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A tobacco farm in Louisburg. A hog farm in Clayton. The Neuse River in New
Bern. A NASCAR track called "The Rock" in Rockingham. A brand new airborne
museum in Fayetteville. A long-running, family-owned furniture company in
Lenoir. A high-tech textile plant in Yadkinville.
All are marked among the stopping points on the route of learning known as the
2001 Tar Heel Bus Tour. Each stop tells a different story, and offers a
different lesson.
Michael Hooker, the late University chancellor, began the privately funded tour
in 1997 as a means of exposing incoming professors and administrators to this
rich tapestry of culture and history and commerce that is North Carolina.
Carolina Chancellor James Moeser said the goals for the fifth trip remain
unchanged. It's still about making connections with the people of the state and
finding ways to make a difference in their lives.
"Over the past four years, more than 130 new faculty have trudged through
tobacco fields, listened to traditional bluegrass music, hiked through mountain
communities, cruised along the Neuse River, sampled dueling eastern and western
barbecue, peered from the top of Charlotte's tallest skyscrapers and gripped
the hands of Tar Heels from the mountains to the coast in an effort to learn
more about North Carolina and its people," Moeser wrote to the 33 participants
in this year's tour, which will run from May 21 to May 25.
In Louisburg, participants will meet Steve Mitchell, who will tell of how
changes in the tobacco industry are affecting his farm and his family.
In Clayton, Julian and Elaine Barham will talk about how they have tried to
turn waste from their hog-breeding farm of 4,000 sows into an asset rather than
an environmental threat. The Barhams covered their hog waste lagoon so they
could trap methane gas to run a generator that produces enough electricity for
the entire farm. Water runoff from the lagoon passes through a bio-filter that
enables it to be used to water thousands of tomato plants that the Barhams sell
to Triangle-area grocery stores and vegetable stands.
In Charlotte, Hugh McColl, the retired Bank of America chief executive officer
and a soon-to-be member of the University Board of Trustees, will engage in a
conversation about the city with Harvey Gantt, the former mayor who ran twice
against Jesse Helms for the U.S Senate, and retired Charlotte Observer
publisher Rolfe Neill. Among the topics will be the development of Charlotte
and race relations.
In Fayetteville, Carolina anthropology professor Catherine Lutz and Leslie
Stewart of the Office of Economic Development in Carolina's Kenan-Flagler
Business School will use the backdrop of downtown Fayetteville to touch on
different themes. Lutz will share the findings of her study on the history of
Fayetteville and the impact that Fort Bragg has had on shaping the city since
it opened at the end of World War I. Stewart will share some of the findings of
a study she was commissioned to do for the city to help it attract industry.
At these stops and the others along the route, the bus tour will be a way to
build connections -- both for Carolina to connect with the state and for
professors with each other, said Mike Smith, director of the University's
Institute of Government, who chaired the committee that planned the tour and
who will serve as the main tour guide.
In the end, the tour is not about just seeing the state, Smith said, but about
professors joining heads to find better ways for the University to serve it.
"The bus tour is wonderful because it introduces a whole new generation of
Carolina faculty and administrators to North Carolina," Smith said. "They learn
that this University has played, and continues to play, an important role in
improving the state's quality of life, and they feel a strong connection to our
impressive heritage of public service."
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