Introduction

Dear Readers,

We are pleased to introduce the Spring 2012 issue of Southeastern Geographer, which is also our first issue as co-editors of the journal. We would like to express our appreciation once again to the Executive Committee, and to the organization as a whole, for granting us this opportunity to serve SEDAAG. We also thank our editorial staff and members of our new editorial board for agreeing to help make these next four years a success for the journal. Since its first issue in 1961, Southeastern Geographer has enjoyed the support and dedication of a large readership of geographers and professionals from related fields. We take seriously our responsibility to live up to the accomplishments of past editors and the reputation they have built, and we are excited about pushing the journal forward to new levels of excellence over the next four years.

Southeastern Geographer is now well-established as a quarterly publication and we intend to keep it so while also trying to expand its content. Over the next several years, we hope to increase the number of research articles, book reviews, and geographical notes in each issue. Watch for new developments as well, such as the Cover Art section, which begins with this issue. Instead of using cover art solely for illustration, with its explanation confined to a caption on the front cover, we see an opportunity to highlight additional material and to provide more quality content to readers of Southeastern Geographer. Going forward, cover art contributors not only will have the opportunity to see their illustration on the front cover, but will also have a few pages to describe its significance; a short story of sorts. For more details about contributing your cover art to Southeastern Geographer, please consult “Guidelines for Authors” on our page of the SEDAAG website (www.sedaag.org).

We believe that a trajectory of growth over the next several years is necessary for Southeastern Geographer to be considered for inclusion in standard citation indices and this is one of our main goals as coeditors. Digital access to Southeastern Geographer is also a high priority and we will work hard to make all back issues of the journal available on Project Muse as soon as possible. Recently, Southeastern Geographer has also been made available as an eBook through Amazon, Sony, and Barnes & Noble (also available on Apple products through the Kindle app). Currently the 2011 and 2012 volumes of the journal are scheduled to appear as eBooks. We plan to lobby hard to make this a permanent option for journal delivery. All of these grandiose plans are moot, however, without quality manuscripts and the continued support of the geographic community. Therefore, we welcome your contributions to Southeastern Geographer and want to hear your ideas about how to increase the visibility and accessibility of the journal. Please forward these to us at segeditors@gmail.com.

The articles in this issue of Southeastern Geographer represent a broad spectrum of geographical research and collectively demonstrate the health and diversity of our discipline in the American South today. We begin with a climatological study that explores the temporal and spatial changes to precipitation patterns across West Virginia between 1931 and 2000. We then move south to the Gulf Coast of Florida to evaluate the first years of the individual fishing quota (IFQ) program for the red snapper fishery. We turn next to a study of public swimming pools as features of racialized landscapes and learn how desegregation contributed to the transformation of this institution in Mississippi during the latter half of the twentieth century. This is followed by a comparative study of local food initiatives and their impacts on post-tobacco agricultural economies in rural Maryland, North Carolina, and Kentucky. The last article presents a GIS-based football stadium evacuation model that contrasts with existing models for its simplicity and accessibility to non-specialists with minimal GIS resources.

The research articles are followed by two book reviews, the first of which examines a recent reprint of William Read’s classic articles of Native American place names in Louisiana. The second book review looks at a new volume...