS GILLIATrS Shelby, N. C. Dial 5221 Compliments of YOUNG BROTHERS FURNITURE Shelby, N. C. John Charles McNeill, the Scotch man from Riverton, North Caro lina, spent the last three years of his life as a special writer for the Charlotte Observer. McNeill was proud (and who isn’t), and he clip ped many of the laudatory notices he received during those years with the Observer and pasted them — along with several letters he treas ured—in a folio volume now in the Dover Memorial Librai-y of Gard ner-Webb College. McNeill, so the first clipping in the colume reports, was to begin his association with the Observer in August 1904, “and after the 1st of September will be regularly attach ed to the staff.” Already McNeill was regarded as “one of the bright est literary lights in North Caro lina,” and the Observer was glad to have him—felicitated itself on the fact, another paper reported. Perhaps McNeill saw what H. E. C. (Red Buck) Bryant, then city editor of the Observer, had written and was convinced: “He is making the mistake of his life by wasting the days of vigorous youth trifling with law when fame and fortune await him in a work that has been made for him.” Anyway, whatever the case may have been, McNeill abandoned politics (he had served in the state legislature) and be came the Observer’s poet, special writer, and humorist. McNeill’s newspaper column “Squaw Talk and Ginger” and his poems elicited praise—or at least comment—from many quarters. The Gaffney, South Carolina, Ledger— while admitting that he didn’t look it—called him a poet of rare ability. The Warrenton Record called him “one of the most brilliant literary men in the State.” Even poems to him or about him began to appear in such newspapers as the Gastonia Gazette and the Charlotte Chronicle, no doubt to the amusement of Mc Neill. So much was he praised that the Lumberton Argus reported that it feared for his head, and the Nor folk Virginian-Pilot declared that the Observer had been "chesty ever since it found a man who could real ly write poetry.” But how about this “Squaw Talk and Ginger”? Editor Marshall of the Gastonia Gazette, McNeill re ported, said that “Squaw Talk and Ginger” was not “ a nice name for anybody’s column in a good news paper.” And McNeill admitted it. “The name has looked,” McNeill wrote, “more and more boring every inventor. ‘Squaw ' self is a healthy, sound-lunged ex pression, and somewhat striking and unusual. But the combination, ‘Squaw Talk and Ginger,’ is too smart; there is too much of the Merry Andrew in it; too much of the sophomore that dries his nose o’l a two dollar bill.” And so he buried the column. It seems as if McNeill could write “however he pleased.” He was sent by the Observer to cover the in auguration of President Theodore Roosevelt. The President’s daughter Alice, McNeill wrote, was “as pretty as a peach,” but Theodore, Jr., “looked like any railsplitter or broncho-buster, with ragged hair, tremendous mouth and cloddish ap pearance.” And get this: “At last President Roosevelt and Chief Just ice Fuller hove in sight, harbinger- ed by a deal of clapping and whoop- Through it all McNeill continued to write poetry for the papers and the magazines, especially the Cen tury Magazine, and his fame didn’t wane. In 1905, he was awarded the William Houston Patterson Memor ial cup, which was given to the resident of North Carolina who “dis played, either in prose or poetry, without regard to its length, the greatest excellence and the highest literary skill and genius.” It just so happened that President Theodore Roosevelt was paying a visit to North Carolina and someone got the happy idea of having him present the gold cup to McNeill. It seems that Gov- enor R. B. Glenn on October 13, 1905, wrote McNeill asking him to be the Governor’s guest on the 18th and 19th of October. After break fast with the Pi-esident on the morn ing of the 19th, McNeill and others went to the North Carolina Senate Chamber, where—perchance amid some clapping and maybe even a bit of whooping—the President pre sented McNeill with the Patterson Memorial Cup. McNeill’s accept ance speech written in pencil in his own hand is preserved in the clip ping book now in the possession of the Dover Memorial Library. McNeill was the darling of the Observer. Even when he bit down on the wrong end of a match and it went off in his mouth, that made the paper. The publication of his volume of peoms. Songs, Merry and Sad, in 1906—a volume of peoms, having “the delicious Southern fla vor and the tender touches of the old plantation life—and the publi cation of Lyrics from Cotton La.nd, in 1907 further enhanced his poetic reputation and fame. And one can only wonder, had he lived past his thirty-third year, if he could have extended the bounds of his fame and could have written poetry which would have lived beyond his day and established him as a major American poet. He died on October 17, 1907, in “Castle Thunder,” his large up stairs room in the McNeill home in Scotland County. THE SHELBY DAILY STAR PUBLISHERS AND PRINTERS SHELBY, N. C.
Gardner-Webb University Student Newspaper
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Dec. 1, 1954, edition 1
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