The Master’s came to a thrilling end on Sunday and the excitement of it has some people back on the golf course paying to play their favorite hobby. But Jeff Sabogyn has picked up a hobby that sustains itself. In his backyard his pleasure time activity is growing – or rather, incubating. Zabogyn has several coops filled with rare birds that he feeds, breeds and keeps.
“My wife jokes with me all the time. She says I spend more time out here than I do with her,” Zabogyn said. “She says maybe if I had feathers you’d listen to me.”
Some people pick up golf or fishing or bowling in their free time, but three years ago Jeff picked a pair of chickens. And his hobby grew into one of the most unique collections of birds in Alamance County
“I love the new life part of it, man,” Zabogyn said. “I love it as soon as they emerge into the world and it’s almost like I helped create it. I get kind of excited about it.”
For about a year and a half, Zabogyn was only buying eggs off websites to grow his collection. But after seeing how much they could cost, he decided he’d start selling them too.
“I’ve sent them all over the United States,” Zabogyn said. “I send them to California, several orders to Michigan, Texas, Arizona. Everywhere.”
Zabogyn’s specialty bird eggs are hatching into $400 worth of green-backs a month.
“I do flooring and remodeling work so when I’m not busy and there’s a gap in work, it helps tie some loose ends,” Zabogyn said. “As long as I keep it profitable I don’t think my wife will mind.”
On Thursday, Alamance Community College planned for the unpredictable: a shooter on campus. With the help of local security firm Enviro-Safe, Alamance County law enforcement, emergency services and school personnel worked for more more than a month to set up an emergency simulation on the school’s campus.
Alamance Community County President Martin Nadelman found out quickly, though, that it’s impossible to prepare too much.
“You think what you write down is absolutely going to work perfectly,” Nadelman said. “And there’s probably fifty things we didn’t think about.”
What happened behind the police tape is just a simulation, but everyone at the scene said the practice it provided is important because an event like this can happen at any school, anywhere.
That’s a feeling a few Elon students know all too well now.
“My graduation day at Episcopal now is not only about me graduating,” said Elon senior and Episcopal School of Jacksonville graduate, Ashton Vincenty. “It’s now kind of about that last contact I had with her.”
Headmaster Dale Regan was shot and killed by Shane Schumerth, a recently fired teacher, at the Episcopal School of Jacksonville in Florida last Tuesday. Schumerth took his own life moments later.
No students were harmed, but Vincenty’s brother Jack Vincenty, a senior at Episcopal who is attending Elon next year, is still having a hard time believing it happened at his school.
“It was just completely overwhelming and I was just in complete shock honestly,” Jack said. “You just kind of think…like did that really just happen.”
From this reporter, who also received his diploma Ms. Regan at Episcopal, it leaves a huge hole in all of our hearts.
“One thing that’s really bizarre…is I painted this picture of graduation in my mind of her handing me my diploma,” Jack said. “That was the image of graduation, and it’s just like, now it’s hard to picture what that will be like.”
Maybe the only thing harder than planning for something so horrifying is imagining a future after it already happened.
Dennis Franks, a deputy chief of police in Pekin, Ill., was named Elon University’s new director of Campus Safety and Police. Franks will be taking over for Chuck Gantos, who held the position for 15 years. Franks said he has big shoes to fill but that he’s looking forward to the challenge.
“I know I speak for myself and my family when I say we’re very excited about this opportunity,” Franks said. “And really my police philosophy is kind of a boots to the ground philosophy. I like to get out and develop relationships and get to know people.”
Franks said he worked with students as an adjunct professor before but not much as an officer. He said he will approach issues like underage drinking in his own unique way.
“I believe in alternative solutions to problems,” Franks said. “Making arrests is not always the best solution.”
Franks has also dealt with drive-by racial slurs, similar to what happened in Elon in September and said he takes the issue seriously.
“When we do have a hate crime issue come up, if we can make an arrest we make an arrest,” Franks said. “Those are the types of issues that I think have to be dealt with quickly and as effectively or efficiently as possible.”
However, the selection of Franks came at the end of some conflict during the search process. One Elon student wrote an email expressing opposition to the university potentially hiring current campus investigator Dan Ingle because of his voting record in the state legislature. Ingle voted against the School Violence Prevention Act, which aimed to prevent bullying of students based on gender identity and sexual orientation. The Elon student who wrote the opposition email asked others to forward the email onto Gerald Whittington, who headed the hiring process.
But Whittington said the decision was made before he received the many emails. When asked if Representative Ingle’s legislative history made an impact on the hiring decision, Whittington said said he couldn’t comment on those kinds of personnel issues.
Current Campus Police Chief Chuck Gantos did have this to say about Franks, who will be taking over his job.
“I had an opportunity to spend sometime several hours with him,” Gantos said. “[I'm] very impressed with the young man. He’s got great credentials, but I think his people skills are just outstanding.”
James Moore picks up after Elon students every morning. As a landscaper for physical plant, Moore was told he indirectly works for admissions when Elon first hired him three years ago. He keeps the campus looking spotless after students leave things behind ranging from footballs to lost wallets.
As part of the recently released Elon budget for the 2012-2013 school year students will see a 3.99 percent increase in tuition next year, the lowest since 2004-2005. Senior Vice President for Business, Finance and Technology Gerald Whittington said that with the extra budget room, the school will focus on expanding financial aid, increasing diversity and keeping the faculty-student ratio steady.
But Elon will also be providing a raise to some of Elon’s lowest paid employees, like Physical Plant employees like Moore. Depending on how much the employee is already making, the raise can be anywhere from 7.5 to 2 percent. Physical Plant employees already receive a raise every year, but Whittington said this will be more substantial.
“I know it’s a little more than what they’ve done in the past,” Moore said.
For Moore, the raise is helping him think about the future. Two months after starting at Elon, Moore married his fiancé. As of now they live in a two-bedroom, one-bathroom house, and Moore is looking for something a little bigger.
“Well I rent my house now, so I’ll probably look more seriously about buying a home seriously if we were to get some more money,” Moore said.
Moore scours the Danieley residence looking for dropped trash. He’s keeping the Elon home clean and preparing it for any potential new students who might be getting a tour that day. It’s almost like he’s playing parent, something that Moore plans on doing in the near future with his wife, which is another reason why he’s looking for a bigger home.
“Our house now is just two bedroom and one bath and we might have some kids in the future,” Moore said. “So just get a good house nailed down before we start having kids and everything.”
Students at Elon don’t always see where their extra tuition is going, but in the case of Moore, it’s probably because they’re still asleep while he’s working to make Elon a spotless campus.
In 2010, the BioBus, an initiative organized by the Kernoodle Center to help students without available transportation, started operating a route that takes Elon students to some of the most popular volunteer spots. Now, the Downtown, East Burlington Bio Bus route is a life line for public riders as well.
“I’ve been here since 2000 and this is the first time in my life that I’ve ever not had a vehicle,” said BioBus rider Janet Roche.
“If it weren’t for the Bio Bus and Elon College I would…” she shakes her head. “And this guy [her son] loves to ride it. I mean everyday it’s ‘Can we take the bus? Can we take the bus?’”
Roche said she uses the bus as much as she can. The route makes nine stops and she said maybe the most important one for her is the Wal-Mart on Graham Hopedale Road, where she does her grocery shopping. But with the end of the school year comes the end of her most valuable resource.
“When they [the BioBus] were closed over the summer time, it was a pain,” Roche said. “It was heart breaking. I had I had to borrow rides. I had to take taxis once a week at least just to, just to get to the grocery store.”
Roche and her son Ryan get on the BioBus at the Allied Churches stop. Many times they don’t make it in time for the first run of the day because Ryan is still coming back from school, Roche said. It will be another hour before they can ride it.
The BioBus is the only fixed-route bus system in Burlington, which is why city officials are discussing different plans to make public transportation more accessible. One of them is to partner with Elon and expand the services of the Bio Bus.
“If the bus isn’t running then we walk,” said Mary, who chose to only giver her first name. “And then, once in a while you have to catch the cab and just go, ‘Oh gosh.’ That’s expensive.”
But so is Burlington’s first choice for easing transportation needs: installing a fixed-route bus system. Because of people like Mary and Roche, public ridership on the downtown BioBus route almost equals that of Elon students, with the fall semester registering 858 public riders and 953 student riders.
Officials from Burlington’s Planning Department recently reached out to Mary Morrison of the Kernodle Center, and set up a meeting to discuss potentially collaborating with the BioBus.
In a recent city council retreat, Assistant Planning Director of the City of Burlington Mike Nunn laid out a plan of how the city could help Elon afford operating a larger route, such as by developing a memorandum of understanding that would give Elon University some of the federal grant money the city receives every year to start a public transit system. So far that money has been given back to the state of North Carolina to be distributed across other transportation systems in various counties.
The federal grant would cover 90 percent of start-up costs, but city officials are considering whether Burlington can afford the operational costs, of which they would have to pay 50 percent. The rest would be subsidized through other grants.
Nunn said the city council will meet in March to give and update on the status of their public transportation plans.
Elon Students are constantly surfing the Internet safely but one wrong click and your computer can be infected. If enough computers in one network get infected then a hacker can launch an attack, called a botnet.
This week, Elon’s network defense team was on their guard protecting the university’s network after a malicious computer program tried to overload it. The defense team immediately went to work to bring it down.
“They were taking drastic measures,” said Assistant Vice President of Technology, Chris Fulkerson. “They were taking whole buildings off the network, trying to dam around it. They kept backing this movement into a corner.”
But the problem never stayed in one place. Fulkerson wouldn’t tell Phoenix14 the exact locations of the attack but said that hypothetically if the network staff trapped the Botnet in McEwen, then it would just pop up in Belk Library and maybe then the Koury Business Business Center. The erratic movement was a clue to the defense team that it was a botnet, or sometimes called zombie attack.
“It’s just some people who want to go after certain groups and think it’s funny to try and take them off the Internet,” said Computing Sciences Chair Joel Hollingsworth.
Professor Hollingsworth says that hackers who work on botnet attacks are sometimes called “script kiddies” in tech circles because their programs are so simple and immature. Not surprisingly, then, the network team found a way to eliminate the botnet attack later that afternoon.
“I’m always amazed at just the fact they can design a network with all these defenses built in,” Fulkerson said. “They take it really personal when someone tries to break their network.”
Luckily no personal information was threatened in the attack. When a botnet tries to shutdown a network by flooding it with information it is called a denial of service attack.
Only one month after the Town of Elon voted to allow liquor sales, bars are filling their cabinets with booze. Fat Frogg and College Street Taphouse have already started serving mixed beverages but different rules apply to both because of the North Carolina Alcohol Beverage Control.
According to Taphouse owner Chris Russell, because his establishment doesn’t serve food, customers are required to become members of Taphouse, which, under the changes, is now considered a private club. Only members are allowed access into Taphouse since the establishment started serving liquor, and patrons become members after filling out basic information, like thier name and age. Paying one dollar gives students a membership card for one year.
Unlike Taphouse, Fat Frogg requires no such membership because it is a restaurant, but food sales must remain at 30 percent or higher in order to maintain their liquor permit.
Russell, who also owns Town Table, said that the restaurant will also start serving mixed beverages soon under the restauant designation. But in order to receive a liquor permit, both establishments had to go under a number of steps, including training with a representative of ABC.
West End Station manger Josh Ezrine, who recently submitted for an official permit with the ABC state headquarters in Raleigh, said his business will start serving liquor now that his staff is trained.
The training session teaches bar staff about alcohol safety, a concern of some Elon students. Ezrine said that the training was essentially the same for obtaining their beer and wine permits, but that liquor does bring a few added concerns.
“With liquor you take a shot,” Ezrine said. “Maybe four or five shots and versus four or five beers you’ll get drunk quicker.”
Fat Frogg owner Peter Uztach admited there are a few new things his staff will have to deal with because of the new drink specials, such as making sure students are aware of the differences between liquor and other alcohol beverages.
“Some nights I obviously will have more increased security,” he said. “But the other thing too is, like I said, my bartenders and myself are very good with speaking to patrons and helping educate them. I think that’s the largest thing, is you know, educating these students who aren’t used to liquor and (saying) hey, you can’t drink it as quick as you can drink beer.”
Running back Jamal Shuman was suspended indefinitely by head football coach Jason Swepson after the senior tweeted his frustration about his lack of playing time.
Shuman was a star sophomore year, leading the team in rushing, but since an ankle injury in the 2010 season he’s rarely seen the field. Coach Swepson has kept Shuman on the bench since, but that didn’t keep the running back off of twitter. Shuman complained about his lack of playing time in several expletive filled rants to his followers. Senior Adam Lawson warned the running back that the Athletic Department could see what he was saying too.
“When you use twitter like that it’s a vehicle to communicate, but it’s also a vehicle to get you in trouble,” Lawson said. “And I knew instantly when I saw Shuman’s tweets that something was going to go wrong and he was kind of shooting himself in the foot metaphorically.”
But it’s something the running back should have known too. The Elon Student-Athlete Handbook warns athletes that, “the expectations of all student-athletes is to refrain from the use of videos, web sites such as Facebook, MySpace or like modes of technology that cast a negative image on you, your team and athletics department and while doing associates you in any manner with Elon University athletics.” It even states that coaches will be looking over student-athlete’s personal sites for violations of the policy.
Athletic Director Dave Blank also says that athletes and coaches have a meeting when the school year starts to talk about the dos and dont’s of social media. He also said that while the Athletic Department is reviewing the case, the incident with Shuman raises awareness of the issue across all sports teams at Elon and that coaches now are more likely to talk to their players about online social sites.
GREENVILLE, N.C.- Sun rises after a day full of rain and students at ECU are wishing that Irene hadn’t moved in with them during their first week of school. Because what they saw the next morning is a campus with almost as many trees on the ground as left standing. The uprooted trees took down power lines and brought up bricks laid over the roots.
Hurricane Irene uprooted trees and damaged buildings
“Man it looks like our street got hit the worst,” ECU sophomore Thomas said. “Watch these power lines.”
Three students are walking back home from a friend’s place, where they spent the night to stay safe and have a little fun. Hurricane parties are popular on college campuses, but after a while they realized it would be a good idea to relocate their festivities.
“We were sitting in the living room and we just see that tree right there start coming towards our house and after that we decide it might be a good idea to go somewhere else,” Thomas said.
While their house remains untouched, the street they live on has branches everywhere. One house has an entire tree resting on its attic, which transformed it into a sunroof. Neighbors said the owner wasn’t home during the storm. With the damage done to the house it looks like no one will live there for a while.
Students living in dormitories weren’t much safer. Meghan Justice is a freshman living on the seventh floor of Green Dorm, but her room was still getting soaked from the storm.
“We were actually trying to get our stuff out because my stuff started getting wet then all of a sudden the water just started spreading across and we could not get it to stop,” Meghan said.
Hurricane Irene flooded the 7th floor of Green Dormitory
Some of her dorm mates thought the windows were leaking as rain thrashed against the glass, but Meghan noticed the water was coming from the ceiling so she went to the tenth floor to find out why. During the storm, a pipe burst, collapsing the ceiling of one of the dorm rooms above her.
“It just sounded like a shower in there. Pipes were going everywhere the floor was shaking it was scary,” Meghan said.
The damage continued to drip downwards.
“There was just a constant stream of water coming down, we were afraid the ceiling was going to come down on us,” Meghan said.
Maintenance workers and even parents are there to suck up what Irene left behind with water vacuums but the dorms are only part of the problem. That’s why students at ECU did not have class on Monday or Tuesday.
While that may sound like an ideal situation to some, Elon students should be happy they still have the bricks under their feet to walk on.
Visit http://ElonLocalNews.com
Elon Local News is Elon University’s student news organization part of Elon Student Television.
If you live on campus, watch the live show every Monday at 6:00 p.m. on Channel 5.
