One of our students, Keith McHugh, is doing an internship this summer in Montana at the America Prairie Reserve. Keith’s keeping a blog and he is posting lots of great photos. He’s also keeping a visual check list of the species he encounters as part of his research.

Keith is thinking ahead too. He’s already working to build a strong relationship with American Prairie Reserve in hopes that additional Roanoke students can follow in his footsteps and do internships and research with this agency.

Check out his blog at www.keithtmchugh.com.

Roanoke College is sports camp central this summer with camps for lacrosse, basketball, tennis, field hockey, soccer, volleyball etc.

Check out pictures of some of the camps in our latest College Snapshots gallery.  Also, yesterday Coach Pilat’s men’s lacrosse goalies camp was featured on WDBJ7.  Check out the video on their site.

Ron Caniglia e-mailed to ask for the link to the Alma Mater Hymn. He said he had found it on the web site several years ago and periodically would return to the site to listen to the song. “I’m in withdrawal,” he said in his e-mail. I sent him the link and he sent the nicest response.

Ron is the father of Jennifer Caniglia ‘06. He is a University of Nebraska Cornhusker himself but loves the Roanoke College Alma Mater Hymn. He even tried to change the words and substitue his school’s name but it didn’t work. But he did download it to his i-pod and after hearing it four times, he reports he’s had his withdrawal symptoms have eased. His description of the hymn is “wonderful sentiments set in perfect music.”

Roanoke’s Alma Mater Hymn was composed in 1960 by the late Dr. Frank Williams, professor of music, emeritus. The words were written by Grace Bosworth. Dr. Williams was one of the founding members of Roanoke’s fine arts department.

Jennifer, who was an international relations major, is now working for a charitable organization called International Resource Development in the Washington, D.C. area. Ron says about his daugher’s experience at Roanoke … “You’ll have to trust me, even though I am her father, when I tell you that the education she got at Roanoke College prepared her to perform with the top tier of the young graduates I have worked with over the past thirty-five years … she learned to think and deliver.   Your alma mater captures this perfectly and that is why I treasure the song.”

For anyone else experience Alma Mater Hymn withdrawal, quickly click this link and you’ll be transported back to memory lane: http://clubs.roanoke.edu/rcchoir/music/almamater.wav.

Andrew Cullen is one of the students who helped with the College’s rejected mascot videos. He’s the main character in the Roanoke Roleplayer. Cullen portrayed some of the mascots in other videos too — using his own costumes. He’s the moonwalking chicken in the Rappers video. He does some freelance mascot work himself and is therefore one of the few experienced mascots on our campus!

Roanoke’s “Rationalist” isn’t all that rational – at least when it comes to talk of a College mascot.

The “star” of the campy video that pretends to promote the rationalist as a mascot really has a different idea. Paul Millard, a senior English major who grew up in College Park, Md., laughs and says he thinks the mascot should be a skunk. It would be white and maroon – the Roanoke College color – and spray just water into the crowds.

“But no one likes that idea,” he says, grinning. “No one wants to be ‘the smelly skunks.’”

Well, that’s true – and luckily, Millard has plenty of other things to keep him busy. This summer, he’s working on campus in the Office of Multicultural Affairs. Come fall, he’ll again be a head RA and continue volunteering with the Student Conduct Board, Lambda Alliance and Omicron Delta Kappa National Honor Society.

These days, though, Millard is still a star and getting plenty of attention for his video. In it, he’s dressed a bit like the guy in the popular “berries and cream” Starburst video – and he even does a song and dance at the end that mimics that piece but promotes Roanoke as “learning and fun.”

“I’ve been asked to perform ‘berries and cream’ so many times,” he says, laughing. “I don’t know what it is about it, but people really seem to love it.”

Betsy Foster, a rising senior from Salem, played our “peace and love person” and impressed everyone with her many talents. Her character was the one least developed by the team that put together the audition scenarios. Betsy was basically told to come dressed as a hippie and that she would likely sing some sort of song about peace and love.

When she arrived, our team was initially impressed with her costume. However, they were bowled over with her talent as she began to sing! She made up the song on her own–no script or music was provided.

The most amazing part of Betsy’s story is that she is deaf! She is fluent at lipreading, so most people don’t know that she can’t hear. Of her audition, Betsy says, “I used to be very musical - thus the reason I could pull off the guitar chords. Even I’m surprised at the song that came out of my mouth when I sat down though!”

Despite his acclaimed role in the Agatha Princes of the Night audition, the Roanoke Raider is not only known for his entertaining side, but also for his involvement in several student organizations on campus.

Joe Bauer is a rising senior from Roswell, Georgia who is pursuing a major in biology. He has always loved entertaining others and enjoys doing acting on the side. However, Joe also finds time to participate in many different student organizations, including leading the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity as their president. He is also a member of both the Omicron Delta Kappa honor society as well as Alpha Psi Omega, the National Theatre Honor Society. When Joe heard about the mascot auditions, he was more than willing to help out, but it turned out being more demanding than he had expected. Not only did Joe have to wear a pair of bright red bicycling shorts, he also faced a minor mishap at the end of the video shoot when he crashed into the camera and was left with a black eye! Ouch!

Despite poor Agatha’s spotlight being stolen by a crazed streaker, her evil looks and glares will always stay in viewer’s minds. Theatre major, Meghan Corsnitz plays the gothic princess who seems to have nothing to say to the judges. Ironically, Meghan is actually quite the opposite of her character and is known to be extremely friendly and talkative.

Check out all of the mascot auditions on YouTube.

“The Roanoke Redneck” has a real sense of humor. You’d get that from watching his pitch for a mascot – but it’s even funnier if you know who he is.

Trent Thompson, the actor, is a recent and very accomplished graduate of Roanoke College. He’s actually from Roanoke, and despite the way he talks in the video, he is very academic. Trent graduated magna cum laude this spring and was honored with memberships in the prestigious Phi Beta Kappa honor society as well as those for Alpha Chi and Omicron Delta Kappa.

Most surprising, however, is probably his major. The “redneck” earned his B.A. in theology! He was even honored as the senior scholar in theology at the college’s year-end Academic Awards Dinner. As the redneck would say, “yee-ha!”

Alex Munro played the Roanoke Techno Dude in this video.  Alex wasn’t so sure about all the technology he was supposedly using, but everyone was impressed with how quickly he learned his lines and how convincing he was in asking the panel, “You guys don’t mind if I live-blog this, do you?”

Alex is from Hayes, Va and is a rising senior at Roanoke. He’s live-blogging this!

If you’ve seen our mascot videos, you’ve probably seen the Roanoke Rapper.

Junior Aaron Riggleman stars as the Roanoke Rapper and Sophomore Jimmy Cunningham is his rhythmically-challenged sidekick.

Aaron is the SGA president and a regular riot. He ad-libbed a lot of the video. At the end, he references a Hannah Montana watch — that prop was supplied by the creative director whose daughter is a big Hannah Montana fan. Jimmy even sports a “High School Musical” note pad — another prop borrowed from the creative director’s daughter. (Her Hannah Montana wig even makes a few appearances in other videos).

If you haven’t yet, check out the Roanoke Rapper and other silly rejected mascot videos on YouTube or at www.classiccollege.com. You can even share them with your friends. Those with a sense of humor, of course!