At the same time I was working with Jay Dawkins on graduation gowns.
It was something that had started when I was in student government. We went to-.
I loved going to the CALS agrilife council meetings
because you got a free dinner and there was always people there with ideas and everything else,
But one person was like: Why don't we wear red when we graduate?
And it kind of just put a light bulb off in my head.
It was something that-. I wasn't sure how to make the moves happen yet,
so as senior class president I was like, that's one thing I want to work on.
I went to my brother's graduation when he graduated from Carolina and they graduate in a sea of Carolina Blue.
Then everything kind of started happening with the administration changes, with the Easley issues and everything else,
so it was-because it kind of was on the chancellor's side,
and with Oblinger leaving and all the other mess it just wasn't a priority and shouldn't have been a priority for the university.
So once Chancellor Woodward got in at the time I sat down with Jay Dawkins, who was now the senior class president at that time,
and Jim Ceresnak, the new student body president, who was also Jay's roommate,
and we started talking about it and I said, guys, this is something we need to make happen.
All of us wear red every day.
Our whites are stained pink from washing so many different red t-shirts in with our whites.
It's a passion that we bleed red.
We brought it up at chancellor's liaison and he was like,
What do you mean you don't do this? Why not?
He was like of course we're going to make this happen. There's no question; this is going to happen.
One of the coolest moments, because he was just like, yeah, that's silly that you're not already graduating in red.
Then he goes, it's going to start at the May graduation,
and Dr. Stafford's looking at me, and Dr. Stafford knows I'm graduating in December
and Dr. Stafford, after the meeting, says, "Yeah, it doesn't sound like you're going to get to graduate in red. You'll be the last one to graduate in black."
I said, "Yeah, but I'm just glad that it's happening."
Dr. Stafford calls me in a couple of weeks later and says, "Hey-." No, I actually go to meet with the chancellor a couple of weeks later,
and the chancellor goes, "Dr. Stafford told me that you were kind of upset that you weren't going to get to graduate in red."
He goes, "I'll make you a deal. If you help me get these red robes in place, you get student feedback,
you know, do we want the little things here, whatever.
You deal with that stuff and you get this to happen by May,
I'll let you wear a red robe at your December graduation."
I was like, sold. Done deal. There's no doubt about it.
So I was on the committee and I took the robes and showed them to students and got the feedback
and everything and we picked what we wanted and worked with the committee to develop it,
and I was able to graduate in red and be the first student to graduate in red, which was one of the coolest things, I think, of my college career.