Meredith Herald
Volume XU, lssue23 March 20,1996 Raleigh, North Carolina
Students give up Spring Break to help others
Meredith students help build a house for Habitat for Humanity during
Spring Break in St. Petersburg Ea.
By Addie Tschamler
Picture this: 20 Meredith women
running aroundSt, Petersburg, Florida
over spring break week with guns -
caulking guns that is - caulking guns
used to fill in cracks and crevices in
side the houses they were building for
the Pinellas County Habitat for Hu
manity. Beingoneofthose20 "armed"
women, let me give you a few of my
journal entries about the trip and tell
you a litde bit about what a group of
Meredith students can accomplish
when they put teamwork into prac
tice.
Waking up to a sunny, yet cool
Saturday morning, we boarded two
vans which would take us on our jour
ney to supposedly warm and balmy
Florida. >J^en we arrived Saturday
night at the church where we camped
out in Sunday school classrooms, ev
eryone seemed to have cabin fever,
either too tired to drag themselves off
the van or possessing too much en
ergy to setde down and go to sleep,
especially after listening to 80’s music
and the soundtrack itoxaPulp Fiction
all day, as my van occupants had to
endure, along with one too many verses
of Toni Basil’s former hit “Mickey."
(Let me just add here that all of these
women were escorted by our very
brave campus minister, SamCarothers.
Brave doesn’t seem a strong enough
word). But, nevertheless, after throw
ing our belongings into our rooms,
many of us decided to go on a late
night walk along the beach which was
right across the street. And by the
way, it was not balmy as we had hoped.
The wind had quite a little bite to it!
The next morning, we could hardly
wait to start exploring Florida after
attending the 11 a.m. church service
at the church in which we were resid
ing. While many took a stroll along the
beautiful peir nearby, others went to
the Salvador Dali Art Museum in St.
Petersbuig, while still others, two stu
dents and myself, spent the afternoon
going crazy in the Great Explorations
Science Museum, where we got to
make plastic dinosaurs and crawl
through a pitch black tunnel to see if
we could find our way out.
Sunday night, we all had an awe
some time at the annual Strawberry
Festival, which was a lot like the State
Fair. After riding various rides, eating
fair food and strawberries, and dancing
outside the gates of the Alabama con
cert ,we were all prepared to settle
down fora good rest before four days of
carpentry work.
On Monday, rain dampened the
grounds of St.Petersbui^, but it felled
todampenthespiritsofall the Meredith
women, who were out of bed at 6:30
am, 1 might add, to get ready for their
first day of hammering, building
shelves, painting and, yes, caulking
likeyou’veneverseendonebefore! As
See Habitat, page 5
Woman of the week: Charlayne Hunter-Gault
By Allison Carter
This American journalist knew at
the age of twelve that she wanted to
write. She was determined to be both'
awriter and television correspondent.
Charlayne Hunter was born in 1942 in
a small South Carolina town called of
Due West.
With the desire to be a journalist,
Charlayne wanted to receive her de
gree from the University of Georgia •
theonly university in the stateof Geor
gia with a journalism school. Unfortu
nately, the university was still segre
gated at the time for her entrance
during the late 1950’s. Charlayne
would not let a social problem hold
her back.
In the meantime, Chariayne at
tended Wayne State University which
was located in Detroit, Michigan. While
she was in Michigan, civU rights activ
ists fought for integration at the Uni
versity of Georgia. Eventually integra
tion was enforced and Charlayne trans
ferred back to Georgia. With this she
became the first black woman to at
tend the university.
After her graduation in 1963,
Charlayne became a secretary for the
New York City m^azine The New
Yorker. She agreed to work for the
publication with the understanding
she would be considered fora writing
position. In 1964, she became a con-
tribudng writer for the column ‘Talk
of the Town" where she wrote for
three years.
Charlayne then moved to Washing
ton, DC in 1967 when she joined the
staff ofWRC. Shewasananchorwoman
and investigative reporter for the local
evening news, however, Chariayne did
not stay in DC long. She moved back to
New York a year later.
For the next ten years, Charlayne
worked with the New York Times. She
mainly wrote stories based on the hap
penings of the Hariem area. Her work
with the Times won Chariayne three
individual Publisher’s Awards.
Once she left the Times, Charlayne
worked with WNET’s McNeill-Lehrer
News Hour. As of 1978 she was a corre
spondent and field reporter for the
show. In 1986, her accomplishments
were recognized with the Peabody
Award for her segment entitled
“Apartheid’s People.” During the Gulf
War, Charlayne focused her segments
on women who were in the military.
Charlayne Hunter-Gault is another
woman to whom future writers or any
business woman should look. This is a
woman who knew at a young age
where she wanted her life to go - it was
just a matter of getting there.
Chariayne worked her way throi^h
and never stopped. She would not let
anything stand in her way. That is the
type of attitude that all women shoidd
have when lacing any situation, espe
cially within the business worid.