Carolina Alumni Review - November/December 2010

FROM THE HILL

Rat Could Be Back — and in a Big Way

DAN SEARS ’ 74

Davie Poplar
Will Live On
(And On
and On)

A tissue sample from the Davie Poplar was sent to a Texas nursery in August, and it’s expected to come back as about 1,000 clones of the iconic campus tree.

Davie already has two offspring thriving within sight of the original in McCorkle Place. At the University’s Bicentennial in 1993, seedlings also were distributed to every county in North Carolina.

The new clones could be planted across the campus, sent forth throughout the state — and even offered for sale in Student Stores.

Atwater Gets Federal
Life Sentence in Murder
of Eve Carson ’08

Demario James Atwater received a life prison sentence in federal dis- trict court in Winston-Salem on Sept. 23 for the killing of former Student Body President Eve Carson ’08, who was shot to death two months before she was to graduate in 2008.

The Durham man received a life sen-
tence for kidnapping resulting in death, a life
sentence and two 10-year sentences on car-
jacking and weapons charges, and a 10-year
sentence for discharging a weapon resulting
in death. Atwater also was ordered to pay
more than $212,000 in restitution if he ever
gets out of prison. The News & Observer of
Raleigh quoted Judge James Beatty as say-
ing, “It’s not likely the defendant under any
circumstance will be on supervised release.”
Atwater pleaded guilty last spring to state
charges of kidnapping and murder. In April,
he entered the same plea to federal carjack-
ing, kidnapping and weapons charges. Both
plea arrangements included an agreement to
spare him the death penalty.

Atwater and Laurence Alvin Lovette encountered Carson early March 5, 2008, at her home near downtown Chapel Hill. They kidnapped her and drove in her vehicle to automatic teller machines, where they forced Carson to withdraw $1,400. Prosecutors said Carson then was shot five times.

Lovette’s trial is pending. He was a minor at the time and thus is ineligible for the death penalty.

ONLINE: Coverage dating to March 2008 is available at alumni.unc.edu/eve_carson.

Ben Jones ’ 50 remembers being the first patron to walk through the door when Ted Danziger opened the Rathskeller for business in September 1948. And he intends to be first in line when Diane Fountain ’ 80 reopens the underground tavern, perhaps by the end of this year. What Jones will see, should he become the first customer the second time around, will be the same old Rat of 62 years ago, only brighter, safer and cleaner.

In an industry where few restaurants last more than five years, the Rathskeller enjoyed decades of success as a spot where students and townfolk would take their dates and their drinking buddies alike. Many mourned the day in early 2008 when the Rathskeller was shuttered and its contents auctioned off.

Fountain, a real estate developer, learned in June — at the end of her son Chaz Green’s freshman year at Carolina — that the

Rat sat empty. She looked into what it would take to reopen it, and over the summer she pulled together a team laden with Carolina alumni. Now she is ready to begin the process of getting permits to renovate the space.

SARAH MCCARTY ARNESON ’ 96

If all goes according to plan, Fountain will welcome customers to a renovated Rathskeller that preserves the nostalgia but “kicks it up a notch,” she said. The overhead ductwork will be gone, replaced by all new plumbing, mechanical and electrical systems. Fountain plans to add a second bar, complete with 65-inch plasma TVs, and a second entrance near Franklin Street. All the windows along the alley will be opened to bring in more light.

Danziger opened the Rathskeller off Amber Alley, in the base-
ment underneath his father’s sweet shop. He named it after a Ger-
man word that translates loosely as “cellar beer hall.”
“This is a dream come true for me, as it would be for anybody, to
be associated with a restaurant with such history,” Fountain said.

ONLINE: A more detailed story is online at alumni.unc.edu/newrat.

Folkerts Stepping Down as Journalism Dean

Jean Folkerts, dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, will step down from the position next July.

“While I’ve enjoyed nearly every minute of the last
five years, it’s also been a demanding job,” she told a
faculty meeting in the school on Oct. 8. “Being dean
of a major journalism school requires long hours, dedi-
cation and a continually changing view of what jour-
nalism education means. In these changing times, deans
need to be freshly engaged both in academia and in
the ‘real world.’ Staying in the job too long can
become an occupational hazard. I feel that together we
have created a climate of constant innovation and a
desire to be the best.”
Folkerts became dean in July 2006. After a leave, in
which she plans to “read all the history scholarship I’ve
been stacking on my back shelf for the past five years,”
she will return to the school to teach in January 2012.