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Volume 76 Number 23
Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama
Thursday, April 23, 1992
to honor
southern
culture
Profile of Celebration Chair
Mark Baggett on page 3.
By Debbie Sheffield
Staff Reporter
Samford University will com¬
memorate Southern culture
Monday through Wednesday
with a special program featur¬
ing an Oscar nominee and a
Pulitzer Prize- winning jour¬
nalist.
"Celebration of the South: A
Spectrum of Southern Voices"
is the name of the event, which
is part of the ongoing Sesqui-
centermial festivities.
“We will have speakers, .
rums and a Samford Univ>
sity Theatre production of a
Southern play. The Quitters,"
Celebration Chair Mark
Baggett said.
"The program is geared for
the students." he said. “Na¬
tionally-known people who are
among the most credible voices
on Southern politics, econom¬
ics, religion and literature will
be here?'
Among the participants is
Birmingham native Fannie
Flagg, whose novel Fried Green
Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop
Cafe has been made into a
critically- acclaimed movie.
Flagg, who received an Oscar
nomination for the movie’s
screenplay adaptation , will
speak Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the
Wright Center Concert Hall.
Baggett said. 'Besides bet
„
an actress, comedienne anc
novelist, she is a highly enter¬
taining speaker.”
Howell Raines, who recently
won a Pulitzer prize for feature
writing, will speak in Reid
See "South" on page 3.
Sophomore David Bell and senior Andy Ruble head north during Spring Break
'Arctic Circle or Bust'
Students drive to northern tip of continent during break
By Chad Steenerson
Staff Reporter
Sophomore David. Bell and junior
Andy Ruble returned from spring
break more tired than when they had
left. After 10 days and 10,000 miles,
they had proven that not all roads
lead to Nome.
While many of their friends basked
in the Florida sun during spring
break, these students toyed with
conventional limits of sanity by
driving from Birmingham to the Arctic
Ocean. Crossing more than half of
North America, they drove to Inuvik,
atownof2,700 on the northern coast
of Canada’s Northwest Territory.
Bell said he j ust wanted to go as far
north as he could for spring break, so
Inuvik seemed like the most likely
place. One hundred twenty-five miles
north of the Arctic Circle, it is the
northernmost point in the world one
can reach by public roads.
“Last summer when I was in British
Columbia, I was working as a sum¬
mer missionary.” Bell said, “and one
of the people that went to a church I
was working with [was) driving up to
Inuvik. I’d always seen [Inuvik] on
the map and I’d always heard the
temperatures . . . [were] ridiculously
cold, so it sounded interesting."
'Cool, I wanna do it'
Bell said he'd been planning the
trip for three or four months but
invited Ruble along only four days
before spring break began, after an¬
other of Belfs friends backed out of
the trip. Ruble said that when Bell
invited him. he had no idea how far
north they would be going.
“[David] told me about it a couple of
months ago," Ruble said. “He told me
he was driving to Canada and I was
like, ‘Cool, I wanna do It!’ So the other
guy backed out Monday before spring
break, [and] David called me Monday
night and asked me to go with him. I
didn’t realize how crazy it was. I knew
we were driving north, but I didn’t
realize it was the thing that it was.”
On March 27, the two students set
See "North" on page 3.
Credit card companies bombard college students
By Amy Walker
Editor
A Samford student opens
his mail box and out falls
another envelope with a bank
insignia in the left corner.
“Another credit card?" he
asks. “Good grief. I’m still
trying to pay off the one I
haver
A common scene?
According to the newsletter
Credit Card News, more than
half of the country’s 5.6 mil¬
lion full-time college students
at four-year institutions have
credit cards. In 1990. major
card companies earned at
least $3.5 billion off student
card users.
Major banks such as
Citicorp and Chase Manhat¬
tan are snowing college
campuses with mailed appli¬
cations, sign-up booths, even
phone solicitations. Instead
of the usual strict require¬
ments, almost any full-time
student can get amajorcredit
card, even if ne or she doesn’t
have a Job.
And many students are
finding themselves in debt.
Emily Patton (not her real
name), a Samford senior, has
a Visa and a MasterCard with
a combined credit limit of
' I used the Visa for
everything — eating
out, gifts — and ran
my bill up to $600.'
Anonymous
Samford Senior
$2,000. Patton’s allowance
from her parents is only about
$1,500 per year.
Patton applied for the Visa
herself to help pay for birth¬
day gifts, dates and other
special occasions. “At the
beginning I was very conser¬
vative. I was full of anxiety
every time I used it." she said.
“Then things got out of hand
this semester. I used the Visa
for everything — eating out,
gifts — and ran my bill up to
$600."
Patton’s mother found the
bill while she was home for
the holidays and “nearly went
through the ceiling. But I
assured her I had everything
under control and I was go¬
ing to work over Christmas to
pay it off." she said. “If I had
not been able to work, I would
not have been able to pay it
off."
Patton got her MasterCard
through a phone solicitation.
“This guy called me up and
said he wanted to ask me
some questions. Next thing I
knew, he was saying. ‘Okay.
Your card will be in the mail.’
I think I’m going to cancel the
card."
Some experts are worried
about how easy it is for a
college student to get a credit
card. Fred Waddellof Auburn
University is an expert in
family resource management.
He told The New York Times
that increasing numbers of
See "Credit” on page 3.
Samford University Library