Contemporary Southern Identity: Community through Controversy

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments Many people have helped to make this book possible. First, I acknowledge my family, through whom my own Southern identity was formed on visits to my parents’ hometowns, Cuthbert, Georgia, and Smiths Grove, Kentucky. I also thank my parents for supporting my education over the years and helping to care for my daughter as I revised the manuscript for publication. As I have worked on this project, I have received much support from my husband , Tyler, and daughter, Olivia, especially as I revised the manuscript for publication . I appreciate their patience with me going into the office on the weekends and staying up all hours and their entertaining themselves during a summer vacation in Lexington while I did archival research. Friends have also provided me with the support and encouragement I needed to see this book through to completion. Lisa Blackwell has provided the understanding only a fellow author could. Kevin Kerr has shared my interest in Southern studies. Karen Beckett, Penny Gowen, and Melody Meyer have also been supportive. Laura Lancaster provided the inspiration and example for me to go to graduate school. Christi Moss has been a friend and a co-laborer in the study of Southern rhetoric. In addition, I have been blessed with generous, astute, and wise professors. The most influential has been Jim Aune, who worked with me on this project in its earlier form as my doctoral dissertation in the Department of Communication at Texas A & M University. I also thank Charley Conrad, Leroy Dorsey , and Jan Swearingen for serving on my dissertation committee and offering good advice for turning my dissertation into the book that it is today. Marty Medhurst was helpful in the early stages of writing the Confederate flag chapter . Vanessa Beasley’s example provided encouragement throughout my time at Texas A & M. I also learned much from Kurt Ritter about rhetoric in the public sphere. At Clemson University, Martin Jacobi and Beth Daniell introduced me to the study of rhetoric; I am especially thankful to Martin Jacobi for his introduction to the ideas of Kenneth Burke and Richard Weaver, which heavily influenced this project. Finally, the solid foundation in writing, research, and critical thinking that I received as an undergraduate at Stetson University, especially as a student in the Department of English and the Honors Program, has made all my further studies possible. I hope I can provide as solid a foundation to the students I am now teaching at my alma mater. I am also appreciative of the Department of Communication Studies and Theatre Arts and the College of Arts ix and Sciences for allowing me the opportunity to return home to Stetson as a teacher and researcher. I am appreciative of the Virginia Military Institute Archives for allowing me access to back issues of the VMI student newspaper, The Cadet. I also would like to thank John Clarke of the Richmond Times-Dispatch and Bryan Collars of the South Carolina Department of Archives and History for their help in securing permissions for some of the photographs included in this book. Finally, I appreciate the detailed and honest yet kind feedback from the anonymous reviewer, who helped me discover my manuscript’s potential. I especially thank Craig Gill of the University Press of Mississippi for expressing an interest in this project and helping me see it through to completion, and Ellen Goldlust-Gingrich for her careful copy editing. x Acknowledgments Contemporary Southern Identity This page intentionally left blank ...