Appalachian Alumni Association

The Greensboro News & Record has a nice piece in which new Duke Head Football Coach David Cutcliffe praises the efforts of Jerry Moore to recruit great North Carolina talent:

…Somehow, this was different. Cutcliffe had their attention before they even walked into the auditorium. They’d just heard Appalachian State coach Jerry Moore lecture and cajole on the nuances of his Mountaineers’ spread offense, just been indoctrinated in the intricacies of the Appalachian Fake 49 Y-Slant. And now here was the quarterback coach himself, the coach of Peyton Manning and Eli Manning and Heath Shuler and Erik Ainge and Todd Helton.

He had every eye and ear in the state.

They played the annual East-West All-Star football game Wednesday night, and almost every coach in town was really here for that. But they didn’t take notepads to the game. They didn’t take pencils and backup pencils and their tape recorders and their assistants to make sure they had enough paper and batteries.

The high school coaches filed in and sat at attention, first for Moore, who has won three straight national titles and has everyone’s attention statewide right now, even that of Cutcliffe.

“Jerry was the first to figure it out,” Cutcliffe said. “He’s the one who knew, before it even happened, that a pipeline of talent was going to start coming out of North Carolina, coming out of the East-West game. And he got those kids to go to App before anybody else knew what was going on.”

Cutcliffe wants to model his program, in part, on the success of ASU and Wake Forest, programs that sprang from the North Carolina soil with homegrown talent to shock the rest of the nation. If he’s able to do the same at Duke, it will come as a shock to many.

There is more buzz popping up about Appalachian’s involvement with the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis. From The Salisbury Post:

KANNAPOLIS—Appalachian State University’s human performance lab at the N.C. Research Campus could open this summer.

“Plans are progressing,” lab director Dr. David Nieman wrote in an e-mail. “I hope to have my lab space located at the NCRC by August and be fully operational early in the fall.”

State funding for the ASU Human Performance Laboratory in Kannapolis has yet to be determined, said Dr. Lorin Baumhover, Appalachian State’s chief of staff.

While the university awaits the final state budget, it continues talks with N.C. Research Campus founder David H. Murdock and his real estate development company Castle & Cooke North Carolina.

“We are still in active negotiations with Mr. Murdock and his staff, so we look forward to continuing that dialog,” Baumhover said.

While Castle & Cooke will construct all buildings on the 350-acre Research Campus, public universities with a presence there must rely on the state to fund salaries and programs and pay rent.

Appalachian State will be the eighth university conducting research in Kannapolis this fall. The school’s focus on exercise makes it an exciting new partner, said Lynne Scott Safrit, president of Castle & Cooke North Carolina.

“I wish it had been part of the initiative from day one,” she said. More…

The Hickory Daily Record reports that Catawba County voted unanimously yesterday to partner with Appalachian State on a biodiesel research facility.

Without a nickel of taxpayer money being spent, Catawba County is getting into the alternative fuel business.

With a unanimous vote Monday, the board of commissioners approved a partnership between the county and Appalachian State University for a biodiesel research facility, the first of its kind in the state, officials said.

“This has been a long time coming,” said Barry Edwards, director of the county’s Utilities and Engineering Department.

ASU will use $1.4 million from the Golden LEAF Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the UNC General Administration and the N.C. Biotechnology Center to fund a $1,000 per month lease on the building to be constructed on the county’s Blackburn Landfill property.

The county will use money from the state’s Solid Waste Enterprise Post Closure Reserve Funds.

“Absolutely no tax money is going into this at all,” Edwards said. “It will be constructed with Post Closure funds. The usage of these funds has to be approved by the state and we were able to levee this as part of this fund.” More…

From The Mount Airy News on the passing of beloved historian and Appalachian alumna Hester Bartlett Jackson ’73 (MA):

One of Surry’s foremost historians has passed away, but the body of work Hester Bartlett Jackson is leaving behind will benefit county residents for generations to come.

Jackson, a resident of Dobson, died Saturday at age 84.

In addition to authoring a regular column on local history that was published in The Mount Airy News for more than 20 years, she wrote a book, “Surry County Soldiers in the Civil War.”

However, the local historian devoted countless hours to the less-glamorous role of poring through dusty records at courthouses, libraries and churches to compile information useful to those tracing their family histories.

Key genealogical details on births, deaths, censuses, marriages and wills of yesteryear are available today because of the tireless work people like Hester Jackson undertook, a colleague of hers said Saturday night.

“I think how Hester felt about it was it was such a joy to be able to help others,” said Agnes Wells, another local historian who worked with Jackson on various projects. “I think she got her satisfaction mostly out of that.”

“She really cared about this county,” Wells added. Ironically, Jackson was not born in Surry, but Wayne County.

An honor graduate of Salem College and Appalachian State University, she became a librarian with the Northwest Regional Library system that oversees public libraries in Surry. Her late husband Charles was a longtime official of the Surry County Cooperative Extension Service.

Two other qualities that Hester Jackson is remembered for are important ones for the historical community as well: her accuracy and generosity. “She was really good and she was really generous to share, too,” Wells said of the research Jackson developed.

“One of the things about Hester was that she had such a good sense of humor, and she was such fun to be with - she just made the work fun.”

Jackson’s funeral is scheduled Monday at 2 p.m. at Roberts Grove Baptist Church in Dunn, where one of her four sons resides. Burial will be in the church cemetery. The late historian also is survived by four grandchildren.

My apologies for the sound of crickets that were heard on this blog last week. I was enjoying my wedding and honeymoon. Appalachian was well represented at both (see above).

As I catch up with Appalachian hAPPenings that took place during my absence, feel free to send stories that you would like to see on the blog to parkerlb@appstate.edu.

I’ll be out of the office next week for the Big Day. If you need anything from the alumni office, e-mail us at alumni@appstate.edu or call 866-756-ALUM.

Appalachian alumnus John Loftin ’06 has been dubbed the “Carolina’s Funniest Comic” by DSI Comedy Theater. The Chapel Hill News has a story on this North Carolina native and former Mountaineer:

John Loftin steps onto the stage, thanks the audience for its welcoming applause and takes the microphone from its stand.
“So I was at my gynecologist’s this week …” he begins.

You can’t see the audience in the video posted on Loftin’s MySpace page, but you can hear it. Loftin, low-key and engaging, gets the crowd on his side from the start, and they stay there, laughing and applauding, through the rest of the nearly 12-minute show.

Although he’s been doing standup comedy for only a year and a half, Loftin clearly has a knack for it — so much so that he recently outperformed many more seasoned performers to win DSI Comedy Theater’s competition to name Carolina’s Funniest Comic.

Loftin, a 25-year-old Hillsborough native, emerged from six weeks of competition and a field of 29 comics with the title. Nobody was more surprised than Loftin.

“I entered this competition knowing that I’d lose,” he said. “I mean, there were people competing that have been doing this for nine years. I’ve been performing for a little more than a year. Honestly, I didn’t think I’d make it to the second round.”

Loftin got his start in comedy doing college radio at Appalachian State, where he wrote skits for avariety show hosted a cooking show and noticed that his natural on-air manner tended to draw laughs

He decided to go with that strength and give standup a shot. More…

From The Bleacher Report:

In a rare meeting of the two current national champions in their divisions, the Louisiana State Tigers challenge the Mountaineers of Appalachian State in the opening game of the 2008 season.

One year ago, App. State went into the alma mater of LSU coach Les Miles, the University of Michigan, and defeated the Wolverines on their own field. Four months later, Michigan beat defending national champion Florida in the Citrus Bowl.

Fifty years ago this season, Ohio native Paul Dietzel brought the National Championship to LSU, defeating Clemson 7-0 in the Sugar Bowl to finish 11-0. Dietzel left LSU after the 1961 season to coach at West Point.

Following a stint as coach at South Carolina, Dietzel left the field, and eventually retired to the mountain resort town of Blowing Rock, N.C.

Blowing Rock. Five miles from Boone, N.C. The same Boone, N.C. that is home to Appalachian State University.

Adding to this strange confluence of events is the fact that Dietzel is publishing an auto-biography, “They Call Me Coach”, due to hit the shelves the same week as App St takes on LSU. In Dietzel’s last four years at LSU he went 36-7 with one national title and two other seasons with Top 10 rankings; #3 in ‘59 and #4 in ‘61. In Miles’ three seasons at LSU he has one national title and a #3 in ‘06 and a #6 in ‘05.

Coincidence? Nonsense? Folly? Perhaps all three. But there is no escaping the possibility of a Mountaineer upset. If you can beat Michigan, you can beat LSU. Just ask the old Wolverine, Les Miles.

Reminder to vote for Appalachian for an ESPY for the Best Upset of the Year.

Click here to watch the ESPY commercial with a nod to Appalachian, featuring Justin Timberlake (scroll down to “The year in college sports can’t be over! It just can’t!”)

The Charlotte Observer has a nice piece on Appalachian’s biodiesel research in Catawba County:

That 800-acre site off Rocky Ford Road is evolving from a place to simply bury refuse to a complex where one company’s castoffs become raw material for an adjoining firm. And where methane gas from decaying garbage generates electrical power.

What will be developed over the next decade promises to make even smarter use of our throwaways.

Look for more businesses to open around the landfill, all of them tapping into the trash-to-energy that the complex will generate. Big energy users – a specialty brick manufacturer and two greenhouse operations – have had lengthy discussions with county staffers about building nearby.

The county will grow oil-rich sunflowers and rapeseed near the landfill to produce a significant part of the 650 gallons of fuel that Blackburn needs daily to run earthmovers and other heavy operating equipment.

Appalachian State University will test crops grown in Catawba County and may introduce new ones that are best suited for biodiesel production. The university will perform its research and produce biodiesel fuel for the county in a 5,000-square-foot building that workers will begin constructing this fall at the landfill.

The Catawba County commissioners are expected to vote on a contract with the university on July 21, said Barry Edwards, county utilities and engineering director.

ASU’s biodiesel research facility will test the fuel-production possibilities of rapeseed, sunflower, switch grass, soybean and algae. It should begin fuel production next summer – from plants that farmers will grow on county landfill property and nearby farms.

For more information on Appalachian’s biodiesel initiative, visit www.biodiesel.appstate.edu.

From Class Notes in the Gold Book: “Brooke Pope ’03 and Jamey Messick ’04 are happy to announce their marriage on June 7, 2008 in Charlotte, NC. They currently reside in Charlotte, NC. Staci Mann ’03 (Maid of honor), Chris Neilson ’03 (groomsman), Courtney Parker ’03 (bridesmaid) were attendants with Ryan Eller ’04 as Officiant

The Vanderbilt View, has a nice piece on Appalachian alumnus Dwyane Elliott ’98 ’00, director of Student Campus Events at Vanderbilt University. Elliott, who received a Bachelor’s degree in psychology and a Master’s in Student Development from Appalachian, is described as “fun-loving guy.”

As a college student at Appalachian State University, Elliott was involved in everything from student government to marching band to programming for his residence hall. “I tell people I minored in student activities,” he said.

He showed such an aptitude for student leadership that the dean of students at Appalachian State suggested he pursue graduate studies in the field of higher education. When Elliott asked what this might entail, the dean replied, “Well, you’re basically doing it now.”

With a master’s degree under his belt, Elliott worked in student life positions at Appalachian State and Georgia State University before coming to Vanderbilt in 2004. Eventually promoted to director of new student and first-year programs, he ran Vanderbilt’s first-year experience programs until last fall.

“I love working with students, getting involved in their lives and seeing them grow,” Elliott said. “This spring marked my first graduating cohort since I started at Vanderbilt. When they were first-year students, I met most of their parents as they were dropping them off for orientation. Then at Commencement, I shook those same parents’ hands again.”

For the Mountaineers to win an ESPY.