As someone who grew up in Ohio with little knowledge of anything related to the South, outside of beach trips in the summer, I must admit that most of my notions of this part of the country have been preconceived.<\/p>\n
So, when I moved here more than two decades ago, I knew I would have to learn for myself if those notions were correct or if I had just conjured them through TV, movies and walks along the Grand Strand when I was 13 years old.<\/p>\n
Luckily, as a journalist, I had the perfect avenue to learn all I could about my new home. After all, I was here to tell the stories of the people and places that make this part of the country what it is. It was my job to find those stories and help the rest of the community learn a little something about themselves.<\/p>\n
And by the time I wrote the hundreds upon hundreds of stories for a local newspaper, I could have sworn all my preconceived notions were gone.<\/p>\n
Seems I was mistaken. Because I learned last year that I still had a few of those floating around and some of them were about Furman University.<\/p>\n
Furman seemed like an oasis of learning that kept mostly to itself. I hadn\u2019t thought of it like other college campuses because it was so unique in its approach to higher education. I just thought that folks either knew Furman or didn\u2019t. And I was one of those who didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
That all changed when I was invited to interview for the director of editorial content position with Furman\u2019s University Communications. I opened my mind and let myself realize that I could know little to nothing about this place and still be welcomed here. I could be embraced by a community that didn\u2019t know me and embrace them right back without having the faintest knowledge of, well, anything related to Furman.<\/p>\n
And that made me want to know anything and everything I could. I wanted to tell Furman stories and learn about Furman lives. I wanted to better understand alumni who ran local restaurants and students who were about to change the world. I wanted to meet faculty, go to lunch with staff and figure out why Furman is so unique.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s the plan going forward. To learn all I can and to tell those stories to anyone who \u2013 like me \u2013 wants to know more. It\u2019s what I hope to do in these pages and what I hope all of you will help me do for many years to come.<\/p>\n
Thank you, Furman family, for welcoming me into this oasis. I can\u2019t wait to see what comes next.<\/p>\n
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As someone who grew up in Ohio with little knowledge of anything related to the South, outside of beach trips in the summer, I must admit that most of my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":389,"featured_media":37684,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3343,1963,3342],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-around-the-lake-spring-2025","category-furman-magazine","category-spring-2025"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37534"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37764,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37534\/revisions\/37764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}