alumni today
Karen Truelove Krueger ’ 96 says that “it
is consistency that pays off when you are trying to make a living.”
“This has been a great season for me,” she
admits with some pride. “I ended up with
three wins. I got first or second in all of the
events I entered, with one exception.”
Krueger is talking about making a living as
a world-class water-skier, a sport usually associated with summer days on a quiet lake. But
Krueger’s event is the slalom, and “slalom is
like sudden death,” she explains. “The skier
rides one ski through a course of six buoys in
about 17 seconds. I may accelerate from boat
speed, 34 mph, to 50 or 60 mph as I cross the
wake. You are on one ski, so you depend a lot
on the wind. If the wind comes up, in a split
second you can bounce off your ski without
doing anything wrong.”
Her wins in 2007 included first place in the
U.S. Open (for the third time), first in the
belief that her recreation
COURTESY IWSF
could become a livelihood.
After college, they teamed
up, taught at a ski school in
Autobarn Moomba Louisiana, moved to Florida
Masters (Australia), first and dedicated themselves to
in the H2Osmosis Pro skiing. Freddie Krueger soon
Swerve (South Carolina) Karen Truelove Krueger ’ 96 has been water-ski- proved unbeatable and, train-
and second place in five ing since age 3 and turned pro after skiing on ing side-by-side with his
more pro events. the UNC club team. wife, saw her build her own
Krueger began skiing at age 3. By 8, she stack of wins and a respectable income.
qualified for national and international com- While some pro sports see players peak in
petition. When she came to UNC, Krueger their 20s, Karen Krueger, who will be 34 in
still expected to outgrow her sport and find a February, points out that water-skiers work
“real” profession. “What really planted the well beyond that age. “A lot of women even
seed in my head that I could go pro was my ski better after they have kids,” Krueger notes,
experience at UNC,” where it was a club perhaps thinking of April Coble Elder ’ 95,
sport, Krueger says. “We just had so much fun who kept right at Krueger’s heels in 2007,
that it renewed my love for the sport.” taking second place at the U.S. Open and the
This love combined with a chance H2Osmosis Pro Swerve, less than a year after
encounter when she took a semester off from the birth of her second child.
UNC to ski at Northeast Louisiana Perhaps they will join Lucille Borgen, the
University. There she met fellow skier Freddie only skier in the 85-and-older category creat-Krueger. He already had the idea of turning ed by the American Water Ski Association just
pro and sent her back to UNC with the for her.
COMPETETION
Riding the Wake of Success
ENTERPRISE North Carolina Ballet is cele-
Camping Lessons brating its 10th performance
season.
It will work the same way
There is an old saying about the with the next big venture for
dangers of mixing business with Purrington, who has spent a
pleasure. But for more than a decade, career in North Carolina law
Ward Purrington ’ 62 has been (he graduated from UNC’s law
making pleasure his business. school in 1967), politics and
Purrington and his wife, Charlotte, government service. “We used
wanted to see professional ballet Ward Purrington ’ 62 envi- to take our children to camp,”
added to North Carolina’s arts scene; sions a summer camp for he recalls, “and I used to say,
they pulled together the talent and grown-ups. ‘Gosh, I wish I could stay!’
finances, established a venue and built an That’s where the seed of the idea got started.”
audience. They suggested the Carolina Ballet That idea is becoming The Appalachian
Theater move up from a pre-professional to a Institution, sort of a North Carolina version of
professional company (1993). They hired the Chautauqua Institution in New York.
Robert Weiss, former principal dancer with Purrington describes his latest civic project as a
the New York City Ballet and past artistic summer camp for grown-ups — something of
director of the Pennsylvania Ballet, as artistic an understatement since, in addition to out-director (1997) and brought in dancers from door activities and a mountain setting, The
around the world (1998). A decade later, the Appalachian Institution plans to bring in a
COURTESY WARD PURRINGTON ’ 62
program of university-level learning. Even the
location, Lake Logan, is a lesson. The property
was created as a retreat for the executives of
the Champion Paper Mill. The mill owner
purchased a group of mountaineer cabins,
slated to be removed to make room for the
Smoky Mountains National Park, for a site
on Lake Logan. Sleeping in the remodeled
cabins, retreat visitors will be able to take a
break from classes to hike the land for a lesson
in history and ecology, tracing the path of the
Native American and early Appalachian
inhabitants, and tracking the natural recovery
of the forest after the paper mill closed.
The inaugural retreat, “Foundations of
Western Civilization,” is scheduled for Aug.
10-15; the second session, “The
Enlightenment as a Critical Turning Point in
Western Civilization” Aug. 24-29
( www.appalachianinstitution.com).
Purrington says he will be at both sessions,
mixing business with pleasure.
