My School Is Famous!
Mood: Awake
Listening to: Nothin cause Steve is still asleep! Mahah!
Hey guys! I slept pretty much all day yesterday, with the exception of like 7 hours or so, so needless to say Im awake. Hopefully this is getting my sleep patterns back in track, now that I have a somewhat peace of mind. I also hope that my headache doesnt come back! that was awful! I couldn't eat, couldn't talk, didnt want the lights on...just slept. Managed to get up for like 4 hours to call momma and tell her I wasn't gonna be able to make it to my grandparents house yesterday evening. Gonna make up for it tonight though. Gonna go down and spend the afternoon with my grandparents then figure out where momma is going to be tonight and visit her for a bit. I miss her. I also gotta run up to my school and fill out some forms, and am gonna *finally* get Cory's financial aid finished. Hopefully I can get in to talk to Janet. That's my plans for the day! Mahaha!
So, Ok. I know you're wondering why I named this entry "My School is Famous!" and I'll tell you why right now. Recently, one of my professors [Dr. Lucas] did some research and found a cemetary! I know that doesnt sound like big news, but it is an old cemetary dating waaaaaay back that no one had any idea that it was out here. My school does tons of field research and no one knows about it...until now. So, here is the copy of the transcript where my school, Dr. Lucas, a student and our local news guy, Tim Irr, was on CNN!!
PHILLIPS: Well, the assignment was simple. Go talk to people, find out who they are, where they come from. Professor Dave Lucas calls it folknography. What happened next changed history as one town knew it when student at Ohio University Southern unearthed some of their community's missing roots.
Reporter Tim Irr of CNN affiliate WSAZ picks up the story from there. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PROF. DAVID LUCAS, OHIO UNIVERSITY SOUTHERN: And then 1918, as the boys came home from the war, they came from the European theater and brought that flu. And 1,700 people died in southern Ohio alone. And some of them that died were those African-American mining families down over the ridge here.
TIM IRR, WSAZ REPORTER (voice-over): It began as a research project and turned into an archaeological dig. Dr. David Lucas, a communications professor at Ohio University Southern in Ironton, asked his students to simply go out and talk to people along Porter Gap Road (ph), gather their stories of life, family and local history, a process known as folknography.
LUCAS: We were finding out about faith in Appalachia, the idea of family, the idea of food and food ways. Those are all the questions that we asked. But as we talk to these folk out there, especially on Porter Gap, they kept talking about this lost cemetery.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's that iron spike that Dr. Lucas was talking about where they stopped excavating.
IRR: Over the course of the year, the stories led the students to a remote hillside of Porter Gap, but as their videotaped exploration clearly shows, any signs or evidence of a century-old cemetery were long gone.
LUCAS: We're not real sure where it could be, so it's the proverbial needle in the haystack.
IRR: Finally, last month, after getting a grant to bring in a surveyor and using sonar to test the earth, the burial ground of ten adults and two infants was found. A hand-carved grave marker was the physical evidence above ground that rounded out the discovery.
LUCAS: That's exactly what that is. Look at that. I want to you look.
IRR: Since then, Dr. Lucas and this students invited the community to a memorial service nearly 100 years overdue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hand-etched on this stone is the word "Mills."
REV. DOUGLAS CARTER, BURLINGTON FIRST BAPTIST: And we pray, God, that you might commemorate, that you might bless, the hands that have touched this stone. Thank you for the open hearts that took time to search it out and dig it.
IRR: Stories are now surfacing of other such lost cemeteries. Several people in attendance had testimonials of their own.
JOANN SUDDERTH, IRONTON: It is somewhere near, lake Vesuvius (ph). I'm pretty sure that it was in that area. Because we were all over the place. But I do specifically remember that one and that they said that it was miners that had died.
MICHELLE WELLMAN, OHIO UNIV. SOUTHERN STUDENT: I am really excited because so many people came out and said, there's another one. And there's -- I've heard of another one. Just during the question and answers. It's exciting.
LUCAS: It seems like a simple thing to mark this cemetery. It's a shame that it was lost, but I'm glad we found it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
Click here to visit the link yourself!
Im rather proud! Well, I could babble on about how Im excited to go to the beach in less than 2 weeks, but im sure you guys know that by now. Mahahaha! Oh, there will be a game this week, I assure you. The games will be posted on Camel Days! For those of you that are out of the loop, camel days are Wednesdays. Hump Days! Mahaha! Welp, I hope ya'll are havin a good week. If I think of anything else to write later on, I'll do another update. For now, this is all yera gettin! Take care guys!
