Carolina Alumni Review - November/December 2007

PUBLISHING
’Cue Calendar

Dick Anderson ’ 86 and Scott Carpenter ’ 86 were driving down I- 40 in North Carolina when Carpenter pointed out that there seemed to be a lot of happy-looking pigs on the barbecue restaurant billboards, an ironic attitude for an advertisement announcing their own demise. Anderson had been kicking around the idea of publishing a calendar for some time. The pigs fit the bill.

Anderson, who lives in Los Angeles, and Carpenter, of Rutherfordton, began collecting candidates for the Pig-A-Day calendar in January 2006, pulling together the best and cleverest porcine propagandists for barbecue restaurants, festivals and contests across the country. Anderson, editor of the alumni magazine for Occidental College, recruited a designer, Claudia SanSoucie, and they put the pigs to press in July in time for the 2008 market.

Anderson, who cut his teeth on Carolina barbecue, admits he and Carpenter didn’t taste all of that barbecue firsthand. “Our main criteria were visual,” Anderson says. “It had to be pig art. There was some controversy about quality, but our baseline was that you had to have a pig in there, whether it was a barbecue place, a contest or a festival.”

Note those special barbecue dates, including Smokin’ Elvises of Kearney, Mo., a team of Elvis impersonators, on the anniversary of Elvis’ death, Aug. 16; BBQ Pirates of Longview, Texas, on Talk-Like-a-Pirate Day, Sept. 19; Trailer Pork BBQ of Memphis, the only pig with a mullet, on National Mullet Day, July 2; and the Carolina BBQ Society ( unc.edu/bbq) on Dec. 11, the date when UNC was chartered.

COUR TESY DICK ANDERSON ’ 86

PHOTOGRAPHY

Amigos. She was helping an effort to rein-
troduce the crop amaranto (amaranth). The Katie Zolkowski ’06 took this photo of a pineapple
dance in the Mexican village Santa Lucia Ocotlan.
grain, a cross between corn and rice rich in
calcium, fiber and iron, had been a staple of Zolkowski came home from the summer
the Zapotec Indians. When the Spanish with much more than a good photo or two.
arrived in the 1500s, they labeled amaranto a She honed the formal Spanish she had prac-
pagan crop because the Zapotec used it in ticed in Spain and developed an ear for the
offerings to the gods. The Zapotec contin- more colloquial speech of village life and
ued to grow the crop in remote areas and, working people. Today she is a human
with new interest in innovative farming and resources coordinator for Fowler
nutrition, the crop was being brought back. Contracting in Cary, where many new hires
That summer there was a lot of political are immigrant Spanish speakers.
turmoil in the state capital, Oaxaca City, and In addition to orientation for new hires,
the colorful festival of folk dancing, the Zolkowski handles day-to-day communica-
Guelaguetza, had been canceled by officials. tion problems. Even immigrant workers

Right Place, Right Time

KATIE ZOLKOWSKI ’06

Getting a winning photo is often a matter of timing.

In summer 2006, Katie Zolkowski ’06 was volunteering in a village in the state of

Oaxaca, Mexico, for a nonprofit project,

In resistance, dancers continued to perform who speak English might have had little for-and came to Santa Lucia Ocotlan, the village mal education back home. Translating the where Zolkowski lived. She had her camera daily diaries of a Spanish-speaking foreman, ready and caught the colorful performers in Zolkowski works from phonetic spellings a pineapple dance. She hadn’t thought much and a lot of grammatical constructions she of it at the time, but when she got home, her did not see in her UNC classes. father spotted a photo contest sponsored by “I’m glad that I have been in Mexico,” Continental Airlines and Amigos. Zolkowski Zolkowski says. “Now I have a better idea of won the Latin America Photo Contest. what’s going on.”

Looking Everywhere

Imagine this: You are sitting with your camera shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of fellow press photographers watching a game — hockey, football, any game — waiting for something to happen. When it does, there is the sound of shutters and flashes. How are you supposed to get that photo, one just that much better than the person next to you?

Kevin Cox ’ 98 puts it down to taking time and training his eyes. He learned on the job under the wing of Grant Halverson ’ 93, director of photography and multimedia for The Cary News and whose work in UNC publications is familiar to fans. “Your eyes are looking everywhere, all the time,” Cox says. “Everything I see, I’m thinking, how can I make this into a photo?”

Cox knows what he is talking about. His “Helmet Break Up,” a shot of New Orleans Saints cornerback Mike McKenzie breaking up a pass intended for Carolina Panthers wide receiver Drew Carter, won the 2006 Dave Boss Award for Excellence in the 39th Annual Pro Football Hall of Fame Photo Contest. Cox,

KEVIN COX ’ 98

The winning shot by Kevin Cox ’ 98

now a photographer for Getty Images, took the photo Oct. 1, 2006, on assignment for WireImage.

Dick Anderson ’ 86, left, and Scott Carpenter ’ 86 with their muse, focused their calendar on the wide variety of pig art at barbecue restaurants.