Introduction

Dear Readers,

With this issue, we begin the third year of our tenure as editors of Southeastern Geographer. We have greatly enjoyed our work so far and look forward to steering the journal for the next two years of our term.

The cover art for this issue, entitled “Strangers on a Train” was contributed by Rakesh Malhotra and Linda Tomlinson. It presents a view out the window of a train while climbing up a mountain pass to the city of Shimla, perched high in the Himalayas of northern India. Shimla was for many years the summer capital of British India. Today, the city and its railroad are UNESCO World Heritage sites. The cover art essay recounts the experiences Malhotra and Tomlinson recently had as professors of a study abroad course in which students from Fayetteville State University travelled to India and experienced this historic train ride first hand.

This issue of Southeastern Geographer contains five research articles that cover a broad range of topics in human and physical geography. The first article, written by Jessey Gilley, presents a story of road construction, as well as road imagining, that took place with the development of the Great Lakes to Florida highway route in the 1920s. The second article, by Aileen Varela-Margolles and Jeffrey Onsted, reports the results of a study of the demographic characteristics of residents who purchased solar panel units in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The third article, by Christine Gares and Burrell Montz, examines the vulnerability of migrant seasonal farmworkers in North Carolina and Texas to tornados, hurricanes, and extreme heat. John McEwen, author of the fourth article, takes a new look at the geography of vernacular regions in Louisiana. The fifth and final article, written by Michael Crosby, Zhaofei Fan, Theodor Leninger, Martin Spetich, and A. Brady Self, examines patterns of mortality among hardwood tree species of the American Southeast using a number of different statistical tests and modeling techniques.

This issue concludes with three book reviews. The first review, written by David Cochran, critiques the The Geography of Wine: How Landscapes, Terroir, and the Weather Make a Good Drop, by Brian J. Sommers. Next, Taulby Edmondson examines Dear Appalachia: Readers, Identity, and Popular Fiction since 1878, by Emily Satterwhite. Finally, Matthew Fahrenbruch reviews Trash Animals: How We Live with Nature’s Filthy, Feral, Invasive, and Unwanted Species, by Kelsi Nagy and David Johnson II.

As always, we would like to thank the members of the editorial board, reviewers, contributors, and, most of all, our readers. We hope our work as editors will continue to earn your support and interest. We encourage you to submit research articles, cover art ideas, geographical notes, and book reviews for consideration in future issues of the journal. We also welcome comments and suggestions on how we can improve Southeastern Geographer. Thank you once again for your support.

Best regards,

David M. Cochran, Jr. and Carl A. “Andy” Reese

Editors, Southeastern Geographer