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Thursday, March 26, 2009 Volume 93, Issue 48Serving Southern Miss since 1927

INDEXCALENDAR............................2DIRTY BIRDS.........................2OPINIONS...............................4CONTACT INFO.....................5

ENTERTAINMENT.................6ENT. CALENDAR...................7SPORTS....................................8SPORTS CALENDAR.............8

POLICYTHE STUDENT PRINTZ IS PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND THURSDAY DURING THE FALL AND SPRING SEMESTERS. THE FIRST FOUR COPIES ARE FREE. EACH ADDITIONAL COPY IS 25 CENTS.

For the latest Southern Miss news, see studentprintz.com

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TODAY TOMORROW

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S PBesides getting back to the

proverbial grindstone – often grudgingly – many Southern Miss students have been spend-ing this week mulling over de-gree plans, discussing options with advisers and scanning SOAR to get the fi rst pick of available courses.

Advisement is a necessary process for many students, but to others, one that is more trou-ble than it’s worth.

“ A d v i s e -ment is point-less and sim-ply a waste of time,” said Kyle Ross, a business ma-jor. “I don’t even use my

adviser anymore; instead, I cre-ate my own schedule.”

Anthony Smith, a computer science major and graduating senior, held similar sentiments.

“I don’t see why we have to get advised every semester,” he

said. “I usually just choose my own classes.”

Some students, however, like those in the nursing or education licensure programs, don’t have the luxury of a choose-your-own curriculum. David Daves, chair of the Department of Cur-riculum, Instruction and Special Education, said most students seeking education licensure are shuffl ed through a highly struc-tured degree program.

Students majoring in elemen-tary education, for instance, are grouped together into “blocks”

and pursue the curriculum at the same time during their last three se-mesters at S o u t h e r n Miss. This means their

advisers are absolutely neces-sary in directing course selec-tion, he said.

“It makes advising pretty easy, because it’s cut and dry,” Daves said.

Students interested in the li-

censure program can acciden-tally interrupt their degree plans long before those last three se-mesters, simply by taking un-necessary courses, if they do not have the assistance of an adviser, he said.

About 70 percent of the stu-dents in that program are trans-fer students from junior colleg-es, Daves said, and without the proper guidance often run into problems that force them to ex-tend their stay at the university. He added that his department has made efforts in the past few

years to inform junior colleges of the necessary requirements for the program to avoid such problems in the future.

But for students without a clue as to what career path to follow, being undecided can create sim-ilar problems, either because of an array of unnecessary credits or a lack of several requisites – pushing graduation day that much farther away.

Since January, undecided majors have been fi elded to the

Lesley WaltersNews Editor

Advisement helpful to some, a hassle to others

Making it ‘to the top’

Clyde Kennard was a black man, pining for education, who made history with his unsuc-cessful attempt to matriculate in Southern Miss in 1959. He chased his dream of college, but instead got a taste of conspiracy and prison.

In 1964, USM President Wil-liam McCain ordered confi sca-tion and destruction of all cop-

ies of the March 20 edition of “The Student Printz,” ransack-ing classrooms and archives in the process. The paper outlined the story of John Frazier, a black man who was turned away when he tried to enroll in the univer-sity.

The paper’s front page was reprinted without Frazier’s ac-count or the photograph of his dark, bespectacled face.

Jesse BassOpinions Editor

Scratches on plastics will be a thing of the past thanks to a recent invention developed in Southern Miss’ polymer science department.

Dr. Marek Urban and Biswajit Ghosh are the primary scientists working on the project. Their re-cent invention is self-mending polymers, which can be used in car paint, fl ooring, touch screens, mili-tary equipment, and anything else requiring plastic coating.

During an interview, Urban tried to demonstrate how the self-mend-ing polymers could even be used for furniture upkeep. He made his point about their practicality after accidentally scratching the leather chair that was, unfortunately, not made of self-mending polymers.

Urban said the polymers were fi rst conceived a few years ago. The goal was to create “smart ma-terials” that are multi-functional and responsive.

Urban and Ghosh attribute the inspiration for self-healing plastics to the self-healing properties of liv-ing organisms. When human skin is scratched, the outermost blood fl ow is stopped by crosslinks of fi brin, a protein used to clot blood. When plants are damaged, certain chemicals are activated to prevent further abrasions.

The same concept is used in the polymers. Urban described the pro-cess of the self-healing plastic as a dense net.

“You break one of the net lines, and as a result of the breakage, you create something that will be reac-tive,” he said. “You expose it to UV light and it will bind with a neigh-bor.”

Because the crosslinking reac-tions in the healing process are not affected by moisture, rain will not affect the repairs. According to a recent Chemical and Engineering article on the new invention, the process to should take less an hour.

Though there is no clear date for the self-mending polymer’s pub-lic release, Urban said the team is working on the marketing portion now. They want to ensure the integ-rity of the project and “protect the intellectual property of the univer-sity,” he added, before introducing it into the market.

The polymer science depart-ment’s project has generated in-ternational attention. Beyond the write-ups in Forbes and the New York Times, Urban has spoken with the BBC, Austrian radio, Irish radio, and with the press in New Zealand. Ghosh’s and Urban’s article on their fi ndings even ap-peared in the prestigious Science Magazine, a world renowned sci-ence journal.

Urban said that there are two more systems set to emerge within the year that will build on the tech-nology used in this project.

“I don’t like to send something out that’s not fi nished,” Urban said, explaining the delay. “I like to take the time to make sure it’s of qual-ity.”

He demonstrated the ultimate goal of the new systems with a sheet of paper that he tore in two. He explained that an object com-posed of the advanced self-mend-ing polymers would heal itself when the two pieces were placed together again.

“This is just the beginning,” Ur-ban said. “We’re excited because its good for the school, good for the students...and it’s a lot of fun.”

’’

‘‘ This is just the beginning. We’re excited because its good for the

school, good for the students...and it’s a

lot of fun.-Dr. Marek Urban

Meryl DakinPrintz Writer

USM researchers create self-mending polymer

Earmarks secure millions for USM, state

In a recent message sent out to Southern Miss students, the University Police Department issued the following statement:

“It has long been known that the most congested areas among pedestrians and vehicles exist at Golden Eagle Avenue between Cook Library and OMH and 31st Avenue between Joseph Green Hall and the Liberal Arts Building.

“These areas have also been the scenes of several ve-

hicle/pedestrian accidents.Although enforcement efforts of these areas have in-

creased, complaints continue on a regular basis.“A two-phase plan will be implemented to protect our

pedestrians. Recently, this plan was shared with SGA, deans and Deans Council and the President’s Cabinet. Feedback was positive and encouraging.”

The plan was fully implemented this week.

USM TRAFFIC CHANGES

Mississippi is set to receive a bulk of the funds from the $410 billion Omnibus Appropriations Act, a spending bill full of ear-marks for state funding, which President Barack Obama ap-proved with his signature March 11.

Southern Miss alone will re-ceive around $7 million in fund-ing for university projects.

“All these projects will, in some way, impact both gradu-ate and undergraduate students,” said Cecil Burge, vice president for research and economic devel-opment at Southern Miss. “These kinds of resources will allow the university to continue program and facilities development, all of which enhances the educational opportunities for our students.”

A signifi cant chunk of the fund-ing set aside for USM will go to science-related research and de-velopment, including $1 million for fuel cell research, another million for aquaculture research

and develop-ment, and still another for continu-ing develop-ment of the Forensic Sci-ence Program The School of

Polymers and High Performance Materials is also set receive $2.24 million for developing advanced marine composites.

Further, $285,000 will fund math and science literacy efforts in the Department of Curriculum, Instruction and Special Educa-tion, and $1.5 million will go into the planning and design for a new nursing building. Another $570,000 will go to help facilitate start-up companies in the Hatties-burg area.

Other major state projects to receive funding include: $61 mil-lion for construction of Missis-sippi River levees; $31.5 million to continue work at the national strategic petroleum reserve site in Richton; $20.8 million to con-struct mooring cells for barges

along the Tennessee-Tombigbee waterway; $10.4 million to the Sustainable Energy Research Center at Mississippi State; $10 million for the port of Gulfport.

Out of all the scheduled proj-ects, the largest is likely the $205 million set to fund new construc-tion on the existing federal prison in Yazoo City.

U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, the ranking Republican on the Sen-ate Appropriations Committee, helped secure much of the fund-ing for his home state.

“With these funds we will be able to continue the important work of improving our state’s infrastructure, enhancing quality of health care and education and creating an environment to attract new businesses,” Cochran said in a press release.

Taxpayers for Common Sense, a non-partisan budget watchdog group, said that out of all the legislators in the U.S. Congress to secure funding through ear-marks in the omnibus, Cochran and Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) top the list at No. 1 and No. 2 re-

spectively.According to its Web site, www.

taxpayer.net, Cochran cinched a total of 205 earmarks for Mis-sissippi. Even Wicker, who got $396 million through earmarks for the Magnolia State, credits his colleague with his second-place listing in the TCS study.

Mississippi is the third-high-est-funded state in terms of “total earmark value” and fourth high-est per capita, the TCS study in-dicated, “despite having only the 31st-highest population, accord-ing to census data.”

President Obama has also re-ceived much criticism for sign-ing a bill with so many earmarks because he opposed the use of earmarks during his campaign. But he defended signing the bill, saying that earmarks can be use-ful, and has promised to curb, not eliminate them. He did not go into details but said that he would work with Congress to eliminate earmarks or other specifi c items in spending bills that he believes serve no legitimate purpose.

James OsbornePrintz Writer

ENTERTAINMENTCheck out page 6 for our full coverage of this year’s South By Southwest.

SPORTS Men’s basketball coach Larry Eustachy discusses his team’s future, giving back his bonus and what went wrong this past season. See page 8 for details.

von HerrmannDaves

Obama

See ADVISEMENT page 2

Editor’s note: This is the fourth chapter in the fi ve-part series regarding Raylawni Branch’s story.

See RAYLAWNI page 3

EventsCalendar

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Early registration for veteran students

President Saunders has imple-mented early registration for veteran students of Southern Miss. These students can sign up for summer classes beginning at 8am March 26, and fall classes beginning 8am April 9th. Saun-ders said, “Early registration will enable our V.A. students, who are all on a tight timeline, to expedite their education.”

Plant sale this week at Walker

The spring Biological Sciences plant sale will be held March 28 from 8am to 2pm on the east side of the Walker Science Building. Proceeds benefit the BSC Teach-ing Gardens, Southern Miss Bludberrification Project, and the creation of new butterfly gardens at local schools.

Reslife to break ground on new hall

Department of Residence Life will break ground at 2pm Friday, March 27 on a new, 864-bed, living-learning residential com-munity at the construction site on West Fourth Street adjacent to the Rails to Trails. Faculty and staff are invited to attend. Century Park will be ready for occupancy in the fall of 2010.

Sigma Nu to host Nu-Olympics

Sigma Nu Fraternity will be hosting the Nu-Olympics and Catfish Fry benefiting St. Jude’s Research Hospital this Saturday, March 28th, 2009, on the USM Intramural Fields. Greek Games begin at 11:00 followed by the catfish fry at 12:00. Catfish Fry tickets are available in front of the library from 10:00am to 2:00pm every day this week.

Founder’s Day celebrated this week

The university community is in-vited to the 2009 Founders’ Day celebration on Monday, March 30th. The program will begin at 3pm in from of the Administra-tion Building. The ceremony will include student and faculty recognition, Southern Miss Hall of Fame inductions, inauguration of the new SGA, and Centennial announcements.

Children’s Book Fest hosts authors

This year’s Fay B. Kaigler Children’s Book Festival will take place April 1-3 at the Thad Cochran Center. It will host nine authors and illustrators whose works total more than 100 publications. For more informa-tion and festival schedule, visit http://www.usn.edu/bookfest.

3-10-09PAC Lot Hit and Run - Incident report on file.Pinehaven Apt - Trespass - One verbal trespass warning was issued to non-resident.

3-11-09Georgetown Apt - Disturbance - UPD responded to a domestic disturbance call, no arrests.Pulley Hall - Welfare Concern - Follow-up investigation by UPD and Dean of Students office.Championship Lane - Hit and Run - Incident report on file.

3-12-09Kennard Washington Lot - Hit and Run - Incident report on file.

3-13-09W Memorial Dr - Disturbance - One campus citation was issued for Noise Violation and one citation for Parking in Fire Lane.

3-15-09Powerhouse Grill - Service Non-Criminal - UPD officers and the Hattiesburg Fire Department responded to a call of a gas leak in the building. The manager of the grill arrived and determined that pilot lights on kitchen stoves had gone out causing the leak.

3-19-08Hillcrest - Suspicious Person - One verbal trespass warning was is-

sued to a non-student.

3-21-09 Pinehaven Apt - Vandalism - Unknown person(s) spray-painted graf-fiti on the outer wall of building L.

3-22-09Chain Tech Lot - Motor Vehicle Accident - MS Uniform Crash report filed.Pulley Hall - Disturbance - Referred to Dean of Students and Resi-dence Life.

3-23-09Freshman Quad - Petit Larceny - A student reported the theft a bicycle. The bike is described as dusty blue with a white basket on handlebars, a bell and compass attached, value of $1200.Liberal Arts Bldg - Disturbance - Incident report on file.Eagle Walk - Suspicious Person - Roderick Green, B/M, 32 yoa, Hat-tiesburg address was arrested and charged with Trespassing.111 Fraternity Dr - Destroying Private Property - A resident reported a window in his parked vehicle was broken.

3-24-09Jamestown Rd - Alarm - UPD officers responded to an alarm call at the president’s residence. Construction materials had fallen through a skylight causing the alarm to activate.

TODAY10am - Annual Student Art Show, Museum of Art6pm - Fernando Vargas Cello Recital7:30pm - Wind Ensemble Concerto Concert

FRIDAY7am to 5pm - Mississippi Science Olympiad, R.C. Cook Union8am to 5pm - Graduate Research Symposium, TCC 2nd floorAll day - MT/CLS Club, World’s Finest Chocolate, throughout campusAll day - Krispy Creme and Coca Cola Fundraiser, throughout campus10am - Annual Student Art Show, Museum of Art11am to 2pm - Money Drop for Mr. Esquire Pageant, Shoemaker Square2pm - Groundbreaking Century Park, construction site on 4th street6pm - Patrick Melvin Tuba Recital6pm - Poetry Reading by USM students and faculty, Cafe Boheme

SATURDAYAll Day - Southern Miss Horn Day, Mannoni Performing Arts Center8am to 2pm - Plant sale, east side of the Walker Science Building9am to 4pm - Hubfest, Downtown Hattiesburg9am - Auditions for Dixie Darlings, Payne Center10am - Annual Student Art Show, Museum of Art11am - Nu-Olympics and Catfish Fry1pm to 4pm - ACCESS Rec Sports Club Soccer Practice, Payne Center7:30pm - Symphony Orchestra Concert, Saenger Theater Downtown

SUNDAY10:30am - French crepes breakfast, JavaWerks1pm - Julie Evans Voice Recital, Marsh Auditorium2:30pm - Ashely Henry and ELena Kokkinomagoulos Voice Recital, Marsh Auditorium3pm - City of Hattiesburg Concert Band, Saenger Theater4pm - Jonathan Rowe Trombone Recital, Marsh Auditorium5:30pm to 7:30pm - Miss Krimson and Kream Pageant, TCC Ballrooms 7:30pm - Megan Distasio Clarinet Recital, Marsh Auditorium8pm to 10pm - Residence Hall Association Luau, Freshman Quad

MONDAYAll day - MT/CLS Club, World’s Finest Chocolate, throughout campusAll day - Krispy Creme and Coca Cola Fundraiser, throughout campusAll day - Belk Spring Charity Ticket sales, throughout campus3pm - Founders’ Day Celebration, lawn of Administration Building4pm - Nuria Rojas Piano Recital, Marsh Auditorium8:30pm - Sax-Chamber Orchestra Recital, Marsh Auditorium

College of Arts and Letters for advisement, said the college Dean Denise von Herrmann. Instead of looking at the change as a burden, she said the influx of advisees has provided an opportunity to practice some new methods in advising students.Von Herrmann, chair of the Strategic Enrollment Planning Council sub-committee on advise-ment, said she and her colleagues have been researching the current national best practices to improve the process for Southern Miss students in the future.

For instance, she said, research shows that peers or peer-like advisers are more effective. Now that her college has seen an influx of advisees, master students from the College of Education and Psychology have been recruited to act as advisers, saving money and providing useful assistance to undecided students, she said.She and her colleagues have also assembled an “advisement syllabus” for those undecided majors to come to advisement sessions well prepared. More than simply providing a to-do list, the

syllabus also outlines the purpose of advisement – an issue that von Herrmann said is the major cause of much complaint among students.“I really think part of our problem is that we expect one person – ei-ther a staff or a faculty member – to do things that really ought to be handled by two or three differ-ent people,” she said. She added that many people be-lieve advisement should do more than just outline future course loads; some expect their advisers to act as mentors, offering advice

based on experience and exper-tise, and others seek direction in regards to campus resources like financial aid from their advisers.Her advice to all Southern Miss students, regardless of major, is to go to their advisement sessions well prepared, take advantage of the time by asking questions, and make your expectations clear. If the adviser is ill prepared to pro-vide the necessary assistance, she said, students should not be afraid to seek another adviser.

ADVISEMENT continued from page one

www.studentprintz.com |Thursday, March 26, 2009Page 2|News

www.studentprintz.com | Thursday, March 26, 2009Page 3|News

But when 1965 rolled around, times were changing. Paul B. Johnson was Mississippi’s new governor, elected the previous year.

After serving as lieutenant governor under the notoriously prejudiced Ross Barnett, John-son changed his racial tune while campaigning for the state’s high-est executive seat. From the top down, Mississippi’s wheels of change slowly began to turn when Johnson won the office.

Southern Miss began to catch on. It was time to embrace Missis-sippi’s future. The administration decided it was better to integrate voluntarily and peacefully than to be forced by a higher authority.

So the university accepted an application for the ‘65-’66 school year penned by the black hands of Gwendolyn Elaine Armstrong.

Armstrong was an 18-year-old local girl. Because her mother was physically handicapped, Elaine wanted to stay in Hattiesburg dur-ing her college career.

Armstrong’s powerful, melodic voice fulfilled her desires. She earned music scholarships from the American Legion and The Elk’s Club, both totaling enough to attend Southern Miss.

But Elaine was frightened by the prospect of attending an all-white university alone in racist Missis-sippi’s middle ‘60s. The NAACP wanted someone to accompany her, to soothe feelings of hate and alienation from USM‘s student body.

The NAACP quickly found an excellent candidate and of-

fered to pay Raylawni’s tuition in exchange for her attendance of college with Elaine. Raylawni jumped at the chance.

Raylawni had longed for a col-lege education for years. The de-sire heightened after her run-in with the supervisor of the unem-ployment office, where she was acquainted with the Federal Jobs Book. The book was filled with job listings -- all being but a tease to Raylawni because they required college degrees.

Raylawni had made it. She was accepted to the university.

The administration decided the school year would unfold as nor-mal. No violence. No protest. Just another typical year at Southern, but with two black faces amongst the crowd of students.

Raylawni and Elaine were as-signed six bodyguards for protec-tion against potential threats on campus. None of the governing bodies above USM trusted each other, so two of the bodyguards were local police, two were state police, and two were federal.

The administration granted Raylawni and Elaine permission to come and go as they pleased, with no university grounds off-limits…Except the Wimpy’s ham-burger shop in the University Hub building.

The administration explained that if violence broke out in Wimpy’s, the crowd at the gather-ing place could easily get out of hand, rendering the bodyguards‘ attempts at protection futile. Ray-lawni and Elaine agreed, although they weren’t quite clear on the ex-

act whereabouts of Wimpy’s.

On their first day at Southern, the bodyguards escorted Raylaw-ni and Elaine into Bennett Auditori-um along with the rest of the student body for a fresh-man address by President McCain. They used the side door, opening into the front row of seats.

As the two women and six men entered the room, the white students formed a wide bubble around them. Like oil and water, the

young black women were sepa-rated from the student body.

With a wide gap between black and white, President McCain spoke to the freshmen class of 1965. It would be the last time Raylawni heard McCain’s voice during her time as an undergradu-ate at USM.

Wading through the college experience

One day at a faculty meeting, the aptly named Canadian ocean-ographer and biology professor Godfrey Fish spoke up about Mc-Cain’s hesitance toward Raylawni and Elaine.

Fish didn’t understand the prob-lem. They were two students ea-ger to learn.

McCain, in turn, decided that Fish would deal with Raylawni and Elaine. He would advise them, he would help them, he would shoulder duties usually divided between many faculty members in the case of all other students.

So Fish became their adviser. He set them up with a work-study program. He became an umbrella of comfort and assistance through-out the women’s career at USM.

“He was like a father, friendly and kind,” said Raylawni.

She and Elaine made about $1 an hour cataloging plants and ani-mals under Fish’s guidance. Ray-lawni’s family lived on the weekly $17 earned from this work-study.

Atop her wavering utility bills, Raylawni owed more than a week’s pay each month in rent.

Luckily, she had some help.Bob Beech and Delta Ministries

floated her canned goods and oth-er foods when she came up short. Former NAACP president Vernon Dahmer frequently sent boxes of groceries to help feed Raylawni and her children.

It was this way Raylawni and her family eked out a living.

Often without bus fare, Raylaw-ni seldom escaped walking the 8-mile round trip from her home to the university.

After walking to school one day about six weeks into the semester, Raylawni and Elaine sat in a cam-pus restaurant passing time.

“Mr. Beazle!” someone shouted from behind the counter. Raylaw-ni recognized the name from sto-ries one of her brothers told about a boss at a menial job from high school.

“Elaine, you know that place they told us not to go?” asked Raylawni, “Guess what? This is Wimpy’s.”

Elaine’s eyes widened as sur-prise set in. “You’re kidding me.” said Elaine. “Where are our body-guards?”

Although the women had been unknowingly patronizing Wimpy’s for weeks, they quickly scanned the room for their protec-tion.

Then, Raylawni noticed some-thing. One of the Hattiesburg police officers assigned to guard them that day was the very same officer she had to hold hostage all the way to the police station only three years prior. The trust was suddenly broken.

“Elaine, we’re in bad shape. We might as well get rid of these bodyguards because that one guy, if he ever finds out who I really am, he’ll probably help somebody kill me,” said Raylawni.

Over the next several days, Ray-lawni and Elaine started dodging the bodyguards.

In the front door here, out the side door there; in the women’s bathroom, out the window on the other side. Soon, the bodyguards stopped looking and the two women were on their own.

The remainder of the year rolled along without incident--even without the armed men’s assur-ance of such.

“I was only called a nigger once,” said Raylawni. The cir-cumstances were anecdotal and surprisingly benign.

During a baseball game in Phys-ical Education one day, Raylawni was at bat. She was consistently terrible over home plate.

“I can’t hit a ball if you walked up and put it on the bat,” said Raylawni.

As she approached the plate, a faceless man in the bleachers shouted the epithet.

Raylawni’s knuckles turned white around the bat, pupils fixed on the ball with frustration. She hit a home run--a singular occur-rence in her memory.

But mostly, the Southern Miss student body of ‘65-’66 ignored Raylawni and her ebony compa-triot. They walked around campus that year as if they were invis-ible.

“I guess being ignored was good in a way,” said Raylawni.

A stack of problemsAfter moving to Mississippi

from Chicago as a youngster, Raylawni worked hard to devel-op her Mississippi Ebonics. Her proper way of speaking, gleaned from years of life in Illinois, made

her the butt of many a joke on the playgrounds of the Magnolia State.

This didn’t work out well for her later; enduring entry-level college English was painful. Her sitting in the back in most of her classes led to an ease of distraction from the task at hand, and didn’t help her already struggling academics.

She was poor. She cared for three children and walked almost everywhere she went. She ate mostly from the hand of charity.

She had family problems. She was romantically separated from her husband, Johnny Young, for the entire school year.

Young didn’t take kindly to Raylawni’s activism. For his entire life, he was decidedly re-moved from white culture. The idea of the civil rights movement didn’t sit well with him.

His family had a history of men-tal illness, and when Raylawni started tackling Hattiesburg’s segregation problem, Young’s la-tent disorders began to manifest themselves.

After Raylawni and Young’s mother observed an intense war flashback of Young’s, Raylawni took him to the Veteran’s hospital

in Gulfport. The hospital held him for 30 days and sent him back.

Then the real trouble started. Young started threatening Ray-lawni’s life. He started removing the fuses from the circuit breaker in her home, crippling her ability to study after sunset. She legally divorced him during the spring semester of ‘66.

One morning after cooking her children breakfast, Raylawni called Vernon Dahmer to thank him for the food he sent over the night before. She was surprised that his phone was busy at 5:30 a.m.

She later found out through the news that a Ku Klux Klan-relat-ed firebombing had left Dahmer dead.

All this coupled with Raylawni constantly looking over her shoul-der, watching her back, led to her decision to withdraw from USM after the first semester of 1966.

She was accepted to St. John’s Episcopal School of Nursing in Brooklyn, New York for the next fall semester.

Raylawni left her children with their grandmother and took off to New York.

Raylawni’s photo from the ‘65-’66 edition of USM’s yearbook, “The Southerner”Courtesy McCain Archives

Former USM president William McCainCourtesy McCain Archives

RAYLAWNI continued from page one

The University of Southern Mississippi Symphony Orches-tra will participate in Orches-tras Feeding America, the first national food drive by America’s symphony orchestras, at a March 28 concert set for 7:30 p.m. at the Saenger Theater in downtown Hattiesburg.

The symphony’s musicians, staff members and volunteers will collect non-perishable food from 6-7:30 p.m. in the lobby of the Saenger Theater prior to the 7:30 p.m. “Over the Rainbow” concert.

To date, more than 200 or-chestras in all 50 states have come together to combat hunger in their communities through Orchestras Feeding America, and the number of participants is growing daily.

Jay Dean, music director for the symphony, said, “We all are feeling the effects of this eco-nomic crisis, but we cannot let that stop us from helping our neighbors in greater need. Our orchestra’s music uplifts people, but with this project we can do more to support the commu-nity that has supported us for so long.”

The food will be donated to the Edwards Street Fellowship Center. Acceptable donation items include dry soup, rice, powdered/canned milk, macaroni and cheese, cereal, peanut butter, beans, canned fruit and veg-etables, tuna, canned meats, stew, soup, pasta, cereal, and fruit juices/sip-sized juices.

Nonacceptable are items in glass jars or bottles, unlabeled or dented cans, any open or resealed packaging, perishable foods, homemade foods, expired

products, monetary donations, clothing, diapers or other non-food items.

After the food drive collection, the featured concert will team the orchestra with two of the most original writers working in jazz, Bill Murphy and Jeff Holmes, for an evening of original orchestral jazz. Classic standards, as well as new pieces that demonstrate the unique work of these two fine musicians, will be performed.

The Southern Miss Symphony is the only orchestra in Missis-sippi participating in the project. Organized by the League of American Orchestras, which rep-resents the nation’s professional, volunteer and youth orchestras, and Feeding America’s network of over 200 food banks and 63,000 agencies, the drive was inspired by the true story of the upcoming film “The Soloist.”

The film is based on the true story of the relationship between Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez and Nathaniel Ayers, a gifted Juilliard-trained string player whose mental illness landed him among the homeless on the streets of Los Angeles.

The relationship has expanded to include staff and musicians of the Los Angeles Philhar-monic. “The Soloist,” which also features the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is a testament to the redemptive power of music and a reminder of the connec-tions to the most vulnerable in the country.

The Symphony’s 2008-09 season is sponsored by Bancorp-South. Tickets for the concert are $20/$18/$16 ($6 for stu-dents) and may be purchased at the Southern Miss Ticket Of-fice by calling 601.266.5418 or 800.844.8425. Tickets may be ordered online at www.southern-misstickets.com.

Special to the Printz

USM orchestra plays to combat national hunger

Just the other day, I was sitting in Chili’s with my dad discuss-ing my college education. He has always been a supportive par-ent, giving encouragement when needed and credit where credit is due.

I wasn’t surprised when he asked me, ever so slyly, if I was still toying with the idea of going to law school.

I had been considering it, and I knew I was going to make an at-tempt, but I wanted to wait and surprise him, let him know after I signed up for the LSAT and got everything underway. So my an-swer was vague and unsure.

He caught me off guard when he told me that if I got accepted, he

would buy me a brand new Mer-cedes.

Thanks dad, like I couldn’t get into law school without a new car hanging in front of me.

This especially surprised me be-cause my sister and I have always been successful in school, needing only a few kind words to make it through any tough situation.

But my dad wasn’t the first.For years, students have been

rewarded for doing well academi-cally. But when do these rewards take away from the joy of teach-ing and learning lessons? Do we really have to get a reward or be bribed with a new car to do well?

In some city schools, reward programs are in effect. Accord-ing to an article in the New York Times, students can bring home big bucks for doing well on tests. Programs as such are clearly pro-liferating in America, especially in high-poverty areas.

Penn State Assistant Professor Barbara A. Marinak’s research leads her to shun the reward sys-tem. In a 2004 study, she found that rewards not arising directly from the activity in question harm

the rewarded’s desire to continue the activity.

Her study involved 75 elemen-tary school children who were asked to read a book. Some were given the book as a reward for fol-lowing the instructions, but others were given a token. Perhaps not surprisingly, the book recipients chose to continue reading when they were presented with a choice to engage in other, more recre-ational activities.

It is not just primary school students who are bribed. College professors have no problem entic-ing their students as well.

I was sitting in class just the other day when my teacher re-warded the students who actually

showed up to class on time with extra credit. She said she would repeat the reward periodically throughout the semester as a bo-nus to those who got out of bed early enough. I’m sure that when other students get wind of the ex-tra credit, they will burn rubber on the way to class.

While the extra credit is great-ly appreciated, we as college students should be responsible enough to make it to school with-out bribes. We should be able to get up on our own without juicy extra points hanging in front of us like meat hanging in front of a dog.

Seriously. Where is the passion? Where is the fire? When did the

mere thought of success, being able to one day support yourself and a family of your own stop be-ing reward enough? We as students should have enough drive and fer-vor to succeed for success’s sake.

Extra credit points are good, new cars are great, but in the end when you’re working for a huge law firm or hospital, you will be in the “real world,” and there won’t be someone their to pat you on the back or give you a piece of candy every time you do your job.

Make success happen on your own.

This is a column of opinion written by Printz Opinions Staff Writer Ali Holston. Comments can be sent to printz@usm.edu

Ali Holston

Printz Writer

Where’s the drive? Only you can make it happenopinions@studentprintz.com

Page 4Opinions

Author Edwin Black is a child of Holocaust survivors. When he first saw an IBM card-sorting machine as part of an exhibit at the United States Holocaust Museum, he vowed to learn more about this ma-chine and the role of its manufac-turer. The result was 2001’s “IBM and the Holocaust,” a devastating account of the venerated American firm’s hand-in-hand collaboration with Adolf Hitler’s Nazi govern-ment in identifying, organizing and exterminating Jews and others who were deemed non-Aryan and unde-sirable. Black’s exhaustive investi-gation, abetted by an international research team, resulted in world-wide headlines _ and stonewalling, obfuscation and denials by its sub-ject _ which continues to this day.

Black’s next book, “War Against the Weak” (2003), studied the role of the fake science of eugenics and its rise in the United States in the early 20th century, which provided the rationale for Hitler’s racial poli-cies. In shocking detail, Black relat-ed the subjugation, sterilization and murder of thousands of Americans solely on the basis of their race, country of origin or failure to pass culturally biased “intelligence” tests. This was fueled by xenopho-bia and ignorance, and supported _ astonishingly _ by corporate names like Carnegie, Rockefeller and oth-ers.

Black’s new “Nazi Nexus” uses these earlier works as primary sources. But this new volume offers a compact and highly concentrated dose of history that powerfully demonstrates the deleterious effects of the convergence of avarice and ideology, American-style.

The author’s premise is that American businesses beyond IBM were also complicit with Hitler’s rise to power, conquest of Europe and war against the United States and that many of their activities

continued through the war. In ad-dition to doing business with the Nazis, philanthropic organizations like the Rockefeller Foundation, for example, contributed the equivalent of millions of dollars in support of German institutions devoted to eu-genics, which served to legitimize racism by attaching a “scientific” basis for it, according to Black. The ties between German and American researchers in this area are astound-ing.

Black subsequently cast his atten-tion to our insatiable consumption of petroleum in “Internal Combus-tion,” which also covered the role of General Motors in supplying Hitler with a fleet of vehicles that enabled the Nazi blitzkrieg across Poland and other nations. It was made possible, Black writes, by the close cooperation between the Ger-mans and a wholly owned GM op-eration, Opel, which manufactured a light truck called the Blitz, hence “blitzkrieg,” the lightning attack. Black writes about GM CEO Alfred P. Sloan, who not only collaborated with the Nazis, but worked hard to organize opposition to President Franklin Roosevelt’s administra-tion whenever possible.

More than just a “greatest hits” offering, “Nazi Nexus” brings sev-eral seemingly disparate threads to-gether to create a fuller portrait of this dreadful chapter of our history. Though one may wish to see more details of other notorious American Nazi enablers (Google “Bush” and “Nazi” to read news reports of the former president’s grandfather’s collaboration, for example), Edwin Black has done more than his share. If you missed his earlier books, this is a great place to begin, and if you read one or two but not the rest, “Nazi Nexus” ties them all together succinctly _ and frighteningly.

Richard PachterMCT

Hitler Revealed

Richard Pachter is the business book columnist for the Miami Herald. He can be reached at rap(at-sign)richardpachter.com; more col-umns are available at richardpachter.com.

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Stars _ they’re just like us!

So trumpets Us Weekly magazine in a regular feature that pictures celebrities buying toilet paper and wearing sweatpants at the airport. Now, famous people are joining the “micro-blogging” service Twitter, making them even more like us, or at least like a few million of us.

Of the famous Twitter accounts that have been verified as real, some of the active ones are Ash-ton Kutcher (aplusk), Demi Moore (mrskutcher), Shaquille O’Neal

(THE_REAL_SHAQ) and Sean “Diddy” Combs (iamdiddy). In the past week, I’ve learned that Combs fasted for 48 hours drinking only natural juice, and that O’Neal was sad about losing a game on his birthday.

It’s riveting stuff. But I would caution against embracing the no-tion that celebrities on Twitter are just like us. Fans who think they are getting closer to their star crushes by befriending them on Twitter likely are headed for disappoint-ment.

Social media such as Twitter are supposed to be two-way. In other words, these Web services should facilitate communication and build relationships among their members. The Twitter twist on virtual friend-ships is that members can “follow” others, or sign up to receive their updates, without those people’s permission.

Within industry circles or groups of friends, the prevailing etiquette dictates that you reciprocate when you are followed. I’m happy to fol-low other bloggers and media pro-fessionals even if we’ve never met, and the resulting conversation can be interesting.

The normal rules of engagement do not apply to celebrities. Kutcher follows 55 people and has more than 292,000 followers, for exam-ple. This is not two-way communi-cation.

In fact, the huge disparity between numbers of followers and follow-ees means that celebrities are using Twitter as another broadcast system for their public relations needs.

Ian Corbin created celebritytweet.com in November to aggregate feeds from famous people. This

week, he launched a free iPhone application for his site _ all “for the good of Internet stalking,” as he put it. But he’s not buying into the mystique.

When fans get a response from ce-lebrities, “they completely flip out about it,” said Corbin, 28. “They’ll say, ‘I got my first celebrity tweet!’ like it’s a badge or something. ... You get as much communication if you go see Shaq play basketball and wait for him to come out and he says, ‘Hey, what’s up?’ “

Twitter enables celebrities to proj-ect an image of wanting to connect with fans. Sometimes they do just that. Moore recently had an ador-able exchange with a 15-year-old boy from Knoxville, Tenn., who asked: “do you ever follow or talk to non working actors or famous people?”

Her reply: “of course we do do you?” before asking about his homework.

But even if celebrities are posting updates on social media without the filter of their publicists, they still have an image to maintain. The entertainment industry is a person-ality-driven business, and it’s naive to think that a Twitter account is ex-empt from a celebrity’s deliberately crafted persona.

Sending digital mash notes to ce-lebrities in the vain hope that they’ll validate my wit is a fruitless pursuit that ignores many of Twitter’s ben-efits.

“Most of them are boring,” Corbin said of celebrity tweeters. “There are so many more people that post links to interesting stuff or videos that are funny.”

Walin WongMCT

This is a column of opinion written by Walin Wong.

It’s a one-way tweet

Diogenes, the Greek philosopher who is said to have searched in daylight with a lantern for an honest man, might become quite discouraged in today’s world -- especially if he were regularly reading newspaper headlines or watching CNN.

The world always has been amply endowed with liars and crooks. But it seems we’re exceeding historical norms in today’s troubled times -- and wherever we’re finding brazen dis-honesty, its companion is unbridled greed.

In the past week, Americans have been outraged by the dubious moral-ity of AIG shelling out huge bonuses totaling $220 million to hundreds of employees while the insurance giant accepts $170 billion in bailout money, courtesy of U.S. taxpayers.

While AIG might not have bro-ken any laws in playing Santa Claus to employees who helped wreck the company’s bottom line and spawn a global financial crisis, most Ameri-cans regard the bonus payouts as a despicable, fundamentally dishonest action.

We’ve also been treated to the likes of Bernard Madoff, who will probably will spend the rest of his life in prison

as a result of his long-running Ponzi scheme that prosecutors say bilked investors of tens of billions of dollars (and apparently prodded two investors to commit suicide); and R. Allen Stan-ford, the Texas billionaire whom the Securities and Exchange Commission says hoodwinked investors through a “massive Ponzi scheme” and whom the Internal Revenue Service says owes $226.6 million in back taxes, penalties and interest.

Then there’s Christopher J. Warren, a suspect in a nationwide mortgage fraud scheme centered in Roseville, Calif., who was arrested in February at the Canadian border with $1 million in Swiss bank certificates and $70,000

in cash stuffed in his cowboy boots; and Annette Yeomans, booked into jail this month in Vista, Calif., during an investigation of claims that she em-bezzled $9.9 million from a her long-time employer, a cabinet company, to pay for personal expenditures such as $240,000 for 400 pairs of shoes and $300,000 for designer clothing.

If you think about it, dishonesty and runaway greed are at the very heart of our economic nightmare, a wrenching recession that has resulted in 4.4 million Americans losing jobs, a stock-market meltdown, the crater-ing of powerful financial institutions, a severe credit crunch and soaring real estate foreclosures and bankruptcies.

The biggest trigger for the recession was a housing crisis brought on by an overpowering avalanche of dishon-esty and greed.

There were real estate agents and mortgage brokers steering homebuy-ers into deceptively high-cost sub-prime loans; lenders making loans with hidden fees, balloon payments and interest rates resetting to much-higher levels; appraisers artificially in-flating home values; Wall Street firms selling pools of mortgage-backed se-curities without fully disclosing their risk; credit-rating agencies giving gilded ratings to those securities; and homebuyers lying about their incomes to get loans.

The ensuing housing crisis and col-lapse of home values from Florida to California fueled a much-broader eco-nomic meltdown.

Most of it could have been prevented by basic honesty and personal self-re-straint against rampant greed, coupled with decent government regulation of financial institutions.

The sad truth is that disturbing flaws in the human character probably con-tributed more to America’s horrific re-cession than did systemic weaknesses in the economy’s infrastructure.

Jack Z. SmithMCTCampus

Jack Z. Smith is an editorial writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Readers may write to him at 400 W. 7th Street, Fort Worth, Texas 76102, or via e-mail at jzsmith@star-telegram.com.

Greed and dishonesty at core of cash nightmares

Gosh, the sentiments sounded so fa-miliar.

“The foundation for American edu-cation has to be the home. No school can compensate fully for failure in the home. And we’ve had massive failure in homes in this country.”

That was Terrel Bell, then U.S. edu-cation secretary, speaking in Dallas in October 1983.

“There’s the danger that the public trusts standardized tests as the only way they can know how a local school is doing. ... I hope the focus is on learn-ing and academics and rigor, and it will come ... that tests scores will im-prove.”

Bob Cameron, then an official with the College Board, said that in Novem-ber 1983.

“I simply reject the notion that black and Mexican-American kids can’t learn. They can learn, and it’s our job to teach them.”

Carl Candoli, then Fort Worth pub-lic schools superintendent, pledged as much in May 1983 as the district worked to improve achievement and close gaps between white students and minorities.

“In many cases, economic concerns and lack of parental and community support combine with such factors as a language barrier, low attendance and high mobility to inhibit students in largely Hispanic areas.”

That’s what I wrote in 1982 in an analysis of the challenges facing His-panic students and those trying to edu-cate them.

When I dug out a file of old stories to share with an education researcher, it was startling to see how so many of the same problems continue to dog education.

But it shouldn’t have been so sur-prising.

People fear embracing change, even for a greater good.

Propose closing schools? Prepare for neighborhoods protesting the dis-ruption.

Try to restructure teaching staffs? Prepare for the indignation, complaints and commotion about job loss.

Suggest all-day preschool? Prepare to explain who’s going to pay for it.

President Barack Obama’s speech on education last week and the stimu-lus money being poured into public schools hold the potential to push educational improvement into higher gear.

He touched on key elements.Investing in early childhood pro-

grams has become essential to help prevent young kids from getting too far behind too early. (And surely it’s better to spend dollars on the front end, preparing productive citizens, than to pay later for social services and crimi-nal justice.)

Paying teachers extra, as an incentive to work in more challenging schools or as a reward for clearly making a differ-ence is an innovation worth testing.

Evaluating students based on their thinking, problem-solving and cre-ative skills is more meaningful than just measuring their bubble-coloring ability.

Using technology to track students’ educational progress can help provide

support to those who are struggling and advanced resources to those who are excelling.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan also has said that states and districts will have to “get dramatically better” to be eligible for grants from a special $5 billion fund.

Of course we want real reform that produces real results.

But I’m not persuaded that “real re-form” can be achieved through nation-al standards and more charter schools.

Meaningful reform involves so many smaller steps, from a consistent curriculum to tools that let teachers im-mediately pinpoint where individual students are having trouble.

It’s training teachers to engage stu-dents in their classes and providing technology to help with visual supple-ments. It’s conducting research to doc-ument what techniques work and why, whether they’re a longer school day or smaller class sizes. It’s understanding what outside distractions kids bring to school and connecting them with ser-vices that help them focus on learning.

And even dramatic change that pro-duces meaningful structural improve-ment doesn’t show up immediately in the latest round of test scores. Obama was correct that turning around our schools is “our collective responsibil-ity as Americans.”

But he also was correct about the el-ement of personal responsibility: Stu-dents must show up, pay attention and stay out of trouble, and parents have to do their job.

“Government, no matter how wise or efficient, cannot turn off the TV or put away the video games,” he said. “Teachers, no matter how dedicated or effective, cannot make sure your child leaves for school on time and does their homework when they get back at night. These are things only a parent can do.”Seems like some of the most fundamental drivers of change aren’t radical at all.

Linda P. Campbell is a columnist and editorial writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Readers may write to her at 400 W. 7th Street, Fort Worth, Texas 76102, or via e-mail at lcamp-bell@star-telegram.com.

Linda CampbellMCTCampus

American education needs and deserves meaningful reform

Live music capital or not, the press does not focus on Austin, Tex., that often. That is, except for one week in March (which just happened to correspond with our spring break this year), when the industry descends upon the city for South by Southwest (SXSW), one of the biggest music industry events in the world. During the event, the city’s venues hold showcases boasting bands ranging from the smallest local bands to musical giants.

However, seeing the latter generally required either an expensive badge or wristband, neither of which us at the Printz had. Thankfully, the festival held enough free parties that we were able to get a good feel of the proceedings, not to mention see lots of exciting new music.

WednesdayDue to the huge variety of shows, SXSW is a good opportunity for artists to test new material. So it was

at the Terrorbird/Forcefield PR party at Red 7. Portland punks The Thermals busted out half a set of new songs, all of which sounded like a nice continuation of their last record’s tightly coiled bursts. Without a backing band and with his piano’s delay pedal missing, Yoni Wolf (of hip-hop/indie rock alchemists Why?) sounded thin, but created excitement by premiering songs from his band’s next record, which he announced would be out in September. Party closers Beach House didn’t really impress with their old songs, which sounded somewhat off. Things turned around when they gave the surprisingly packed crowd a handful of consistently impressive new tracks, most of which kicked their typical slow-motion daze up in tempo.

With only one new song, Brooklyn hype band The Pains of Being Pure at Heart had to impress in a different way. The group has a lot to prove right now, as the hype has raised not only their profile, but people’s eyebrows, since their pleasant lo-fi pop can seem ordinary. Fortunately, they’ve taken the wise decision of raising both the bounciness and noisiness of their songs live, granting them extra heft.

thursdaySticking Austin cult legend Daniel Johnston and veteran indie rockers The Wrens in the middle of the

Paste/Brooklyn Vegan party of hyped bands like Passion Pit and The Avett Brothers is a little strange. I hate to say that I couldn’t really appreciate Johnston’s set to the full extent, as I’m not familiar enough, but he came off as the lovable weirdo I expected. His voice is still a thing of cracked, childlike beauty, even if he was a little too close to the mic. One need not be familiar with The Wrens to appreciate their set. Tearing through a set of classics from 2003’s The Meadowlands, the Jersey boys brought more force and energy than bands half their age. Most notably, the bassist seemed to be bursting from the seams with ex-citement, with his constant pogo-ing, handings off of his bass to the crowd and leaping off tall speakers.

When it came to hype bands, I was most anxious to see Cambridge’s Passion Pit. Last year’s Chunk of Change EP was great, but their saccharine synth pop could go wrong when stretched over a full-length album. Their set quelled fears, as their new songs sounded joyfully infectious. More surprising was how engaging frontman Michael Angelakos was, providing one of the week’s most spontaneous, unhinged performances. He bounced around the stage with glee, eventually standing on top of his piano stool and wrapping his mic cable around himself.

Heading out of downtown for the Gigotron/Videothing party at cramped dive bar Club 1808 provided a nice change of pace from the more formal atmosphere of downtown. Baltimore spaz rockers Ponytail fed off the smushed crowd, providing as much energy as the week’s most pumped audience. Considering that the venue had no stage, it shouldn’t have been a big deal when pint-sized singer Molly Siegel hopped through the crowd. It was, for reasons both of excited communion and practicality: this was the first time many were able to see her.

With at least twice the room, the party’s outdoor stage was more comfortable, but the acts there didn’t lower the intensity. Halfway through their set, I had to wonder why synth punks Team Robespierre aren’t more popular. Their songs are as good as many acts focused on live parties, as is their ecstatic perfor-mance, with them spending as much time in the crowd as on stage. Though psych-rockers Crystal Antlers were able to contain themselves to the stage, their show was no less incendiary. While their recordings come off as homogenous, their live show amounts to one giant assault.

FrIdayConsidering that their party at Emo’s was one of the fest’s most hyped, it’s odd that Pitchfork would

relegate one of their most hyped live acts to before much of the crowd showed up. Much has been made of The Mae Shi’s live show and for good reason. The group enthusiastically ran through about half of their spaz powerhouse Hllyh before pulling out one of fest’s most intriguing live tricks: throwing a giant parachute over the crowd, under which half the band sang “I Get Everything I Want.” Like everything

about them, the trick was lovably dorky. Speaking of lovably dorky, British MIDI pop mastermind Max Tundra basically epitomized that. His one-man band set up was as goofy as it sounds, while the music was seriously great. Only Tundra could lead a crowd through “So Long, Farewell” from “The Sound of Music” and get away with it.

Both Woods and Wavves were mostly unimpressive, while at the same time as the latter, Dirty Projec-tors were engaged in one of SXSW’s most talked about sets on Emo’s indoor stage, playing only new material. Part of me wishes I had ventured in for that, but King Khan and The Shrines made my sticking outside worthwhile. There were a lot of great performers at SXSW, but King Khan is one of the only true showmen. The guy seems to think he’s the Indian James Brown, which his soulful garage rock comple-ments. Surprisingly, he didn’t play his doo-wop classic “Welfare Bread,” but I doubt anyone minded too much.

After giving up on getting into the Blackberry showcase, the best option was to check out Creme de la Creme’s hip-hop party at Malverde. With a new act popping on stage roughly every twenty minutes, keep-ing track of everything was tough. Most acts were consistently respectable up-and-comers, with some ris-ing above (Pac Div’s perfectly coordinated triple mic attack), some falling below (Mike Posner and The Brain Trust’s terrible, sleazy pseudo-rap) and some just being unfortunately brief (Chicago’s Cool Kids only played three songs).

Despite the promising talent, the real stars of the party were two rap legends. First was homestate hero Bun B’s pop-in during Kidz in the Hall’s set, which made me wish he would have spit a few of his own tracks. Second was the party’s headliner, Wu-Tang member Raekwon. Nobody considers the Wu one of the most dependable groups in hip-hop, but Rae lived up to his legend. The guy ripped through Wu-Tang classics before wrapping up his set with a few acapella verses and a legitimately inspiring speech about hip-hop’s future. Raekwon’s been around for a while and he’s surely seen dozens come and go, yet he still seems genuinely in love with hip-hop.

saturdaySXSW’s last day found me at the Mess With Texas party at Waterloo Park. A large outdoor locale like

that can either kill or aid a group’s degree of engagement, typically favoring more easy-going acts. Jangly Los Angeles punks Abe Vigoda were hurt most noticably; their songs sounded fine, but the band seemed stilted and awkward. More fortunate were The Thermals, who benefitted greatly from either the sunny day or their eight shows of practice, delivering a reckless and powerful set. While Vivian Girls weren’t as ramshackle as expected, the afternoon provided the perfect atmosphere for the surfier side of their melod-ic lo-fi rock. Lastly, Thao Nguyen and The Get Down Stay Down provided a breezy set of country-tinged indie pop, with Nguyen exuding enough confidence to prove to me that she should be more famous.

One can’t see Israeli wildmen Monotonix without commenting in some way, be it enthrallment or dis-gust. Music-wise and performance-wise, the group couldn’t be more different. Their songs are very meat-and-potatoes riff rock, nothing to take notice of alone. Their performance rejects everything traditional about rock ‘n’ roll, including notions of stages (they basically only used one to jump off it), drums (they typically aren’t played while being carried by the crowd), and whether or not you should show a crowd your rear end (common logic says you should not).

Though not nearly the week’s best set, Akron/Family provided one of its most inspiring moments and the perfect ending. Generally, I’ve thought of the group as underrated, as they’re treated as a member of freak-folk’s b-team. Their large, excited crowd suggested otherwise, with people going wild for their exuberant folk jams. As nice as it is to see an almost-embarrassingly genuine group get the respect they deserve, that wasn’t what gave the set its most inspiring aspect. For most of the performance, the drummer for ATL hip-hop MC B.O.B. could be seen at the side of the stage banging along on a cymbal. Akron/Fam-ily’s comment that the two groups had never met before suggested that this was not planned. Considering that Akron/Family and B.O.B. are basically polar opposites, the two have little to gain from each other. In an event that sometime comes off as a meat market with hoards of hype bands trying to sell themselves, seeing a truly genuine expression of musical enthusiasm was pretty beautiful.

Hype and excitement reigns at SXSW ‘09

Entertainment entertainment@studentprintz.comPage 6

Top left: Max Tundra leads the crowd in “So Long, Farewell.” Top Center: Crystal Antlers singer Jonny Bell leads a freakout at Waterloo. Top Right: Mae Shi at Emo’s provided one of SXSW’s best sets. Middle Left: Los Angeles Abe Vigoda run through a set at Mess With Texas. Middle Right: The Thermals rock out at Friday’s Mess With Texas party. Bottom Left: Vivian Girls’ Kickball Katy harmonizes out at Mess With Texas. Bottom Center: Psych-rockers Woods played Friday’s Pitchfork Party. Bottom Right: Vivian Girls’ Cassie Ramone belts during their set during at Mess With Texas.

Eric Nagurney/Printz

Eric NagurneyEntertainment Editor

’’‘‘In an event that sometime comes off as a meat

market with hoards of hype bands trying to sell themselves, seeing a truly genuine expression of musical enthusiasm was pretty beautiful.

Eric Nagurney is entertainment editor for The Student Printz. Comments can be sent to printz@usm.edu

The annual Hubfest event, taking place this Saturday, will be ho

noring a Hattiesburg milestone this time around: the city’s 125th birthday. To celebrate this historic birthday, the city will be holding a birthday party hosted by mayor Johnny Dupree at 12:30 p.m. in Town Square Park. In addition to the birthday party, Hubfest will encompass its usual array of music, vendors, food and art. This year, the vendor capacity has reached its maximum, topping out at 180 different vendors. “In the last five years, [Hubfest] has been focused on bringing in more quality art vendors to raise the quality of the festival,” said Katie Townsend, Communications Director of The Area Development Partnership. “We are continuing to encourage quality art vendors, but this year [we] have opened the festival up to a broader vendor list.” Music has always been a big aspect of Hubfest, and this year’s lineup lives up to the tradition, containing 21 acts spread out across four stages. Acts range from alt-country veterans Blue Mountain to blues musician Vasti Jackson to cover band The Glitter Boys. “They should do [Hubfest] every weekend, it’s great for downtown,” folk singer Thomas Jackson, who is playing

the festival for the first time, said. Events to be present at the festival provide attractions for a wide variety of interests. Main Street will play host to the South Mississippi Art Association, which will features works from local artists, while the association hosts the Children’s Art Show displaying work from area children in the Faulkner Building. The parking lot of Willmut Gas will be a hot spot for automotive buffs, featuring displays of cars by the Hub City Corvette Club and motorcycles by the Joy Riders Christian Motorcycle Association. For those parents looking for child-friendly activities, Main Street Books will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of Eric Carle’s “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” with a reading of the book at 2:00 p.m., along with other children’s activities

and snacks. Even as the latest in the over 20-year-old tradition looms closely, the Area Development P a r t n e r s h i p has already started thinking about next

year’s installment. “Each year we try to make Hubfest bigger and better than the year before, so we have already started thinking of ideas for 2010,” Townsend said. “It is too early to reveal any specific details, but keep an eye out!” Hubfest will begin at 9:00 a.m. and last until 4:00 p.m.

www.studentprintz.com | Thursday, March 26, 2009Page 7|Entertainment

Hub Fest celebrates Hattiesburg’s 125th

Eric NaugurneyEntertainment Editor

Wildlife and wild music will come together this

Saturday at the Hattiesburg Zoo’s recently revived Zoo Blues event. Along with the usual array of animals and recreation offered by the zoo, the event boasts performances by a variety of blues artists, along with special activities planned by the zoo. The lineup of musicians includes Tommie “T-Bone” Pruitt, Blue Mountain frontman Cary Hudson, Mark Mann, The David Allen Band, and Doctor E and the Voodoo Kings, who are fronted by Southern psychology assistant professor David Echevarria. Since its creation about eight years ago, Zoo Blues has gone from taking place at the zoo and attached Kamper Park to occupying Tatum Park to simply not being held for a few years. Last year, the Hattiesburg Zoological Society decided to bring the festival back, returning it to its original locale. “It was a great success, so this year we’re sparing no expense,” said Matt Carr, president of the Hattiesburg Zoological Society. With both Hubfest and Zoo Blues taking place this Saturday, the day will be a busy one for Hattiesburg entertainment. For those interested in both events, the city’s trolley will be running between downtown and the zoo throughout the day. Since the Hubfest festivities conclude at four and Zoo Blues ends at eight, the two events give Hattiesburg residents opportunities for music and unique events all day. “What other venue in town can say, ‘We will be feeding the Jaguar at four, right before the performance of Tommie “T-Bone” Pruitt?’,” Carr said. Money raised from Zoo Blues will go towards the zoo’s upcoming projects, particularly the construction of a multi-million-dollar Asian exhibit housing two species of tigers. “It is because of the generosity of our members and sponsors that the Hattiesburg Zoo has continued to grow and be such a wonderful family-friendly and educational facility,” Carr said. Admission will be $5, with an all-you-can-eat crawfish boil costing $25.

Eric NaugurneyEntertainment Editor

Zoo Blues returns for music, wildlife

The hardwood has not been kind to

Larry Eustachy since arriving at Southern Miss

fi ve years ago.Even though his

original goal of raising the bar of Southern Miss basketball to the heights of the

football and baseball programs has not been accomplished, the 53-

year–old thinks mediocrity is not acceptable.

‘‘I hold myself accountable,’’ Eustachy said. ‘‘I have never thrown anyone under the bus and I will take the hit for this year. I know we have all the pieces in place and I look for a big soar next year from four league wins to more.”

The Golden Eagles won 15 games this season after the Golden Eagles won 20 games two years ago and 19 games last season.

Eustachy and the Golden Eagles struggled early despite having all fi ve starters back. Three players were ruled ineligible while Sai’Quon Stone and Jerome Clyburn suffered season-ending injuries.

This season the Golden Eagles’ lineup featured four guards and a bench that featured a walk-on.

‘‘I have never worked harder, even when I was the national coach of the year, than I have this year,” Eustachy said. “We are short-handed and people have to play too many minutes and out of position. If we played 30 minutes, we would have 20-someting wins. But we play 40 minutes and we wore down.’’

Eustachy made headlines when the university announced Feb. 28 that

he would not accept his $25,000 bonus due to his team’s poor play and the current economic climate.

“I just felt particularly during this recession that we are in and the situation our school is in, it just didn’t go right with me to accept anything above and beyond my normal contract,” Eustachy told the Associated Press.

Southern Miss athletic director Richard Giannini never had a coach return a bonus and was not expecting the check to be returned.

“It’s a fi rst for me, I just think it refl ects positively on the type of individual Larry Eustachy is and the fact that he knows the economy is down,” Giannini told the Associated Press. “We’re all struggling with it and he was the one that came to me and wanted to donate that back to the university.”

Despite the struggles of basketball program, Eustachy is confi dent that his team is one step away from making a sea change.

Even with the possible departure of junior guard Jeremy Wise, who is considering declaring for the NBA draft, he feels the roster will be strong.

The Golden Eagles will return with starters R.L. Horton and Sai’Quon Stone along with Southern Cal transfer Angelo Johnson and four other players who redshirted this past season.

‘‘I want to take this program further than it has ever gone and do it consistently,” Eustachy said. “I would like to complete my career here by giving the fans something they have never seen, winning and getting to the next level on a consistent basis.

‘‘There is no question that we have everything in place,’’ he added. ‘‘The key is you do not want to get there, but you want to stay there. The future is really bright and there will be more talent at Southern Miss next season than there’s been in a long time.”

Sports Page 8sports@studentprintz.com

FIVE YEARS INEustachy sees progress in adversity

TThe TThe hardwood Thardwood has not Thas not Tbeen kind to Tbeen kind to

Larry Eustachy TLarry Eustachy

Andy HessExecutive Editor

Larry Eustachy made headlines in February when he returned his $25,000 bonus to the university because of his team’s poor play.

Printz fi le photo

EUSTACHYBY THE NUMBERS

2004-05

2005-06

2006-07

2008-09

2007-08

OVERALL C-USA 11-17 2-14

OVERALL C-USA 10-21 3-11

OVERALL C-USA 21-10 9-7

OVERALL C-USA 19-11 9-7

OVERALL C-USA 15-17 4-12

The Southern Miss football team fi nished their fi fth spring practice on a cold and rainy day at M.M. Roberts Stadium Wednesday in better shape than Monday, according to Southern Miss head coach Larry Fedora.

“I’m much more pleased with the effort I got today,” Fedora said. “We didn’t make nearly as many mistakes. We put the ball on the ground once there at the end but other than that we played pretty clean football.”

The football might have been clean, but the weather couldn’t have been nastier, with the temperature down nearly 20 degrees and a second day of heavy rainfall in Hattiesburg.

“The weather is something you deal with,” Fedora said. “We know we’re going to have to play some games in rain, some in extreme heat, some on mud and some on asphalt.”

Fedora said the solid practice will be a good lead in to the team’s fi rst scrimmage Friday in Madison, Miss. on Friday.

One emphasis that Fedora has made clear this offseason is improving the pass defense.

Last season, Southern Miss ranked

fourth in Conference USA, but 85th nationally defending the pass, allowing an average of 261 yards per game.

“It’s too early to tell how much we have improved,” Fedora said. “We lost two guys that saw a lot of time, but we have guys that are capable of stepping up.

“I’ll know a lot more after Friday’s scrimmage.”

The Eagles were 54th nationally against the run, allowing just under 140 yards per game, but struggled when it came to rushing the quarterback, averaging under one and a half sacks a game.

“I like what I’m seeing on the defensive side of the ball,” Fedora said following Wednesday’s practice in the rain. “Roshaad Byrd is showing a lot of improvement, and I really like what I’m seeing out of (safety) Eddie Hicks.”

The oft-criticized defensive ends had a slow start last season, but, according to Fedora, showed signs of improvement in the last four games and in the New Orleans Bowl.

“We got off to a really slow start,” Fedora said. “But over the course of the season we were getting more pressure and it changed the game in the bowl game.”

The departure of pass rushers Eric Phillips and Demar Dotson left openings at end and defensive tackle, and there are several players that are vying for starting spots.

Anthony Gray returns as the sack and tackles-for-loss leader, with six sacks and seven and a half TFL’s, and sophomore Rolando Barragan and freshman Logan Hickman should help cement the middle of the

defensive line.Barragan said his emphasis this

spring is to get healthy, and that the defensive line has a chance to be signifi cantly improved going into the 2009 season.

“I think we’re more mature now,” Barragan said. “We’re a year older, and we know how important our improvement is, I mean it all revolves around the defensive line.”

Defensive ends Cordarro Law and Roshaad Byrd will presumably man the end positions, but they might have a tough time holding off redshirt sophomores David Boyce and Deddrick Jones.

That improvement could help a revamped USM secondary slow down opposing offenses though the air.

Senior Eddie Hicks returns as the leading tackler, and was tied for the

team lead in interceptions (four) with sophomore cornerback Justin Wilson.

Senior Andre Watson and juniors Chico Hunter and C.J. Wilson will likely battle it out for playing time at the No. 2 cornerback position.

“We’re tinkering with everything right now,” Fedora said. “We need to get these guys in some game situations and see what we have.”

Southern Miss defensive coordinator Todd Bradford leads the defense in a drill during Monday’s practice. The Golden Eagles will participate in an open scrimmage Friday in Madison at 5:30 p.m.

David N. Jackson/Printz

The return of the Nasty Bunch?

USM FOOTBALL

USM looks to revamp defense in fallTyler Cleveland

Sports Editor

CALENDAR

Friday•Baseball vs. Central Florida, 5:30 p.m., Orlando, Fla.

Saturday•Softball vs. Memphis, 1 & 3 p.m., USM Softball Complex•Baseball vs. Central Florida, 3 p.m., Orlando•Track in Alabama Relays, All day, Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Sunday•Baseball vs. UCF, 10 a.m., Or-lando, Fla.•Softball vs. Memphis, 1 p.m., USM Softball Complex

Tuesday•Baseball vs. Troy, 6 p.m., Troy, Ala.•Women’s tennis vs. Auburn, 6 p.m., Auburn, Ala.