Thomas R. Waldron I Flew with Heroes
To Elizabeth Hutchison, There’s certainly no place like the South. It’s a special place with a rich culture and colorful characters. As an assistant editor with the popular lifestyle magazine, Garden & Gun, Hutchison — or Hutch, as she likes to be called — is responsible for helping give a voice to the place she calls home.
Until her junior year, Hutchison was a marketing major before switching and graduating with a degree in English. She found herself feeling far more at home among the works of Jane Austen and J.K. Rowling than the numbers and lists of accounting. After taking a fiction- writing course, Hutchison knew that she belonged in a world of letters. There was also her creative inquiry class where she was part of the groundbreaking group that organized the University’s first Literary Festival. The festival has remained one of the biggest events of the year for the English department as well as for the arts community in Clemson.
It was in working with the Literary Festival that she recognized a gift for crafting a community through literary culture. When she interned in the summer of 2008 with Garden & Gun, Hutchison fell in love with the magazine industry, deciding that was what she would pursue after graduation.
Having grown up in Mount Pleasant, the opportunity with Garden & Gun meant a sort of homecoming. Inspiration still struck her at every corner; it seems to her that people have a story to tell and it’s up to her to help them tell it. Her columns such as “Good Eats” and “Belle Décor” cultivate a uniquely Southern focus that speaks to tens of thousands of readers.
Go to gardenandgun.com/blog/elizabeth-hutchison to peruse Hutchison’s writing for Garden & Gun.
President Clements, Bryant Barnes, Anne Barnes Grant, Lea Barnes Taylor and Sandy Barnes
Suzanne Pickens
Donnie Dinch is forecast to take the billion-dollar music industry mobile. He’s listed in Forbes magazine’s “30 Under 30” and as one of the magazine’s “Hottest Startups of 2013.” And who’s to argue with Forbes?
Dinch is the packaging science-graduate-package designer-turned-CEO of WillCall. After graduating in 2008 with a degree in packaging science, Dinch moved to Seattle where it wasn’t long before he and two friends picked up on discussions around plans for developing an app during a startup weekend.
Dinch saw that streaming services were — and still are — altering the face of consumerism in the music business. A larger number of artists are being brought to people’s attention, but they’re playing toward smaller venues at the club level. The mobile app facilitates an environment where people can find out about live performances and can go see more of the music they love, but that they just might not have the right information to find. WillCall’s features include curated events, a “Tip” button that sends tips directly to the artist, in-app merchandise, friend activity feed and custom packages, and Bartab, a means to charge drinks to their WillCall account. With more than $2.1 million in seed funding from billionaire Sean Parker, music mogul Coran Capshaw and Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia, Dinch’s app is currently curating shows in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The goal is to facilitate people seeing a show as often and as easily as going to a coffee shop. Dinch’s passion for music led him to create the business. A resident of San Francisco, he works with the city on a panel series called Nightlife & New Tech. Their mission is to harness the brainpower of those in the city’s tech and music industries to improve the future of nightlife in San Francisco. He also works with a nonprofit dedicated to using the power of technology for civic action.
Tigers from all over the country converged on South Florida for the Orange Bowl. And the South Florida Clemson Club was in the midst of all the activity — organizing, helping, hosting and welcoming alumni and friends.
Showing that it’s possible to work together in the midst of a heated competition, Clemson and Ohio State alums teamed up to fight hunger, packing boxes of food for “Feeding South Florida.”
More than 100 alumni and friends were in South Beach Thursday night at the Clevelander, where the landscape was purple and orange, and a Tiger Paw was projected on the side of the building and in the hotel’s swimming pool. At Bokamper’s in Fort Lauderdale, more than 75 joined up to celebrate the Tigers and meet up with old and new friends.
The morning of the Orange Bowl began with an alumni brunch at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach with more than 300 in attendance. James Clements addressed the Clemson Family for the first time as University president. He thanked the Barkers for their many contributions to Clemson and shared the significance behind Clemson’s rise in the national rankings.
More than 2,000 Clemson Family members gathered at the One Clemson tailgate inside the Sun Life Stadium prior to the game. The Clemson band, cheerleaders and the Tiger made appearances, and President Clements welcomed guests as they prepared to cheer the Tigers on to a 40-35 victory over the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Two student bloggers, Savannah Mozingo and De Anne Anthony, traveled to South Florida to capture and share the excitement of Orange Bowl week on their blog, TigressTales. Access their blog and hear President Clements’ remarks at clemson.edu/clemsonworld/orangebowl.
Clemson in the Lowcountry at the University’s Wind Turbine Drivetrain Testing Facility in North Charleston.
More than 300 people gathered for dinner and a meeting where Nick Rigas, director of the SCE&G Energy Innovation Center and executive director of the Clemson Restoration Institute, spoke at the University’s Wind Turbine Drivetrain Testing Facility in North Charleston. The meeting attendance on Jan. 23 doubled the Clemson in the Lowcountry Club’s normal attendance rate. Eddie Gordon is president of the club.
More than 350 turned out for the Greenville Club’s Blue Chips and Bluegrass event, a recruiting recap and oyster roast held Feb. 7 at the Crescent in downtown Greenville. Club president Rick Ammons and club member and event organizer Chris McCameron presented IPTAY with a $2,500 check for the Glenn Brackin Memorial Scholarship. The event featured Mickey Plyler from 104.9 Talk Sports, who spoke about recruiting, and The Drovers Old Time Medicine Show entertained the crowd with bluegrass music.
The Aiken County Club held their Recruiting Wrap-Up event Feb. 6 at the Aiken Municipal Building, where more than 50 people heard Larry Williams from Tigerillustrated.com speak about recruiting. Tripp Bryan serves as Aiken County club president, and Bryan Young is vice president.
Want to get more involved at Clemson? Looking for a place to share your experience and love for Clemson? Go to clemson.edu/alumni and click on “Volunteer Opportunity Guide” to learn how you can get involved
John Seketa named honorary alumnus
The Alumni Association wants to ensure we have accurate contact information for all alumni so that we can keep everyone informed about all things Clemson, all the time. And to do that, we need your help.
Simply go to clemson.edu/alumni and click the “Update Your Information” button. Then post on your social media outlets that you updated your contact information with Clemson, and use the hashtag #TigerRollCall in your post.
A monthly drawing will take place during May, June and July for everyone who submits an update. Additionally, each person who shares on social media using the hashtag #TigerRollCall will receive an additional entry (maximum two entries per person). At the end of the campaign, a final drawing will take place with a grand prize of two Alumni box seats to the Clemson vs. North Carolina football game on Sept. 27.
When it comes to Pam Buffington Redmon’s passion to control tobacco, it’s personal.
Two weeks before her 1985 graduation from Clemson’s School of Nursing, Redmon received a call that no daughter wants to receive. Her father, a longtime smoker, was being rushed to the hospital and would need open heart surgery. He survived, but struggled with heart issues throughout his life.
After graduating from Clemson, Redmon began work as a critical and coronary care nurse in Greenwood then continued her career as a cardiac rehab specialist and clinical research nurse in Ohio. In many of her cases, she saw her father’s health story — smoking that led to health struggles — replicated in the lives of her patients.
So when she decided to enter the next phase of her career, she earned a master’s degree in public health from Emory University and embarked on a mission to impact health by working to control the use of tobacco.
Redmon first served as a staff member, then later executive director,
of Emory’s Tobacco Technical Assistance Consortium, which provided tobacco-control training and technical support to national, state and local organizations and foundations.
She then became executive director of the Global Health Institute– China Tobacco Control Program, a Gates Foundation initiative at Emory that is developing tobacco control and prevention initiatives, including smoke-free policies and mobile health interventions, in 17 Chinese cities with populations equivalent to U.S. states.
She also serves as administrative director for the Tobacco Centers for Regulatory Science at the Georgia State University School of Public Health. The center focuses on understanding the human and economic factors that contribute to decision-making regarding the use of tobacco products.
“Tobacco use is the single most preventable cause of death in the U.S. and around the world, and decreasing tobacco use reduces the health, social, environmental and economic burdens it creates for individuals and communities,” she said.
Redmon and her husband, Kevin, a 1985 Clemson computer engineering graduate, are also playing an important role in the life of their alma mater by joining together to fund the Kevin and Pam Redmon Class of 1985 Annual Scholarships. Both first-generation college students themselves, the scholarship will be given to first-generation students in the School of Nursing or College of Engineering and Science.
Helen Legare-Floyd has a farm. Not just any farm, but a 288-year-old family farm on John’s Island. She, along with her brother and sister, are ninth-generation descendants of 18th-century planter Solomon Legare, and together they work to make it profitable.
To be able to hold on to a family farm in modern times is a challenge, but the Legares have been able to use creativity and practicality to keep their legacy in place. They have combined agriculture with agritourism. Raising livestock and growing produce are still a large part of their work, but by using the 300-acre tract and its resources for events from gourmet harvest dinners to summer day camps for grade school children to Civil War reenactments to Easter chick rentals, they are involving the community and making a living.
Legare-Floyd has found ways to make their farming business expand into all parts of the Charleston area. She organized a Community Supported Agriculture program where families pay a fee for a weekly box of produce. This business has grown to 140 deliveries. The farm also runs a butcher’s club. She drives her pick-up to deliver to a food co-op on Sullivan’s Island and to a gourmet sandwich shop in Charleston. Using leftover grain from five local breweries to feed livestock and old milk from a dairy plant to feed pigs, Legare-Floyd has demonstrated resourcefulness.
Legare-Floyd says that graduating from Clemson is one of the biggest accomplishments of her life. She wanted to say she graduated from Clemson, so she left the farm to study agronomy and horticulture.
“I get to do something I enjoy, something I love, every day,” she says. Solomon Legare would be proud.
My husband and I were high school sweethearts when we came to the U.S. from Croatia in 1986 to pursue college degrees. In 1989, with a B.S. in biology and postgraduate training at Greenwood Genetic Center, I joined Miren at Clemson to pursue a graduate degree in microbiology. With a 3-year-old (Sven) and another on the way (Andre), we both walked across the stage of Littlejohn in 1995 to receive our Ph.Ds.
Since then, I have worked as a laboratory coordinator and visiting lecturer at Clemson, become a full professor at Anderson University, had two more children, established the Center for Cancer Research and survived breast cancer. I still teach in Clemson’s summer science program and collaborate with Clemson researchers.
Because of my experience with breast cancer, as well as my mother’s, I have a passion for finding a cure. That’s why I counsel newly diagnosed patients. It’s why I served for many years on the board of the Susan G. Komen Foundation. It’s why I travel abroad with students, even working with shamans in the Peruvian Amazon, searching for new anti-carcinogenic plant extracts. It’s why I work with students at the Center for Cancer Research, trying to inspire my students and fellow researchers to collaborate, share, work together and aim for the stars.
Ivankovic is a professor of biology and the James Henderson director of the Center for Cancer Research at Anderson University, which recently was the recipient of a grant from Coach Dabo Swinney’s All In Team Foundation in support of its breast cancer research.
William D. Carson The Emancipation Procrastination book
Leavings: Honeycutt to Cooper Ridge is a lifetime memoir, including the author’s nine-year span at Clemson University. The book is available at Amazon.com.