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(02/12/14 11:46pm)
The Heart of Auburn development on South College Street will now include a new twist on an old college-diet original. Uncle Maddio’s Pizza Joint opens in early April, introducing build-your-own pizza to Auburn.“It’s a similar concept to Moe’s Southwest,” said Michael DiChiara, owner and manager of Auburn’s Uncle Maddio’s. “You come in, you go down the line and you watch us actually build your pizza from the ingredients that you’re looking at.”After six minutes in the oven, the pizza is brought out. DiChiara said he is counting on students’ input to plan promotional specials.“We want to hear from students about the drink specials we will have on beer and wine,” DiChiara said. “We are trying to really cater to students and what they want to have.”Ideas include Thursday trivia nights and drink specials, according to DiChiara. Uncle Maddio’s will look to students for employees. DiChiara expects to hire an above average number of part-time staff members because of the limited times students are available to work. Auburn is saturated with pizza places, from Mellow Mushroom and Little Italy downtown, to Johnny Brusco's on East University Drive; but Megan McDowen, deputy economic development director, said she believes Auburn has the room. The former location of the Heart of Auburn Hotel now holds a CVS. Uncle Maddio’s and a Birmingham-based Greek restaurant Taziki’s will soon fill the empty business spaces neighboring the new CVS. McDowen said she believes adding the CVS may have generated interest in the Heart of Auburn building and said development had much to due with its proximity to campus was also a draw. DiChiara said she believes the location will help draw customers to the new businesses.“It’s almost like being downtown,” DiChiara said. “But we actually have parking where people can get in.”McDowen also said she believes being walking distance from students, faculty and staff will be the key to success for the new businesses. Katie Knell, sophomore in apparel merchandising, said she usually chooses Mellow Mushroom when deciding where to get pizza. However, Knell said she believes Auburn has enough room for more pizza restaurants.“I think [Uncle Maddio’s] will be a fine edition,” Knell said. “It’ll be another way to create community in Auburn.”Johnny Brusco's New York Style Pizza owner, Kevin Bobo, said he was not concerned about the new competition.“Obviously, it’s going to have a little bit of an effect,” Bobo said. “But at the same time, restaurants open everyday in this town, so I don’t see it being too big of a deal.”Auburn is growing, and interest in new developments, such the rennovated Heart of Auburn, show the city is an attractive option for small business owners, McDowen said.“It is just a really thriving place,” DiChiara said. “It’s a great place to live. It’s got an SEC school. Everybody is very tied-in and pro Auburn. Once you embrace that Auburn side of things, you really feel like you are part of the University.”
(02/03/14 2:50pm)
A top hat, a coat and a small bottle of Captain. Maybe it was jeans rolled up at the pants leg showing his ankles, and rolled down at the waist to keep them on without a belt. In that case, usually shirtless, always shoeless.
Quirky didn't define Bear Townsend. He defined quirky. Somehow for him, it worked. He could always convince the person he was talking to that his next idea was a good one, and if not, he left them with the notion that if anyone could pull it off it would be him.
I had the privilege of being Bear Townsend's fraternity brother in Sigma Phi Epsilon. Living in the fraternity house, I saw him around almost every day.
Sitting on the front porch on a sun-warmed leather couch, he was always engulfed in the moment. Whether reading, playing guitar or listening to music obscenely loud, anyone that waked past knew a full conversation was coming their way.
That was what made Bear special. He truly cared about people. He never had a conversation in which he was waiting to talk; he actually listened. His genuine interest in everyone around him made it impossible to feel like you didn't know him on a personal level.
Even if you weren't friends with Bear, he was friends with you.
At Bear's candlelight vigil on Jan. 25, Sigma Phi Epsilon's chaplain Tanner Scott recalled a moment that described Bear's frank way of talking that everyone could relate to.
"Everyone who loves Jesus raise your hand," Bear said when asked to say a prayer before dinner. "Amen."
In conversation, Bear had a way of drawing things out of people that made it hard to not feel like his best friend. It was as if he was collecting little facts about people because he knew that one day, he would be able to talk to them again and have a meaningful conversation about what makes them happy.
Bear was born to make people happy.
Thirty minutes and 100 tries into learning to tie a bow tie for a party, Bear walked into my room with his top hat and drink.
"Hold this," he said while shoving his drink in my hand. He grabbed both sides of the bow tie and whipped out a tight knot.
"Now drink! We did it!" Then he proceeded to play through songs on my guitar until he found one we could sing together.
Sure, there was a party going on downstairs, but that moment wasn't wasted because he knew that wherever he was, was where he was happiest.
Living in the moment didn't mean putting on a show. It didn't mean making the best of where he was at. It meant honestly enjoying and gaining the most from every situation. Where he was always seemed to be where he wanted to be.
Shortly after my mid-college crisis and early into my college writing career, I found a piece of paper shoved under my door.
It was a cut out of a list that I had written for The Odyssey. It wasn't anything to be proud of, but he had written across the top, "You'll always be on my front page."
That was who Bear was. He enjoyed everything about people, and wanted people to have the confidence to do what they enjoyed. He wanted to make someone's day, and for me, it did much more than that.
If there is one thing that people can get from Bear's life, it is to live every moment with joy. Everything has a silver lining.
Bear fit more into his shortened life than most will get in 40 years. He didn't live the longest, but he lived the fullest, not a second wasted.
Bear would not stand to see someone hurting. The number of lives he changed will never be forgotten, and he will always be remembered for his selfless love.
As he often said, "The battle is already won."
This article is an adaptation from a submission from the Jan. 27 edition of The Odyssey.
(01/22/14 1:05am)
From before the game starts, until after the game ends, there is one group of Auburn fans that have stayed through every football game. They were just as loud when the Tigers made their National Championship run as when they hit their rut and went 3-9 last year.
The Auburn University Marching Band believes in Auburn and loves it. The chance to play for a national championship was just icing on the cake.
At 4 a.m. the Saturday morning before the game, band members began their journey to California. Rehearsals, pep rallies, Disneyland and Hollywood packed the band's schedule that weekend.
This trip wasn't completely unexpected however.
"I was calling an Auburn-FSU championship for several games," said Paige Lenssen, senior drum major and double major in finance and English. "But I think when we finally beat Georgia, it became a lot more real."
Strutting out onto the field, the drum majors spun their maces and spiked them into the freshly-painted grass of the Rose Bowl. It was real.
"Our goal when we go to any away trips is to make that stadium rock like Jordan Hare does," Lenssen said.
Gus Malzahn runs a fast offense, and during the first half of the game the band played their fast pieces to help get the crowd loud on defense. Up 21-3, they had an easy job getting the Rose Bowl rocking.
Despite the quick scores in the first half, the most exciting part of the game for Emily Gray, head drum major and senior in secondary music education, was the last five minutes.
Gray was leading the band on the podium for the fourth quarter of the game.
"I remember not thinking we were safe," Gray said. "But I thought there was time. It was a hold your breath moment."
After the last play, it seemed as if the Auburn fans let that breath out all together. 34-31 took a couple moments to comprehend.
"After the game, I was really proud of all the band members because of how they carried themselves as we left the stadium," said Gerritt Keaton, drum major and junior in management.
"I think everybody was fine with the end result," said Madison Argo, drum major and senior in music education. "We got a trip to California, we won the SEC championship, we beat Alabama most importantly."
For all four drum majors, each with at least four years of experience in the marching band, the 2013 Iron Bowl will be remembered as their favorite game of all time.
"I have never been a part of a game like this last Iron Bowl," Gray said. "I don't think I could have recreated that in any of the five years I've been here."
"I will definitely be telling my grandkids about that game one day," Keaton said.
The more than 380 band members represent Auburn University through their songs and traditions. The 2013 season has come and gone, but the influence of that football team lives on. And the band was there every step of the way.
"We were there from the beginning to the end every game of last season, and the beginning to the end of every game this season," Lenssen said. "For us, it's about representing the team, representing the University, being great ambassadors and being important members of the Auburn Family."
(01/21/14 8:28pm)
Tucked away in sleepy downtown Opelika, pictures and artifacts from the 1940s at the Museum of East Alabama tell the story of more than 3,000 captured prisoners. Elaborately carved cups and plates left behind show the amount of detail people can achieve when they have time on their hands. Worn leather-bound Bibles, handwritten letters and military roll-call sheets serve as the last link to the prisoners' thoughts.
What sets this exhibit apart from other World War II-era displays is the focus on German prisoners. Specifically, the objects are from German prisoners detained in Opelika from 1942-1945.
"There's a lot of history around here that people don't realize," said Glenn Buxton, museum director.
As the need for prisoner-of-war camps increased, America opened its doors to Axis prisoners. Germans were shipped to ports in New York, Boston and Baltimore, and then brought by train to camps across the United States. Camp Opelika was the second largest camp in Alabama, according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama.
"In six months, they were able to build the whole thing," said local resident Al Killian, retired Lt. Colonel in the Alabama National Guard and author of the book "Camp Opelika." "They were like McDonalds' buildings, one size fit all."
Prisoners served as cooks, formed soccer teams and staged plays with men starring in all of the roles. An orchestra of prisoners, some of who had been professional musicians before the war, put on shows members of the Opelika community could attend. Camp newspapers detailed these activities and more.
"It was a lot better over here than over there," Buxton said.
Courses ranging from Spanish to woodworking were taught by the prisoners. Records show approximately 1,400 prisoners participated in coursework, according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama.
The camp's prisoners were also allowed to work in the cotton fields and lumber plants around the community.
"If they worked, they made 80 cents a day," Killian said. "That's about what the American soldier was making, too, at $21 a month."
Former prisoners remember Opelika fondly. Relatives send letters and pictures, and some made a return trip to the city. The relationships they made with the community resonated after they left.
German soldiers were confused when arriving at the major ports of America, since their superiors told them German bombers had destroyed the major cities on the East Coast, according to Killian.
They had also been informed they would be killed when taken prisoner, and prepared themselves to be shot when taken off the trains.
Bringing enemy soldiers to the home front humanized the Americans in German eyes, and the Germans in American eyes.
"We learned that they weren't so different from us," Killian said. "They had wives and kids at home."
Camp Opelika had a profound impact on the community and marked an important time in local history, yet few artifacts remain to tell its story.
"We were dummies," said Killian as he talked about the amount of history destroyed or neglected.
"It is important for people to know their history," Killian said. "People need to know what was done for them."
German internment camps are preserved for people to learn from the horrors of the Holocaust. The atrocities of how the Japanese military treated American prisoners are taught in schools.
As Winston Churchill said, "history is written by the victors."
The Museum of East Alabama is teaching how similar our enemies were, and provides insight to the similarities in human nature that we all have through the artifacts from Camp Opelika.
(11/21/13 10:36pm)
A Florida State University windbreaker and hat stand out on Auburn's campus. The man's white beard and glasses hint at wisdom, and his purposeful stride makes it easy to spot Delos Mckown as he walks around the University where he used to teach.
Mckown was head of the department of philosophy at Auburn until 1995.
"I have been off the scene for so long," Mckown said. "I used to be well-known on this campus. I had a horrible reputation."
He was an important figure in Alabama's freethinking community and still inspires and teaches people about religion through the books he has authored.
As a child, Mckown wanted to be a cartoonist and graduated with a bachelor's of fine art at Alma College in Michigan.
At 19 years old, he began preaching with the hopes of becoming a minister. Mckown enrolled at the Lexington Theological Seminary "under the influence," of another minister who had been taught there, Mckown said.
"I was under the illusion that I had received a call to the ministry," Mckown said. "But I was very young in those days."
While in Lexington, Mckown's beliefs flipped.
"Not because of research, it was because of personal experiences," Mckown said. "I realized I had been sold a bill of goods."
Mckown went on to earn a master's degree in philosophy at the University of Kentucky, then a Ph.D. at Florida State University.
Since retiring in 1995, Mckown spends more time at home. Earlier in his life, he spoke regularly as an active member of the Alabama Freethought Association.
The organization's goal is to separate government from sponsored religion and remove it from schools.
Mckown said he believes this goal is in line with the Founding Fathers' wish for a country free from religious influence.
"I just wish that we were truer to our Founding Fathers," Mckown said. "They didn't do a perfect job by any means, but they did a pretty good job at creating a new country. And there was a time when those classic values in the constitution held us together. There has to be something (classic values), or else our society would become anarchic."
Mckown lives as a self-described agnostic, someone who admits to not knowing if a god exists or not. This position is "more defensible" than deist or atheist, he said.
A deist believes in a god, but not the Christian God. Instead, a deist believes in a god who "doesn't pull on someone's heart strings," Mckown said.
Defending his position is what Mckown enjoys.
A quick Google search of his name returns numerous chat room sites talking about his many books, speeches and debates.
In one speech transcript that was given in 1989 titled "How to Handle Bibliolaters," Mckown outlines what a person should do when confronted with evangelists.
The speech even included an anecdote from a debate with a reverend in Auburn's ballroom.
Regardless of his notoriety online, McKown doesn't spend any time thinking about his accomplishments or past achievements, he said.
He wants to see change in our country, and all inquiries into how he has made a difference resulted in conversations about religious inequalities, or how Americans can retain a separation of church and state.
"The best thing an individual can do would be to take a busload of school kids to see the dinosaur bones and things of that sort," Mckown said. "You counter it not directly, but by showing things."
Now in his mid-80's, Mckown hesitates to talk about his accomplishments. He has written four books about debatable religious figures and philosophies.
A quick read of any of his speech transcripts gives more insight into Mckown than any other writer could describe.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike."
Mckown's most notable quote speaks to his personality. He speaks through irony. Some of his statements don't mean anything literally yet provoke deep insight into our culture's beliefs.
(11/15/13 12:34am)
The first thing one notices about Maya Ozukur is the immediate greeting she bestows. She's warm, speaks through her clothes and strives to stand out. You might not know it, but something more is hiding.
Ozukur spent three months, at the age of 6, as a Bosnian war refugee, but you would never expect it from her open attitude with anyone who approaches.
Locked in a prison camp with her mother, grandmother and brother, she ate lentil soup for every meal, dealt with lice and used an open field as a bathroom.
It was essentially unlivable, Ozukur said.
Her mother was a defense attorney in Bosnia and, today, lives as constant inspirationfor overcoming the war as a single mother with two children.
During nights in the prison camp, she slept on top of her two children, knowing if anyone came by, at least they would take her first and her children would have a chance.
She learned what it was like to experience the hardest times of life at an early age.
"Once you have gone through the darkest hour, you could go through, at the end, you become fearless," Ozukur said.
'No fear' has become the expression Ozukur has lived her life by. Six is a tender age, and she retains a lot of memories that haunt her to this day. She saw her friend shot and killed in the prison camp.
Still, she refuses to let her past hold her back from her passions.
Ozukur has used her past as a catalyst and inspiration to constantly improve her own life.
At first glance, her U&I Boutique appears to be just another shopping destination in Auburn- trendy clothes, helpful employees and an easily accessible location.
She currently owns two boutiques, and will open a third location in December.
Ozukur graduated from University of South Alabama in 2008. She majored in German and, as a child, had dreams of following her mother's profession as a lawyer. She always wanted to do something to help and connect with people, a trait she attributes to learning from her mom.
But now, the boutique is more than just a store. It's her way to create bonds with the community.
"Fashion draws a crowd of people with nothing in common, and then they become best friends," Ozukur said. "I became friends with people because of the store, I care about them. I am always talking with them; what is their background, major, do they have children."
Ozukur's other source of inspiration, her husband, has helped her with all aspects of her business. Nazmi Ozukur mentors by helping Maya build relationships with her customers, something that he has done well at his own restaurants, Tropical Smoothie and Island Wing Company.
Ozukur knows a strong sense of family is the key to being successful. She jokes it's much like the family behind Auburn University.
Her family supports and inspires. After overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds, her family is committed to making a difference, no matter how small.
Ozukur's brother serves in the U.S. Army and is currently deployed.
"Whether it was one person or 100 people, he wanted to make a difference and give them a fighting chance," Ozukur said. "He wants to be the light at the end of the tunnel."
Ozukur does not keep up with the news, because she said she would rather hear good things.
She said her only connection to Bosnia is her heritage, and considers Germany to be her 'second home.'
Although her friends in Europe don't fully understand what her business is and ask if we still have dirt roads in Alabama, but they too are proud of all that she has accomplished.
Despite everything, Ozukur stays humble, and refuses to use religion or her story to encourage people to shop at her boutique.
"My story makes me bigger and better than I would be today," Ozukur said.
Ozukur has embraced "classic Southern charm." She said she is proud and grateful of the country that has allowed her to fulfill her dreams of owning her own business.
"If you come with beliefs, you can really prosper if you want to," Ozukur said.