Liberty Champion, March 5th, 2013

Derrick [email protected]

Greg [email protected]

A Liberty University bus veered off the road, fell down a hill and crashed into the retaining wall near the entrance of the East Campus tunnel Saturday night, March 2.

The accident, which left the bus leaning at a 30-degree angle about 56 feet from the entrance to the tunnel, took place at the intersection of Liberty Mountain Drive and Towns Court around 8:30 p.m.

Freshman Jake Beerel and three friends boarded the bus at North Campus and were seated

near the front when the crash oc-curred.

“We were just heading toward the bus stop at the tunnel and we started to drift,” Beerel said. “I first felt like something was wrong, and everybody started screaming.”

Beerel was released from the hospital Sunday morning, though he was still experiencing dizziness and nausea.

According to university spokes-person Johnnie Moore, the acci-dent was handled with the utmost attention.

“Liberty University and Lynchburg Police responded to the scene of the accident imme-diately, and handled it all with the highest degree of care and professionalism,” Moore said.

“Our entire community is grate-ful that none of the 19 passengers on board sustained serious inju-ries. Only four passengers were sent to Lynchburg General. They were sent only as a precaution for further evaluation, and each was released on the same evening.”

Liberty freshman Brian Trav-ers witnessed the accident while sitting in the passenger seat of the car directly behind the bus.

“I saw it from the corner of my eye,” Travers said. “The bus was kind of driving along the sidewalk, and we looked at each other like, ‘Is this really happen-ing?’ The bus kept on going until it crashed.”

Travers and his prayer group

See CRASH, A8

LIBERTY CHAMPIONTuesday, March 5, 2013

Volume 30 • Issue 17

Today: Rain 52/35 Tomorrow: Snow 39/29 libertychampion.com

INSIDE THE CHAMPION

Bliss Bridal Expo offered ideas for upcoming weddings and celebrations.

Tim Tebow is scheduled to speak in Convocation Friday, March 8.

The Alpha Lambda Delta Honors Society recognized their seniors.

SportsNews FeatureNewsOpinionSportsFeature

A1A4B1B8

A6 B8B3

Women’s basketball honors seniors B1

“All My Sons” premieres at Tower Theater

B8

Daniel [email protected]

The Student Advocate Office (SAO) hopes that its new home in DeMoss Hall will help increase the office’s abil-ity to meet student needs.

Once located in Green Hall, the of-fice recently made the move to DeM-oss 2247, which is located between the computer lab and the grand lobby. Ac-cording to Justin Mercer, director of retention and orientation of the SAO, the new location is much more acces-sible for students.

The SAO consists of six student advocates: Timi Plyter, Leigh Detzel, Christina Nolton, Michael Morrison, Katie Moore and Tanner Hoyt.

According to their website, the role of these student advocates is to help

See SAO, A6

#Shorty Awards

SAO moves

Liberty bus crashes near tunnel

Irish American month kicks offRuth BiBBy | LiBeRty Champion

CELEBRATION — Liberty student Austin Edwards aided in bringing Irish spirit to the kickoff Friday, March 1.

GReG LeasuRe | LiBeRty Champion

COLLISION — A Liberty bus carrying 19 passengers crashed on East Campus Saturday night.

Melanie [email protected]

“I nominate @LibertyU for a Shorty Award in #BNcollege because we be-lieve Jesus turned his tomb into a door that saved the world,” or, “I nominate @LibertyU for a Shorty Award in #BNcollege because in the Old Greek, ‘Liberty University’ actually translates to ‘Shorty Award.’”

These tweets from Johnnie Moore and Campus Praise worship leader Jus-tin Kintzel, along with other social me-dia campaigns such as online voting and numerous Twitter postings, launched Liberty University and the School of Communication into first place for the fifth annual Shorty Awards.

The Shorty Awards, for which Conan O’Brien, Neil Patrick Harris and NASA have all been winners, rec-ognizes the best universities, people and organizations in social media.

According to the Shorty Awards website, every year, millions of people visit the site to support their favorite so-cial media content creators by tweeting

Melanie [email protected]

The Center for Multi-cultural Enrichment (Center4ME) hosted

its third-annual Irish Ameri-can Heritage Kickoff Friday, March 1, where students, fac-ulty and staff donned their fa-vorite green and orange garb in celebration of the country’s culture.

The front steps of DeMoss were covered with roughly 700 students, and Cen-ter4ME staff dressed in their best Irish attire as students enjoyed cotton candy, green-frosted shamrock cookies,

green-dyed pink lemonade and chocolate coins.

“My roommate mentioned the event to me, and I heard they had themed music, so I came out to see what it was about,” Liberty student Ni-cole Davis said. “I really en-joy the Irish music.”

According to Associate Director of the Center4ME Joy Jefferson, the center has been open since 1996, but was originally named the “Minority International Of-fice” before switching to the Center for Multicultural En-richment in 2004.

Jefferson said that the Cen-ter4ME has been celebrat-

ing Irish American Heritage month for three years.

“At the beginning of each Irish American heritage month, we always have a kickoff where we serve re-freshments and give students a calendar so they know when the events are for that month,” Jefferson said. “We celebrate Irish American heritage because we cel-ebrate cultures that have mi-norities within the U.S.”

Center4ME will also host additional events this month, including a deliberative dia-logue on Irish legacy Tues-day, March 5 in DeMoss Hall 1090, a cultural excursion

festival Saturday, March 23 in Richmond, a “Faces of America” screening Tues-day, March 26 in Green Hall 1878, and “Shamrock Friday,” March 29 in Green Hall 1878.

“Our goal at the Cen-ter4ME is to educate stu-dents about all cultures,” Jef-ferson said.

For more information about Irish American Heri-tage Month, contact the Cen-ter4ME at [email protected] or visit the website at liberty.edu/center4me.

OELRICH is the news editor.

Students, faculty and staff gathered with Center4ME to celebrate March’s heritage

See AWARDS, A7

l u c k o f t h e I r i s h

Office now in DeMoss

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LETTERTO THEEDITORPOLICIES& INFO

The Champion encourages community members to submit letters to the editor on any subject. Letters should not exceed 400 words and must be typed and signed. The deadline is 5 p.m. Friday. Letters and columns that appear are the opinion of the author solely, not the Champion editorial board or Liberty University.

All material submitted becomes property of the Champion. The Champion reserves the right to accept, reject or edit any letter received—according to the Champion stylebook, taste and the Liberty University mission statement.

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Tabitha CassidyEDITOR IN CHIEF

administrationDeborah HuffFACULTY ADVISOR

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contentMelanie OelrichNEWS EDITOR

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LIBERTY CHAMPION

A2/Liberty Champion NEWS March 5, 2013

Jacob [email protected]

The Lynchburg Regional Airport ex-perienced an unusu-ally high number of weather-related can-cellations in January, but faces cancellations of a different type in the near future.

According to Lynchburg Region-al Airport Direc-tor Mark Courtney, the airport had nine cancellations in the month of January, which was up from the three they had last year.

The airport in Lynchburg runs up to six flights per day, ac-cording to Courtney. Most of the cancel-lations were affected by weather conditions at the Charlotte/Douglas Internation-al Airport, which is US Airways’ hub for the commuter planes coming from Lynch-burg.

Courtney also said that while cancel-lations were higher than usual, they were not uncommon for the month of January.

The airport also faces some potential

problems in March and in later months due to Fed-eral spending cuts that are now in effect as of March 1. The cuts will result in a loss of funding for traf-fic control towers at more than 200 airports, accord-ing to Courtney.

The cut is also in ad-dition to more than $600 million of cuts from the Federal Aviation Admin-istration, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said. While the spending

cuts have now been enact-ed, travelers may not feel the full effects until closer to April, LaHood said.

According to Courtney, the good news is that the airport will remain open,

despite this.“We will have to come

up with a contingency plan to be able to smooth operations in an uncon-trolled environment,” Courtney said.

Now that the sequestra-tion has gone into effect, however, it could cause some problems for students flying in and out of Lynch-burg for spring break, ac-cording to Courtney.

The airport will have to adjust how it manages flights and make “proce-dural changes” in order to keep everything running smoothly, Courtney said. He also explained that the majority of delays will stem from larger airports that will in turn affect trav-el to and from Lynchburg.

For example, if a flight coming into the Charlotte airport in order to transfer passengers to a flight to Lynchburg is delayed, ei-ther the Lynchburg flight will be delayed, or those passengers will miss that flight.

“Flights to major cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco and others could experience delays of up to 90 minutes during peak hours because we have fewer controllers on staff,” LaHood said. “Delays in these major air-ports will ripple across the country.”

For more information on airport services, visit lynchburgva.gov.

TELLERS is a news reporter.

Lynchburg flights stay grounded

Senior artwork on display in DeMoss

Cecilia [email protected]

Amazement Square, a downtown Lynchburg institu-tion, was nominated for the National Medal for Museum and Library Service, awarded annually to five museums and five libraries across the United States.

The children’s museum is one of 33 finalists, competing against more than 17,000 mu-seums across the country for the nomination, according to the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

“This nomination is about what we are doing outside our four walls. We have a huge outreach into the community,” Amazement Square Director of Marketing Ashleigh Karol said.

The IMLS website states that the national medal hon-ors outstanding institutions that make exceptional contri-butions to their communities and demonstrate innovative approaches to public service. According to an IMLS press release, the national medal is the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a museum or library for its exemplary ser-vice.

“It’s a great recognition,” Karol said. “The medal would open the doors not only for more funding to start more programs, but will also bring in existing programs (that) would want to work with a national medal winner.”

Amazement Square places a large focus on the Virginia Stan-dards of Learning and works with local school systems to pro-vide a hands-on educational re-source. According to Karol, the museum utilizes Amazement Square for the friendly envi-ronment and the learning ex-perience in order to maintain a strong relationship with Lynch-burg schools.

The museum is closed on Mondays to the public, accord-ing to Karol, but it is open for the Laurel Regional School. Lau-rel Regional is a special needs school, and various grants have allowed Amazement Square the opportunity to provide adaptive technology that allows special needs students to participate in the activities offered.

The nomination brings na-tional recognition and awareness to a community like Lynchburg, according to Karol.

“This says a lot about the com-munity, because we run on their support,” Karol said. “We made a commitment to downtown revi-talization — we made the choice when we opened our doors in the late ‘90s in an old building downtown, which spurred other businesses to settle there as well.”

Karol is excited to be a part of an organization that has been nominated for the national medal.

“(The National Medal) is like winning an Oscar for being one of the best museums in the country,” Karol said.

The winners of the award will be notified in mid-April, and the awards ceremony will take place in early May.

HINES is a news reporter.

Museum noticed

Karly Kryza | liberty Champion

COCKPIT — Lynchburg weather keeps planes on the ground.

Angela [email protected]

Students crowded around the art displayed on the fourth floor of De-Moss for the Liberty Uni-versity Studio and Digital Arts (SADA) art exhibit, featuring the artwork of senior students until March 15.

According to SADA chairman Todd Smith, students have their work reviewed by profession-als during the exhibit. Having the chance to showcase their artwork is a major opportunity for students seeking exposure. In order to have a piece shown in the art gallery, participants had to submit it to professors for judging.

“The work is critiqued by 13 professors and also allows them to compare their work to other stu-dents,” Smith said.

Smith also said that in addition to the learning process, the best pieces will be awarded first through third place, as well as honorable men-tion prizes.

“The students realize their work will be visited by the public,” Smith said. “The eventual out-come of a piece of art-work is to be viewed, ap-preciated and evaluated by the public.”

The students are judged on technical skill, use of software, original-

ity and style, according to Smith. The profes-sors have many years of experience with Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, which they put to good use when judging the students’ skill.

Josh Siner, a senior at Liberty, currently has a piece exhibited. Siner, who said he is proud of his accomplishments, has appreciated his profes-sors’ taking notice of his hard work.

“Everything I have ever done for class has been with the goal of breaking out of the classroom, and it is humbling to see that

happen,” Siner said. More than 70 students

entered a piece to the SADA professors for judg-ing, according to Smith. Many of the students who have work featured in the gallery also won this past Saturday, March 2, at the ADDY regional award competition.

The ADDYs is a com-petition held by the American Advertising Federation (AAF). Ac-cording to the AAF web-site, it awards students who create original work in areas like interactive media and advertising.

“One of the best ways

this can help me is to give me an idea of where I am and what I have to work for,” Siner said.

Hundreds of College For A Weekend partici-pants visited the gallery in DeMoss Hall, giving the students’ work statewide and nationwide exposure, according to Smith.

Smith said Liberty stu-dents won 12 gold and 17 silver awards for work entered in the ADDYs. Students like Siner, who received gold awards, will be given the opportunity to compete statewide.

“As Christians, we can’t just be consumers. We

need to be conscientious consumers. We need to evaluate the things we view from a Christian per-spective,” Smith said.

The exhibit is open 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. According to Smith, some of the pieces are for sale.

SWINSON is a feature reporter.

ruth bibby | liberty Champion

ADMIRATION — Liberty students look at some of the artwork displayed in the SADA exhibit.

Studio and Digital Arts gives students the opportunity to showcase their work

Sequestration could cause problems for students flying

for spring break.— ACCORDING TO

MARK COURTNEY

Liberty Champion/A3NEWSMarch 5, 2013

Visit our homepage frequently for weekly menus, calendar of events and news you can use.

Ashley [email protected]

Research bySamantha [email protected]

Though technology might isolate human interaction, Liberty Univer-sity’s Center for Teaching Excel-lence (CTE) has made a point to encourage fellowship by hosting Mo-bile Applications Learning Lounges (M.A.L.L.).

The purpose of M.A.L.L. is to gather faculty, students and staff to-gether to share their knowledge of the most recent mobile devices and applications, according to Teach-ing Advisor and Associate Professor of Education for the CTE Shawn Bielicki.

“We don’t want (faculty) coming here just for work or help, we want them coming here for some more re-laxed things,” Bielicki said.

For a lot of people who attend, M.A.L.L. is an opportunity to learn about the newest technology that can be utilized in the classroom.

“(By attending M.A.L.L.), you get a wide perspective from a number of people with different levels of knowl-edge. Some are different ages, so they like different things, ” Electronic Re-source Librarian Mike Cobb said. “You get a lot of information to help you learn more about what you just spent your money on.”

During each meeting, the CTE provides featured applications for at-tendees to test on their own devices, Bielicki said.

During the most recent M.A.L.L., held Feb. 27 in DeMoss Hall, the ap-plications “Shazam,” “Flipboard” and “The Night Sky” were a few of those featured.

However, according to Bielicki, not everyone came to the gathering to learn about the newest applica-tions.

“I came to figure out what the needs for faculty and staff were in

terms of apps,” Liberty senior and employee for Liberty’s Information Technology department Neal Har-mon said. “I think the industry is moving more toward tablets, and we want to develop that into some type of change.”

According to Cobb, M.A.L.L. helped him learn more about his own devices, specifically his new smartphone.

“I don’t even know what I don’t know. Seeing what people do with (mobile devices) and how other peo-ple use them gives me ideas on how to use mine,” Cobb said.

The CTE will host M.A.L.L. on the last Wednesday of each month during the Spring 2013 semester, ac-cording to the center’s website.

“I would encourage people to get out of their comfort zone and engage with technology because it can help you with your personal life, scholastic life and … your profes-sional life,” Harmon said.

For more information, visit liberty.edu/academics/cte.

MCALPIN is the graduate assistant.

BOONTJER is a news reporter.

Apps for everyone

LaHaye promotes health

Faculty and students learn new technology

Mark [email protected]

Avoiding sickness is often a challenge for many college students, but Liberty Univer-sity students will soon have the opportunity to learn how they can protect themselves from disease. As part of the LaHaye Health and Well-ness Series, Annette Florence will share her lecture entitled “Staying Well: Increasing your R.E.S.I.S.T.A.N.C.E.” March 6 at 5:15 p.m. The lecture will take place in the front aerobics room of the LaHaye Fitness Center.

According to Florence, the event will focus on lifestyle changes that students can make to naturally boost their immune systems.

“This particular event … is especially important now, in the spring, because there’s a lot of bugs going around and people are getting sick, so it’s a good way to find out how to try to avoid catching those things and being put out of commission,” Jamie Swyers, the associate director of fit-

ness at the LaHaye Student Union, said.

Florence, a health promo-tion and nutrition professor at Liberty University, has been actively involved in disease prevention for many years. She said that she is looking forward to sharing valuable information at the event.

“When we’re in such a closed environment — when you’re in a classroom, you’re on the bus — and germs are just going everywhere — re-ally, to boost someone’s im-mune system, that’s probably the best way to prevent in an atmosphere like this,” Flor-ence said.

According to Swyers, the event will feature free food and prizes, along with health information. She hopes stu-dents will take the initiative to learn healthy habits.

The final installment of the series for this semester is a strength training event with Donna Barber. According to Swyers, those who attend will have the opportunity to learn how to train for specific goals that gym-goers often struggle

to reach in the weight room. Swyers said that the main

objective of the Health and Wellness Series is to give stu-dents the opportunities and resources they need to gain information that they would not otherwise be able to find at the Fitness Center.

“It can be extremely benefi-cial to have these opportuni-ties,” Swyers said.

The LaHaye Health and Wellness Series currently pro-vides health education to stu-dents. However, according to Swyers, the LaHaye Fitness Center hopes to provide even more educational programs in the future.

“Basically, what the stu-dents demand and what they are asking for is what we really want to drive toward,” Swyers said.

For more information on the upcoming lecture or the classes offered at the LaHaye Student Union, email [email protected].

TAIT is a news reporter.

Tyler eacho | liberTy champion

FITNESS — The Fitness Center at Green Hall offers multiple health and wellness classes.KaTie Welch | liberTy champion

M.A.L.L. — Faculty members talk.

OPINION March 5, 2013

My grandmother still cannot send a text mes-sage.

Sometimes I worry about her, thinking that she might get left behind

and remain ignorant about what is happening in the world, or even in the family.

But mostly, I really re-spect her.

Why do I respect my non-texting granny’s lack of technology usage? Well, even though she does not spend countless hours a day on the Inter-net or with a smart phone glued to her hand, she still manages to knows what is going on in the nation, she still keeps in contact with the family, and half of the time, she somehow knows what is happening before I do — someone who is glued to every news outlet the moment classes end.

In an age where our phones become an exten-sion of our arm and we

cannot answer a question without first consulting Google or Bing, the t h o u g h t of never using the I n t e r n e t seems pre-posterous.

It really is not, though.

In 1969, the very first shadow of the Internet began with four comput-ers connecting to one another. It took less than 60 years for this form of technology to take hold of people and skyrocket

us all to obsession — and I do mean obsession.

Would we be able to survive without our phones, computers or tab-lets? The primary method of communication for me is through some me-dium that needs a satellite 22,000 miles above the earth’s surface. If a me-teoroid were to suddenly strike the satellites I de-pend on, I would be at a loss when it comes to talk-ing to my best friend back home in Michigan.

I wonder, how many of you would be in the same boat as me? How

many of you primarily use email, text messaging or even Facebook chat to keep in touch with your loved ones? If that mete-oroid suddenly crashed into all of our satellites, how many of us would be terrified of a world with-out technology?

On second thought, I should not worry about my grandmother surviv-ing too much. After all, she knows how to survive and function without the Internet.

CASSIDY is the editor in chief.

CASSIDY

Gabriella [email protected]

If there is one thing Apple is famous for, it is creating new product categories that consum-ers never realized they needed — or even wanted. Not only did Apple change the technological landscape by inventing the iPod, the iPhone and most recently the iPad, it dominated the respective market for all three products.

Now, the technology giant is at it again, with rumors of their lat-est up-and-coming product: the iWatch. The hope is that this daz-zling smartwatch will once again be an entirely new, must-have gadget previously unimagined by either the customer or the compe-tition.

Nifty as the iWatch may sound, this is one category Apple will not be luring me into. Though I am an avid Apple product supporter — embarrassingly enough, I own a Mac, iPhone and iPad — I am not convinced that the iWatch will add much benefit to my al-ready technology-saturated life.

As is, you will rarely find me without my iPhone in hand. If one of my dozens of apps is not calling my attention, a friend or a family member usually is. Since my phone has now basically be-come an extension of my hand, I see little to no inconvenience us-ing it as my timepiece.

For the true Apple zealots out there, though, I can already imag-ine the lines forming outside of storefronts. As with every other product release, the world can anticipate iWatch owners raving about their new device before even having it in hand. And as per usual, the Apple community will momentarily feel superior to those not fortunate enough to buy into the in-crowd.

Perhaps the innovative, new

technology will serve its purpose to a targeted audience — such as athletes. Though measuring steps and tracking fitness is already pos-sible, the iWatch could advance this technology to a cutting-edge level.

Business Insider speculates that in addition to time, the iWatch will also be able to show calendars, directions, maps, mes-sages, emails, news headlines and weather. Since it will retain most

app functions, the iWatch will simply resemble a much smaller smartphone, ideal for on-the-go situations and already-faithful watch wearers.

Yet with all this new hype in the air, a large part of me dreads the release of the iWatch. To be hon-est, the idea of wearable electron-ics going mainstream frightens me. Though technology certainly has its virtues, it is also responsible for its fair share of vices.

Sure, Apple and other like-minded companies claim that they are committed to making products that benefit consum-ers, but in the end, how helpful is technology, really?

Sadly, rather than allowing technology to make our lives sim-pler, most of us have freely given gadgets control, resulting in un-necessary chaos and stress. Be honest, most people in 21st-cen-tury America would feel entirely out of touch with the world if a cellphone was left at home. Even on campus, the frustration is tan-gible when the Internet crashes or programs run slower than usual.

The government now has to pass laws just to get users off their phones for the duration of a 10-minute drive. Families sit around the dinner table, staring at the television rather than talk-ing with one another. Though ebooks offer a nice alternative for readers, more often than not, tab-

lets are replacing the education of books with the mindless enter-tainment of apps.

Try going through just one day without the use of any technology whatsoever. It is nearly impossible for our generation. Face it, we are addicted.

So why not slap another device on our arms — it will help us be more productive, right? As is, I am afraid that far too many of us do not know how to first and foremost find the off button, and second build up the courage to push it. After all, we have grown accustomed to being connected to everyone, everywhere, at every hour of every day. Perhaps the last thing society needs is to strap a piece of technology to our bod-ies and carry it around perma-nently, distracted from the world around us.

Ultimately, it is undeniable that our generation has normalized a level of integration between man and machine beyond what generations before us dreamed of imagining. So, either way you look at it, excitement for wear-able, flexible technology is war-ranted. Whatever else it may be, the iWatch will certainly be a new, never-before-experienced step into the future.

FULLER is an opinion writer.

Apple followers watch and wait for latest gadget

Congress is not crying over budget cuts

Feras Hares | Creative Commons

THE FUTURE — Will Apple’s next press conference feature an “iWatch” appearance?

Andrew [email protected]

I remember back to the days of my youth, when my parents would frequently lecture me for using bad words — which in those days consisted of vocabulary such as “stupid” and “idiot.”

But after observing the outstanding fail-ure of Congress that has led to a budget cut of $85 billion starting March 1, I think my parents will excuse my next slip of the tongue.

Congress ... is full of idiots.Due to their inability to create a budget

and agree on a way to cut the country’s in-creasing deficit, Congress has plunged our country headlong into a sequester that will affect millions of people across the country.

Many politicians have said that a cut of this magnitude could stunt the growth of a recovering economy, taking funding away from a variety of critical services. Border security is set to be cut by $581 million, air-port security by $323 million and FEMA’s disaster relief fund by $375 million.

The list goes on, as more big name or-ganizations feel the effects. The FBI will lose $480 million. NASA is set to lose $970 million. Medicare will lose $10 billion from their budget.

Yet the groups most affected by the new cuts are those who protect us. The Penta-gon alone is expected to have its spending reduced by $46 billion in the upcoming year. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was quick to condemn the budget slash.

“This is not a game. This is reality,” Panetta said at a recent speech at George-town University. “These steps would seri-ously damage a fragile American economy, and they would degrade our ability to re-spond to crisis precisely at a time of rising instability across the globe.”

According to USA Today, nearly 20,000 civilians working for the Marine Corps

would have to work with reduced sala-ries, and the military has alerted another 800,000 employees to expect pay cuts and required furlough starting in April.

In an attempt to help solve the issue, Panetta recommended that military sala-ries only increase by one percent in 2014. Based on the calculations found by the La-bor Department’s Employment Cost Index (ECI), a one percent increase in pay is less than the growth of the ECI. Because the ECI includes factors such as inflation, and because the rate of increase in pay is less than the increase of the ECI, the raise is actually a pay cut.

Jenelle Hatzung, a Navy wife, spoke on behalf of all her fellow compatriots when she talked to CNN about the cuts.

“I never thought Congress’ inability to

pass a budget would so intimately affect my personal life,” she said.

But perhaps the most disturbing part of this situation is not who these budget cuts affect, but who they do not.

According to senate.gov, congressmen do not have to worry about their annual pay of $174,000. None of that amount will be affected by budget cuts. Other members of Congress serving in higher-level positions, such as House Speaker John Boehner — who makes $223,500 a year — and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi — who makes $193,000 annually — will have no cuts to their pay, either.

Nor will President Barack Obama lose any sleep over fear of a salary reduction. His $400,000 — not including the count-less benefits of the position — is safe for the

foreseeable future. The most ludicrous fact about the sala-

ries of Congress members, though, is who sets them.

Congress does, of course.Not surprisingly, from 2000 to 2009,

Congress voted in favor of raising its salary every year.

In September, congressman Charles Bass of New Hampshire proposed a bill that would have cut Congress’ salary by 8.2 percent should the sequester happen.

“We all know the negative impact that sequestration will have, and we also know that we can solve this problem if the House, Senate and the president work together in a bipartisan manner to find a solution,” Bass said during his proposal. “If Congress and the president fail to do so, my legisla-tion will simply ensure fairness by apply-ing the same reductions to the salaries of members of Congress, the president and vice president that domestic spending pro-grams will face.”

Shockingly, the proposal did not even gather enough support to get a floor vote, which is the most basic, preliminary start to a bill’s formation.

So, while members of our military and defense system suffer, our politicians’ pock-ets remain as deep as ever. The men re-sponsible for our financial crisis because of their lackadaisical approach toward spend-ing will continue to laugh their way to the bank for the days to come.

I do agree with Obama on one count. In a recent press conference, he called the budget cuts, quite simply, “dumb.”

Indeed. But what about keeping your salary and Congress’ salary at their same absurd level?

Pardon my language, but that is just plain stupid.

WOOLFOLK is the opinion editor

Youtube sCreensHot

SAFE — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid do not have to worry about their salaries being reduced through the crisis.

Liberty Champion/A5OPINIONMarch 5, 2013

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1. THE LIBERTY UNIVERSITY QUIZ BOWL TEAM TAKES DOWN BIG-NAME SCHOOLS IN THEIR LATEST TOURNAMENT.

2. IS NEW JERSEY GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE THE FRONTRUNNER IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, OR HAS A NEW NAME TAKEN OVER?

BoB Jagendorf, Creative CommonsPhoto Provided

Whitney [email protected]

President Barack Obama’s second term began in national controversy, not the least of which was his wife’s dramatic haircut. From bangs to present-ing the “Best Picture” Academy Award, Michelle Obama has be-gun her second term as first lady with abandon.

Pretending that Michelle Obama’s audacious actions are irrelevant is naïve. Carl Sfer-razza Anthony, a historian for the National First Ladies Li-brary, told USA Today in 2008 that the role of first lady says as much about America as it says about those who have inhabited the role. According to Anthony, America “locks these women in a china closet.” The approach Mi-chelle Obama takes toward her responsibilities sparks dialogue concerning the role of a woman from the White House to houses across the nation.

Michelle Obama did not read-ily embrace her title. As her husband prepared for the presi-dency, she delayed moving her children to the White House. In her 2012 Democratic National Convention speech, Michelle Obama explained that her pri-mary concern was for her chil-dren’s well-being. Furthermore,

Liza Mundy, who wrote a biog-raphy on the first lady, said that Michelle Obama did not have much faith in politics, either.

Being first lady might, in some respects, be more difficult than being president, because the role of the “first lady” is not defined by the U.S. Constitution. For a career woman who is also wife and mother, crafting her own role in a precarious political cli-mate must be daunting.

Michelle Obama quickly transitioned her background in community development to the

national level by implementing “Let’s Move!” — her campaign to fight child obesity through healthy eating and exercise. Sim-ilar to Laura Bush’s initiatives to further education, “Let’s Move!” established Michelle Obama as a concerned mother figure.

Throughout the Obamas’ first term, Michelle Obama ap-peared on shows such as “Sesa-me Street” and “The View,” sky-rocketing her social appeal. She used the spotlight to champion “Let’s Move!” — but appear-ances such as the cover of Vogue

made her more of a cultural fig-ure than a political icon.

Amidst critics of her person-able approach to being first lady, Michelle Obama stepped into the cameras on inauguration day 2013 with bold new bangs and wearing more of her favorite J.Crew and Jason Wu. Her fear-less look fit with the “Forward” message of the campaign, and her demand for progress gave her audience the impression that she was ready to work.

Michelle Obama traded Twit-ter game faces with Jimmy Fal-

lon before creating the “Evolu-tion of Mom Dancing,” which rapidly went viral. While the video shows a casual first lady, it also reinforces her image as a modern mother. More star-tlingly, she appeared via satellite to announce the “Best Picture” Academy Award. The first lady combined National Governor’s Weekend with the biggest event in Hollywood, illustrating her ability to balance the many op-portunities that come with being first lady.

Whether you agree with the Obama administration’s policies or not, it is easy to understand why Michelle Obama’s approval ratings soar. While forerunners like Jackie Kennedy or Hill-ary Clinton tested a first lady’s boundaries politically and so-cially, Michelle Obama has sim-ply infused her personality and goals into the role. She is smash-ing the china closet that hides the first lady behind pristine fashion choices, pleasant receptions and lukewarm initiatives. Michelle Obama began her tenure in the White House as a reluctant mother, but will exit it having flung open the door for all wives and mothers who follow her.

RUTHERFORD is an opinion writer.

First lady is finding her footing

Hackers in Anonymous leave little data hidden

mike BroPhy | Creative Commons

MOVING FORWARD — Obama’s legacy remains to be seen, but her confidence is apparent.

David Van [email protected]

The Federal Reserve, the Australian Government, the CIA and 485 Chinese government sites are just a miniscule number of data-bases that Anonymous has hacked over the past four years. The group, whose members call themselves “hacktivists,” has become an infamous global phe-nomenon.

One reason why Anony-mous’ movements are so spread out is because its members can be found throughout the globe. The means of entry into this online vigilante group are fairly simple. Essen-tially, knocking on its vir-tual door, asking to be part of the group is all it takes to join.

I am sure everyone has heard of the phrase “strength in numbers.” The number of partici-pants in each hack is the primary source of strength for Anonymous.

Mark Shaneck, a profes-sor of Computer Science at Liberty University, un-derstands the overwhelm-ing advantage in a quan-tity of hackers working together simultaneously.

“Many of their attacks are denial of service at-tacks, where they use their large numbers to simply overwhelm the victims’ computers — (a) very low-skilled attack and hard to

defend against,” Shaneck said.

Oftentimes, these de-nial of service attacks are the primary means by which Anonymous tar-gets its groups of interest. However, Anonymous has also proven to be of some value to law enforcement when it comes to exposing online predators.

In a 2007 case, Anony-mous’ actions were crucial to incriminating Chris Forcand, an Internet pred-ator, who was arrested af-ter multiple accounts of luring children under the age of 14.

“Internet postings sug-gest that before Forcand was on the police radar, those email addresses had attracted the interest of cyber-vigilantes who seek to out anyone who pres-ents with a sexual interest in children,” Toronto Sun reporter Jonathan Jenkins said.

According to the Wash-ington Post, hacking groups related to Anony-mous threatened to attack Facebook as recently as last November.

“A group claiming to be part of the hacktiv-ist collective Anonymous has declared war on Face-book — but they shouldn’t expect the support of the majority of their peers,” Washington Post reporter Hayley Tsukayama said. “On a more mainstream Anonymous Twitter ac-

count, AnonOps, mem-bers of the group said that the announced attack on Facebook does not rep-resent the views of all its members.”

This division in future goals shows the weakness that Anonymous has expe-rienced in the past. There is no leadership or central figure within Anonymous, therefore allowing anyone to claim to be part of the group. This is a main rea-son why Anonymous has accumulated so many af-filiates and copycats.

But with group after group aiming to hack Facebook and other social media sites, many users have asked if cyber-secu-rity is becoming a major issue.

“One of the biggest effects that they (Anony-mous) have had on cyber security is by bringing more widespread aware-ness of the problems with insecurity,” Shaneck said. “In that sense, Anonymous is having a positive impact on the state of security, as it is leading to more rigor-ous security testing and more security awareness.”

When powerful and large hacking groups funded by countries like China hack into a net-work, nobody knows. It goes undetected a large amount of time, and in most instances it does not get media coverage.

“Highly skilled and co-

ordinated attacks require large amounts of funding, which implies the involve-ment of nations,” Shaneck said. “I see that as a much larger player in the future of cyber-security. In fact, we have already seen a lot of it already, from the at-tacks on Georgia and Es-tonia several years back, to Stuxnet, to the recent report from Mandiant on Chinese state-sponsored attacks.”

Cyber-attacks are tak-ing the fight to a new battlefield. With Anony-

mous continuing to as-sault major systems, our focus is shifting to better passwords and stronger firewalls. Buying that fire-wall protection might be a better investment than the newest computer game.

This is my advice to people who are worried about possible hackers get-ting into their computers: the longer the password, the better. Do not make your security question your birthdate or other easily attainable informa-tion. Invest in strong anti-

virus software, along with a reliable firewall.

To the criminals and predators online who think that they can get away with victimizing un-suspecting users, there is a new vigilante in town. It has vowed to expose those who may inhibit the freedoms of online users, wherever they may be. And when it strikes, it will be signed, “Yours truly, Anonymous.”

VAN DYCK is an opinion writer.

Lorraine murPhy | Creative Commons

BOLD — Anonymous members are notorious for their “Guy Fawkes” masks.

Over time, Michelle Obama has adapted to being evaluated under the political microscope by people around the world

The controversial group that has cracked countless websites as well as the Federal Reserve now has their eyes on Facebook

SAO continued from A1

students solve problems rang-ing anywhere from finding scholarships and resolving financial issues to encourage-ment and prayer time.

According to the student advocates, in addition to the daily responsibilities of an-swering student questions, they take time to personally call students to remind them of deadlines, help them keep track of their records, and also see how students are handling the semester.

Mercer said that before the move, the SAO shared offices with LU Online, Graduate Admissions, Resident Admis-sions and International Ad-missions, along with other of-fices.

According to Mercer, be-ing located on the 2nd floor of Green Hall was out of the way for students, and that the SAO wanted to be closer to students.

“They’re happy to have their own spot, and you can tell the sense of ownership (they have), and everyone is so gleeful – and (this) also helps boost morale and camarade-rie amongst the staff,” Mercer said.

Mercer also praised his staff for going above and be-yond what their jobs require of them. He believes that he is blessed to have such a great staff because, without them, his position would be nothing.

Mercer and Assistant Direc-tor of the SAO Joshua Haley work side-by-side with the staff to help students. They come alongside students to make sure that their time at Liberty is a positive experi-ence and help them solve any problems they may have.

“My favorite part of this job is helping students overcome what seem to be impossible situations,” Haley said.

According to the SAO web-site, their main goal is to cater to the needs of students from

the first day they walk onto Liberty’s campus as freshmen, until the day they stroll down the aisle to get their diploma.

“We want to make sure that when (students) are here, they stay, and get the most out of this amazing educational op-portunity,” Detzel said.

In addition to making sure students are where they need to be with their education, advocates deal with the indi-vidual issues of students that can disrupt their college expe-rience, according to the SAO website. The advocates also show outstanding willingness to lend a hand.

“Whether it be personal, academic or spiritual, I try to put my best foot forward in solving these issues,” Morri-son said.

“There’s no strings at-tached — we just care,” Mer-

cer said.Mercer also encouraged

students to just walk in be-cause the doors are always open.

The SAO hosts Scholarship Search 101 sessions, which will take place Tuesday, March 19 and Tuesday, April 16 from 6-7 p.m., to further assist stu-dents with tips on successfully finding scholarships online.

For more information on signing up for one of these events, visit the SAO homep-age at liberty.edu.

BARTLETT is a news reporter.


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ADVOCATES — The SAO Office is now located in DeMoss.

Joseph [email protected]

Liberty University’s business students and alumni practiced their business eti-quette and networking abilities for 28 companies that attended the School of Business Career Fair, Feb. 28 in the Wil-liams Stadium Tower.

The event — which was open to all School of Business juniors, seniors, grad-uate students and alumni — was hosted by Liberty University’s Career Center. The attending companies included gov-ernmental agencies, national brands and local businesses.

According to the Career Center, the primary purpose of the event was to pro-vide the students and alumni with the op-portunity to network, apply and interview with companies that are based locally and nationally.

“I was very excited to attend this job fair,” Mark Jones, a Liberty business alumnus said. “I’m thankful for Liberty University (for opening) up a great oppor-tunity for me to … connect and interact with employees in the business sector.”

Companies represented at the fair in-

cluded national brands such as Wells Fargo Bank, Lowe’s Home Improvement, Frito-Lay, Edward Jones and other em-ployers looking to fill part-time, full-time and internship openings.

Gregg Phelps, a representative for Lowe’s Home Improvement, was search-ing for potential employees to take on a variety of jobs.

“We are looking to hire students for jobs of all kinds — seasonable jobs, part-time jobs, week-time jobs. We are anticipating to see who’s well-fit for the job,” Phelps said. “I expect to see good, quality candi-dates for jobs — students that have good work ethics and students that are hard-working. So far, Liberty students have met my expectations.”

Representatives from other companies also expressed their interest in students at-tending the fair.

“We are very impressed by the Liberty University students — the professional-ism and the unique value of honesty that Liberty students have definitely is an at-traction to employees,” Wendy Kosie, a business manager from Alpha Six Coop-eration, said.

Apart from the booths set up for full-time employment, there were booths with representatives recruiting students for internships. The Washington Fellowship Program, an internship program run by Liberty University’s Career Center, also had representatives talking with students about possible internship opportunities.

The School of Business Career Fair is only one of the many career fairs that the Career Center hosts, and the career field changes each time. The next career fair will be the Health Professions/Psycholo-gy/Counseling Career Fair, which will be held March 19 at the Williams Stadium Tower.

PARK is a news reporter.

School of Business hosts career fair

Katie WeLCh | Liberty Champion

JOBS — Students talked with businesses at a career fair Thursday, Feb. 28.

Tess [email protected]

Initiates, parents and current members alike poured into the De-Moss Hall Grand Lobby March 1 for the Sigma Tau Delta induction ceremony.

The event welcomed new mem-bers of Liberty’s chapter of the International English Honor Soci-ety and featured a lecture by Lib-erty alumnus and Sigma Tau Delta member Justin Morgan, who talked about society’s obsession with the American Dream.

According to Morgan, there has been much debate over whether the dream is compatible with Christian-ity.

“Freedom, comfort, stability, suc-cess — there’s nothing inherently wrong with that,” Morgan said. “You just need to distinguish between hav-ing and worshipping wealth.”

According to Morgan, American society has idolized the American Dream to such an extent that citizens have become obsessed with the idea of the occupation.

“We’re pressured into choosing and pursuing that ‘perfect job.’ Our occupation defines us. People used to come up to me and say, ‘Oh, you’re an English major. What are you go-ing to do with that?’”

When an individual loses his job, Morgan said that the real cause of his anxiety is that his identity has been put in jeopardy.

“If our employment doesn’t exist, we don’t exist,” Morgan said.

However, Morgan argued that hu-man beings do not belong to a pro-fession.

“Like the Apostle Paul, we are ‘bondservants’ of Christ. We all be-long to the same employer — Christ. It’s to whom, not to what do we belong. Enjoy your work, but don’t worship it. The American Dream isn’t evil. We are. The American Dream hasn’t failed. We have.”

After the speech, officers Brittany Bonelli and Lauren Longenecker

explained the purpose of Sigma Tau Delta and the opportunities it pro-vides students.

According to Bonelli, Liberty’s chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, Zeta Tau, strives to foster interest in litera-ture in the community and exhibit high standards of excellence, while holding true to the founding princi-ples of “sincerity, truth and design.”

The new members of Zeta Tau were then called to the front to re-ceive an official certificate of mem-bership as well as a Sigma Tau Delta membership pin.

According to Secretary Carley Meyers, more than 30 members were inducted into Zeta Tau, al-though some initiates did not attend the official ceremony.

The new inductees were drawn to Sigma Tau Delta for various reasons. For Liberty student Corey Hayes, whose parents attended the ceremo-ny, the community atmosphere was a major incentive.

“I think it’s a great opportunity to get to know people — people who are interested in the same things, like literature and the arts,” Hayes said.

According to Liberty student Lyd-ia McGlynn, her decision to become a member of Sigma Tau Delta was due in large part to the career ad-vantages offered to those wishing to enter the field of writing.

“I joined because … you can send works into their journal, and they’ll publish it,” McGlynn said. “It’s a good way to get started.”

“I wanted to get to be a part of a group with more English majors,” Liberty student Lisa Hock said. “The visiting author and the lectures sound interesting — I’ll get to learn more about what people actually read and write.”

Upcoming events include an Applebee’s fundraiser taking place March 11 and March 18. For more information, visit the “LU Sigma Tau Delta” Facebook page.

CURTIS is the copy editor.

New English Honors Sigma Tau Delta inducts latest members

Liberty Champion/A7NEWSMarch 5, 2013

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AWARDS continued from A1

nominations. All tweets culminate in an awards cer-emony, which will be held April 8 in Times Square.

This year, Liberty was entered into the Barnes & Noble (#BNCollege) cate-gory, which recognizes the college or university that most effectively uses social media to drive campus en-gagement with the entire campus community.

Most importantly, the award also celebrates the school’s authentic spirit and attitude, according to the Shorty Awards’ website.

Liberty held a top spot among schools such as West Virginia University, Uni-versity of Mississippi, Indi-ana University and others.

“While it’s a distinct honor to receive these ac-colades from such a pres-tigious group, our current standing in the Shorty Awards demonstrates, yet again, that Liberty Uni-versity and our School of Communication and Cre-ative Arts students and fac-ulty stand at the exciting ‘cutting edge’ of the social media revolution,” Dean of the School of Communica-tion Norman Mintle said.

According to Professor Bruce Kirk, who led the re-sponse team for the Barnes & Noble (BNCollege) cat-egory, Liberty’s high stand-ing was due in large part to the “extraordinary tal-ented student teams.”

“We’ve already won a place in the top tier,” Kirk said. “That means we beat just about every ‘name’ communication, business and/or journalism school in the nation in our cat-egory. This is just another example of the fact that our students are not just ‘crazy Christians,’ but they

are talented, innovative and extraordinarily valuable ‘crazy Christians,’ and this will only increase employer demand for our graduates.”

According to Kirk, com-munication has launched into a new world of imme-diate and interactive me-dia, and Liberty University is in the forefront.

“This just shows how right our dean, Dr. Nor-man Mintle, was when he came in and called for a ‘world-class’ social media capability for our school,” Kirk said.

With help from com-munications students like Jamie Vest, Mark Landis, Kerah Kemmerer and Jake Holland, a promotional video, as well as tweets and Facebook posts, were made in part to increase votes for the award.

“We had two days to shoot and edit a ‘Gangnam Style’ dance, and I’ve nev-er been so stressed out in my life,” Vest said. “But to have such a great response made it so worth it.”

According to Holland, he was recruited by Kirk to help boost awareness and get the student body voting in favor of Liberty in the #BNCollege category.

“I jumped on board with tweeting — like a ma-niac — and encouraged friends and students to do the same,” Holland said. “We were able to rally to-gether over the course of 48 hours and push Liberty

from sixth to first place.”Among the numerous

social media outlets avail-able, Holland prefers Twit-ter and Instagram.

“I like the limitations of Twitter, as far as how much you can post in one tweet,” Holland said. “Facebook can get bogged down with people posting entire books as their status updates. In-stagram is great too, as far as challenging myself cre-atively in the field of mobile photography and beyond. It’s such a fun community of creative minds.”

Kemmerer, a School of Communication’s Gradu-ate Student Assistant, works predominately with the de-partment’s social media, as well as for a non-profit and her father’s company.

“I have utilized some aspect of social media in every job I’ve had since undergrad,” Kemmerer said. “Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn are some of the most useful platforms through which to promote a company and interact with its given cli-ent base.”

The Shorty Awards cer-emony will be streamed live online at livestream.com/shortyawardslive. To stay updated with School of Communication events and campaigns, check out their Facebook page, Twit-ter and Pinterest page.

OELRICH is the news editor.

Courtney [email protected]

The Alpha Lamda Delta (ALD) Honor Society held its annual Senior Banquet March 2 in the DeMoss Hall Grand Lobby.

According to ALD Fac-ulty Advisor Bessie Gray-son, the banquet honored 137 graduating seniors, while 75 attended the event.

“This is something we do in honor of ALD grad-uates, and we always use the theme ‘finishing well,’” Grayson said.

With the portrait of Dr. Jerry Falwell Sr. looming above the podium, guest speaker Bruce Bell re-minded students to “finish well.”

Bell recounted the sto-ries of Peter, Lance Arm-strong and Howard Hen-dricks.

“Peter did not stay de-feated but rather finished well … Lance Armstrong is an example of someone that failed to finish well,” Bell said.

He also spoke about Hendricks and how he was told as a child that he was most likely to end up in prison. Hendricks eventually worked at Dal-las Theological Seminary, finished well and then died a week later.

“To finish well, you need to commit to what brought you to this point, acknowl-edge Christ, seek friends and accountability part-ners that know you well, find a good church and be-come men and women of the Word,” Bell said.

The officers of the so-ciety were recognized for their involvement, and awards were given to the two graduating officers.

“They have been here

since the beginning induc-tion year, devoted to the continuity of the organiza-tion, attended meetings ev-ery Wednesday and doing assignments for every ser-vice opportunity,” Gray-son said.

Senior advisors Andre Craig and Sarah Harper were recognized for their efforts with gifts, according to Grayson.

The recipients of the Maria Leonard Senior Book Award were also rec-ognized during the ban-quet. This award is given to the ALD member with the highest GPA, which happened to be an 18-way tie. Drew Dickson and Joc-elyn J. Van Den Bos were the two in attendance. The book “100 Cities of the World” will be donated in their honor to the A. Pierre Guillerman Library.

The spirit of ALD is to have a “heart and desire to serve the campus and the community,” Grayson said.

“My responsibility is more of a team effort, spe-cifically depending on the different events,” President of External Communica-tions Austin Edwards said. “I learned how to work as a team. ALD has inspired me to continue to serve others as I made good friends and got involved in the community.”

The ALD is primarily a community service society, where the junior and se-nior classmen do not really have to be active.

“To be invited, you must

have a 3.5 GPA at the end of freshman year,” ALD Editor Kaitlyn Quesinber-ry said. “The active offi-cers are sophomores. Next year, the positions go to the upcoming sophomores, but as a junior or senior, you can still be involved.”

“As a historian, I am working on the scrapbook that shows the pictures and articles about the services we have done over the year,” Erin Carney said. “It’s fun working together, planning these things … and it’s cool to see how well people are doing in school.”

The scrapbook is how Liberty’s chapter showcas-es its work to the national level.

“Last year, we were awarded the Order of the Torch, a national honor for our scrapbook,” Gray-son said.

ALD will host their Spring Initiation April 5 in Towns Auditorium, and administration expects to accept 400 new initiatives.

“This year is a record year for us,” Grayson said. “We had 343 people join last year, so this is good for the first-year student as some will never join their major’s clubs.”

Students can get in-volved with the ALD and partner in serving the community by participat-ing in the ALD annual campus-wide Teddy Bear Drive March 18-21.

SHARP is a news reporter.

ALD seniors awardedJessica Jordan | Liberty champion

HONORARY — ALD recognized senior members at a banquet Saturday, March 2.

“This is something we do in honor of ALD gradu-

ates, and we always use the theme ‘finishing well.’”

— BESSIE GRAYSON

“I nominate @LibertyU for a Shorty Award in

#BNcollege because in the Old Greek, ‘Liberty Univer-sity’ actually translates to

‘Shorty Award.’” — JUSTIN KINTZEL


Dylan [email protected]

Members are reviving a for-mer Liberty University club known as Care For Creation Association (CFCA) this semes-ter with a fresh drive to encour-age the stewardship of God’s creation and to promote an environmentally healthy cam-pus.

According to club President Robert Morris, CFCA existed in 2010 before becoming inac-tive following the graduation of leading club members. Morris said that as the club returns from inactivity, members have been making a push to help make students and the uni-versity more environmentally conscious.

According to Morris, first among the objectives of the revitalized club is to promote stewardship. This idea is based on the command found in Genesis 1:28, when God blesses Adam and Eve with domin-

ion over the earth and all that lives in it. Members of CFCA believe that God has given humans the earth and placed us in charge of taking care of it. Morris believes that taking care of the earth begins with respect for the environment.

“We’re supposed to be good stewards of our bodies, good stewards of our relationships, and good stewards of the envi-ronment,” Morris said. “We want to be good stewards of creation, and we believe that this is mandated.”

Club Treasurer Caleb Vance said that a primary goal of the club is to have recycling bins placed in every dorm. The club also hopes to place bins in other public centers, such as the Reber-Thomas Dining Hall and the Tilley Student Center.

“Most people wouldn’t nor-mally recycle if they had to go out of their way to find recycling bins, but if they were placed in hallways, or in a con-venient location, people would

be more likely to recycle,” Vance said.

According to Morris, mem-bers of the club are currently discussing practical plans with Liberty’s administrative offices. Morris said that the goal is not just to find out how to increase environmental efforts on cam-pus, but also how to do so economically.

Morris said that in the long run, CFCA hopes to help the university set up a simple way for students to monitor their utility use. Hundreds of other university’s around the country use utility measuring devices to keep students informed of needless waste. According to Morris, not only is such a sys-tem good for awareness, but also for environmental contests and activities that challenge students to save as much as possible.

During preliminary talks between the club members, they agreed that overall aware-ness is a large pillar of what

CFCA wants to achieve on Liberty’s campus. Members believe that many students would act more environmen-tally conscious if they simply knew the changes they could make.

“The impact that we are leav-ing doesn’t just stretch to our kids and grandkids,” Morris said. “It stretches to 10-15 generations, and even further along. Is that the impact that we want to leave, or do we want to be good stewards to leave the environment better than we received it?”

Morris said that the club plans to change its name to Students For Stewardship in the near future to clearly and publicly state the purpose of its members.

For more information, visit the clubs and organizations page at liberty.edu/studentaf-fairs.

FRIBERG is a news reporter.

Students enact “Care for Creation”Ruth BiBBy | LiBeRty Champion

RECYCLING — Bins around campus give students the opportunity to recycle various materials.

CRASH continued from A1

saw the bus go straight at the inter-section before their own car turned left. As they made the turn, the bus drifted to the left and down the hill, appearing to bounce twice before stopping.

“When it stopped, all the lights were still on,” Travers said. “It was almost like a faint glow, and smoke was coming out from the bottom. My friends bolted out of the car, and I went to park and (then) ran down there as well.”

According to Travers, both Lib-erty and the Lynchburg police as well as medical crews converged on the scene minutes after it hap-pened.

“Once we got down there, one of our guys called 911,” Liberty freshman Justin Liskowski said. “We were checking to see if any-one was underneath the bus. For-tunately, no one was underneath the bus, and the people that were on (the bus) got out of the bus and laid down by the stairwell (near the tunnel).”

Crews made sure it was safe for everyone involved before workers began towing the bus back onto the road.

Around 10 p.m., police officers and crews from Bee Line Towing began removing the bus from the walkway near the tunnel, leaving displaced and broken bricks. The tunnel remained closed for the rest of the night as officials and crews investigated what happened.

Police have yet to release the cause of the accident.

BATTLE is the asst. sports editor.

LEASURE is the feature editor.


Parents and family gathered with senior players and managers to cel-ebrate their last home game before the Liberty Lady Flames (24-6, 16-2 Big South) trounced the Charleston Southern Lady Buccaneers (8-19, 3-15 Big South), 88-62.

Something that has never hap-pened in the careers of these five Lady Flames finally took place with 5:45 left in the game. The crowd cheered as forwards Tolu Omotola, Terika Lunsford and Brittany Campbell, as well as guards LaKendra Washington and Devon Brown, entered the court together for the first and last time.

“It was really exciting,” Campbell said. “I think it was a little hectic because all five of us never have played at the same time before.”

These five Lady Flames finished the game with 54 points and 26 rebounds before they exited the game with 3:20 left in the second half.

With the victory, Liberty earned their 300th Big South victory, as well as tied for the most conference wins in a season with 16 — a mark the Lady Flames set last year.

“I am very pleased for the oppor-tunity of tying our own record,” Head Coach Carey Green said. “It is just an indication of a lot of hard work. I’m just thankful to be able to work with such a great group under the leadership of five great seniors.”

As soon as the game began, Liberty was aggressive and attacked the Charleston Southern defense. Within four seconds, Campbell put the first points on the board. Only trailing once the entire game, the Lady Flames were able to put together a 20-7 run, jumping to a 30-17 lead with 7:24 remaining.

Points in the paint and rebound-ing helped the Lady Flames as they headed into halftime with a 43-29 lead. As a team, they collected 33 rebounds and had 26 points.

“I tried to bottle up my emo-tions and leave it all out there on the floor,” Omotola said. “I didn’t

want to have any regrets and (did) not hold anything back. I was really excited to play in my last opportu-nity to play on this floor.”

Omotola ended the half with 14 points and six rebounds. Brown tallied seven points, seven rebounds and two steals, and center Jasmine Gardner added nine points and 10 rebounds.

As the second half began, the Lady Flames continued to con-

trol the paint and forced 13 Lady Buccaneers turnovers.

Thirteen of the total 18 Charleston Southern turnovers were steals. Washington led Liberty with three steals and finished the game with three points, four rebounds and an assist.

“I was ready,” Washington said. “I was so pumped for this game.

See SENIORS, B3

SPORTS MARCH 5, 2013

M. Lacrosse

Liberty 19 Coastal 6

M. Basketball

Liberty 73Radford 56

Softball

Liberty 7Manhattan 0

M. Tennis

Liberty 7Guliford 0

W. Lacrosse

Liberty 21Delaware St. 4

M. Tennis vs.Longwood March 6 @ 1 p.m.

Baseball vs.Maryland March 6 @ 3 p.m.

Baseball vs. William & MaryMarch 5 @ 12 p.m.

M. Lacrosse vs.Tennessee Wes.March 7 @ 12 a.m.

W. Lacrosse vs.St. Francis (Pa.)March 7 @ 3 p.m.

We’ll see you at the game

The fantastic five

Flames sweep home invite

Lady Flames seniors are recognized as they defeat Charleston Southern 88-62

Jake Mitchell | liberty chaMpion

ALL ON THE COURT — In her last home game at Vines, Devon Brown finishes with 19 points and 11 rebounds.

Steven abbott | liberty chaMpion

ON A ROLL — Liberty has seven straight home victorites.

Courtney [email protected] [email protected]

The new Liberty University Baseball Stadium played host to Army and Sienna College over the weekend as part of the Liberty Invitational. Play-ing in anything but summery weather, Liberty’s boys of sum-mer won each of their four games in the invite, two against each team.

Friday vs. ArmyLiberty University baseball

fans who came out to cheer the Flames on to victory over the Army Black Knights, 6-4, in the Liberty Invitational Friday, March 1 witnessed history.

Outfielder Nick Paxton hit for a cycle — the first one in nearly seven years and first in the new ballpark. His cycle started with a single, then a home run in the bottom of the third inning. Next came the triple, before finally the double

in the seventh inning. The last person to hit for a

cycle was third baseman Chad Miller in 2006.

“It felt great,” Paxton said. “I haven’t hit one like that in a game ever, so it felt pretty good.”

The first two innings were scoreless until Army’s Grant Van Orden and Jon Crucitti scored in the top of the third. Liberty caught up later in the

See INVITE, B4

“Winning the Big South Champion-ship is big for me. I have been here four years. We missed one (championship) of them since I’ve been here, but that ring is amazing.”

“Playing at Notre Dame and being in front of that audience and playing on their court was the biggest memory I had.”

“My biggest memory as a Lady Flame was during my sophmore year, when Devon (Brown) hit her game winning shot.”

“Last year playing in the Big South tour-nament was big for me. It was my first time winning the championship.”

“I would have to say my biggest memory is winning the Big South Championship for as many years I have been here. We have won three out of four.”

WASHINGTON

OMOTOLA

CAMPBELL

LUNSFORD

BROWN

Senior Portraits

Alex Close’s walk off RBI in the 11th inning lifts Liberty over Army

B2/Liberty Champion SPORTS March 5, 2013

Scorching a rival

Flames lose in semifinals

Smokin’ Aces

Lady Flames defeat Coastal 6-1, now 2-1 in conference

Brittingham shutout leads Liberty to 7-0 win

Jody Johnson | Liberty Champion

GETTIN’ IT ROLLING — The Lady Flames have put together two straight wins and now look to continue their success on the road.

Tom [email protected]

A breakaway goal late in the second period by junior forward Christian Garland sparked a 7-1 victory by the Liberty Uni-versity men’s D1 hockey team in the first round of the Ameri-can Collegiate Hockey Asso-ciation (ACHA) tournament vs. John Carroll University Friday, March 1.

However, the win was short- lived when Liberty was de-feated by the Ohio Bobcats, 7-4, in the second round of the tournament.

With the game tied 1-1 late in the second period, sophomore goalie Clayton Brown made two saves to preserve the lead for the Flames.

Liberty’s Lindsay LeBlanc won the ensuing faceoff after Brown’s save. Teammate Scott Morongell chipped a pass over the defenders’ heads to a fast-charging Garland, who was able to sneak the puck through the goaltender’s five-hole to score the game-winning goal.

“The Garland goal came about after a huge save from Clayton Brown,” Liberty Head Coach Kirk Handy said. “The key (to the game) was some huge saves by Brown that kept us in the game.”

The Flames controlled the play throughout the game, but Garland’s goal late in the sec-ond period helped ignite the Flames offensive attack in the third period.

“The team knew that the second goal would be a turning point in the game,” Garland said. “It was only a matter of time before we got it with our dominance during both the first and second periods.”

Although they controlled most of the game, the 13th seeded Flames were not with-out adversity as the 20th seed-ed John Carroll Blue Streaks capitalized off an unfortunate bounce to claim a 1-0 lead just 3:30 into the game.

“We knew from the get-go that they would come out strong in the first,” Garland said. “We eliminated many chances ear-ly, and they came out with a goal off of an unlucky bounce for us.”

However, the Flames bounced back with a goal of their own in the first period, as sophomore defenseman

Cam Bakker fired a wrist shot past the Blue Streaks goalten-der with 11:46 left in the first period.

The Flames continued to cre-ate numerous chances through-out the first period, but they were unable to add another goal despite a staggering 23-7 edge in shots.

Handy and Garland both re-iterated the point that sticking to their game-plan, continu-ing to shoot the puck and not panicking were major factors in keeping their composure.

“We knew we were fine and we were going to score, so it was just to stay calm and play our game,” Liberty senior forward Rick Turner said. “It was frus-trating at times, seeming like we had shot after shot, but we knew it would come to us.”

The second period was simi-lar to the first, as the Flames continued to outshoot the Blue Streaks, leading to Garland’s game-winning goal.

“The key play was Garland’s breakaway,” Turner said. “(The goal) put us up one, and then the floodgates opened up for us, and we put a lot in the back of the net from then on.”

Garland’s goal would not have been possible without an individual effort by Brown, who stopped 26 of 27 shots he faced on the night.

“Playing with a goalie in the net who you know you can trust to make saves during important times during the game is huge — especially at a tournament like this,” Garland said.

The Flames carried that 2-1 lead into the third period, where they finally broke away by scoring five goals.

Turner scored the Flames third goal of the night on a power play just 2:19 into the third period.

“I was in the slot and (An-drew) McCombe hit me with a nice pass,” Turner said. “I just fired it low glove because he was pretty good high glove all game.”

Turner’s goal early in the third period was the start of an offensive explosion by the Flames, as they would quickly add four more.

“The team was confident in our ability to score,” Garland said “We knew that once we took a two-goal lead, it would take the wind out of our oppo-nent’s sails.”

Just a few minutes after giv-ing the Flames a 3-1 lead, Turner added another goal for the Flames, and the rout was of-ficially on.

Andrew McCombe, Caleb Grow and Scott Morongell each added a goal in the third period for the Flames to high-light the five-goals, which tied with the Flames top scoring pe-riod of the season.

“The third period, we played a bit harder, and it paid off,” Turner said. “Once we netted a few, the floodgates opened up, and one after another kept going in.”

FOOTE is a sports reporter.

Michael [email protected]

Liberty freshman Annah Jo Brittingham made the Manhat-tan Jaspers’ bats cold, striking out five while allowing only two hits in a 7-0 win.

The Lady Flames did not hesi-tate to ignite the offense early. Katie Zavodny reached base on an error, followed by an in-field single by shortstop Blair Lawrence.

Strategic base running was key to the first run as Lawrence made a go for second. As soon as the ball left the Manhattan catcher’s mitt, Zavodny scored to put the Flames ahead, 1-0.

Later, Sammi Shivock brought Lawrence home on a squeeze bunt to bring the lead to two runs while loading the bases, but Man-hattan pitcher Kate Bowen struck out Megan Robinson to avoid any further damage.

Brittingham tossed a no hitter through three and a third innings, but Bowen ended it with a sharp single into the outfield. However, Brittingham and her defense re-tired the next two batters, leaving Bowmen stranded at first.

The Flames loaded the bases in the bottom of the fourth inning and Katie Hon brought Robinson home, giving Liberty a three-run lead. Manhattan had a chance to get back into the game in the top half of the fifth, loading the bases, but Brittingham and the Flames escaped unscathed.

The big blow to Manhattan’s comeback attempt came in the bottom half of the fifth, when the Lady Flames Megan Robin-son sent a three-run blast over the fence and ended Bowmen’s day in the circle as Liberty doubled its lead to 6-0. The Lady Flames tallied another run in the sixth, and Brittingham finished off the Jaspers as Liberty captured the 7-0 win.

It was the first shut out for the Lady Flames of the season. Brit-tingham tossed a complete game, allowing no runs on two hits with five strikeouts. The Lady Flames improved to 5-7 while the Jaspers dropped to 0-1.

WILLIAMS is a sports reporter.

Steven [email protected]

The Lady Flames beat the Lady Chan-ticleers 6-1 Saturday, March 2, enduring almost freezing weather.

“It’s a real big deal that we beat our ri-val at Liberty,” Rebekah Jenkins said. “It’s a really good feeling when you beat that giant.”

The Lady Flames played strong in the doubles matchups, winning both. Liber-ty’s pairings of Jenkins and Nicola Well-man defeated Shelby Bates and Kourtney Kowl of Coastal Carolina, 8-5. In addi-tion, Liberty’s duo of Brittany Yang and Jessie Boda defeated Coastal’s couple of Vanessa Ortiz and Mikaela Davies, 8-5.

“First thing is to win the doubles point,” Cameron Richard said. “That’s a big thing. If you win that, you get the extra point and get the momentum going in the singles.”

The next portion of the match is the singles matchups. Liberty defeated Coast-al, 5-1. Recording victories in the singles were Jenkins, Alexandra Sheeran, Brit-tany Yang, Nicola Wellman and Valerie Thong.

“We walked into this matchup with the mindset these girls are here to (play ten-nis), and we weren’t going to mess around, and we walked on the court with that and gave it our all,” Jenkins said.

The Lady Flames lost only two of the nine matches.

“We’re here, and we’re contending for the top spot, and we’re coming in strong,” Richard said.

With the win, Liberty improved its re-cord to 3-5 and 2-1 in conference play. As the season is almost coming to an end, the team recognized the importance of today’s game.

The Lady Chanticleers featured a team of five freshmen out of eight tennis play-ers, a new lineup that is different from what Liberty has seen in previous years.

“It’s interesting because we didn’t know a lot about them,” Head Coach Jeff Mar-en said. “I think they had five new play-ers this year — and for a women’s tennis team, that’s a lot. Coastal has been one of the better teams in the conference for a number of years.”

Unlike Coastal, Liberty has a core group of veteran tennis players. With their eyes on a Big South Championship, they understand that winning is a process.

“We are about the journey, getting from point A to point B,” Maren said. “So, this win is a part of the process that we are try-ing to move to conference (tournament).”

The weather played some factor in the matchup. With temperatures in the low 40s, both teams had to push through the almost freezing conditions.

“It kind of slows you down because your body is not as warm,” Richard said. “Also, in the cold weather, the balls do not bounce as high. So, you really have to focus on your foot work and getting to

the ball early because it’s not going to get there as fast.”

The Lady Flames begin a three-game road trip March 7 against UNC Ashe-ville. They return home March 19 for a

game against East Carolina.

SULLIVAN is a sports reporter.

ruth bibby | Liberty Champion

SURVIVAL— Liberty was 1-1 before the game against Ohio.

KyLe miLLigan| Liberty Champion

TAG TEAM — Rebekah Jenkins and Nicola Wellman helped Liberty go 2-1 in doubles.

“We knew that once we took a two-goal lead, it would take

the wind out of our opponent’s

sails.” — GARLAND

Liberty Champion/B3SPORTSMarch 5, 2013

On track to Boston ECAC/IC4A qualifiers set personal best against the nations top-notch athletes

Emily [email protected]

Distance runner junior Josh MacDonald finished with Lib-erty’s highest placing as the men’s and women’s track and field teams wrapped up their indoor seasons at the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference (ECAC) and Intercol-legiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America (IC4A) Di-vision I Indoor Track and Field Championships in Boston, Mass., March 1-3.

In three days of competition, 30 Liberty athletes competed in a field including more than 120 schools. Those participating in the cham-pionships met or exceeded ECAC/IC4A qualifying standards in their individual events throughout the indoor seasons.

In the ECAC Championship, redshirt senior Christina Mitchell finished the pentathlon in fourth place with a total of 3,614 points for the Lady Flames. Mitchell was a top finisher in the championship pentathlon for the second time in her career. She placed third in 2011.

Teammate Audrey Bamford fin-ished in eighth place in the pen-tathlon in her first appearance at the championship meet. Sopho-more Riley Brandon also com-peted in the championship for the first time, earning ninth place in the multi-event. The three Lady Flames combined to produce six team points for the women.

On the second day of the meet, sophomore Melissa Rohwer fin-ished the triple jump in 14th place with a distance of 38-3.25. Janae Jones jumped for 38-1.25 and came in just behind Rohwer for 15th place.

On the track, senior Khristina Kanagy set a new personal record in the 5000-meter run, finishing the race with a time of 17:13.96. Kanagy’s time earned her 19th place in the event.

In the IC4A Championship, the Liberty men posted notable field finishes in the weight throw and

high jump during the first two days of competition.

Ryan Smith threw for 61-6.25 and earned fifth place in the weight throw. Smith placed for the third consecutive year in the IC4A event.

High-jumper Kyle Wheeler fin-ished the competition in seventh place after clearing 6-9. Smith and Wheeler contributed 5.5 points to the team score.

Redshirt freshman Cody Bing-ham also contributed a point to the Flames team total with an eighth-place finish in the heptathlon.

MacDonald crossed the fin-ish line in third place in the men’s 5000-meter run, providing six team points. MacDonald’s time of 14:10.33 was more than three seconds faster than the 2012 cham-pionship-winning time. He also im-proved his personal best time by 17 seconds.

Freshman Jeremie Bourget and redshirt sophomore Ngetich Kip-chirchir also set personal records in the 5000. Bourget took 10th place with a time of 14:29.28, and Kip-chirchir crossed the finish line at 14:41.98 for 20th place.

After an impressive indoor sea-son, the track and field teams will now transition to outdoor competition.

“It’s always fun when we can start outdoor,” Head Coach Brant Tolsma said. “We’re looking for-ward to our first meet.”

The Flames and the Lady Flames will travel to Myrtle Beach, S.C., to begin their outdoor seasons with the Coastal Carolina Invitational March 8-9. Liberty will then host the Liberty Collegiate Invitational April 5-6 at the newly refurbished Matthes-Hopkins Track Complex. The Big South Outdoor Track and Field Championships will also be held at the improved facility toward the end of April.

BROWN is a sports reporter.

Ruth BiBBy| LiBeRty Champion

BREAKING THE CEILING — Liberty’s men’s track and field team places fifth out of 44 teams.

SENIORS continued from B1

Coming out, playing with the group of girls we have, we all had energy, we were ready to play.”

With 2:35 remaining in the game, Liberty had its largest lead of the evening with 31 points.

In all, Omotola finished the game with 21 points and eight rebounds. Both Brown and Gardner had double-doubles. Brown ended with 19 points, 11 rebounds and two steals, while Gardner had 11 points and 15 rebounds.

The Lady Flames out-rebounded Charleston Southern 54-25 and had 22 second chance points. Also, 27 of their 88 points came from off the bench.

“That’s who we have been,” Green said. “Our identity is to be very aggressive. We are blessed to have four big post play-ers, and they have been doing a pretty good job of (rebounding) all year long.”

As the regular season come to a close, Liberty sits atop the Big South and has won 11 straight games heading into the postsea-son play. Most important-ly, the Lady Flames are poised to win their fifth Big South Championship in six years.

“As we go into confer-ence tournament play, we want to be executing and not be on an emotional high,” Green said. “Right now, we want to take the fundamentals of the game

and stay focused. It’s like the old saying, ‘You take your eye off the ball, you get a strike.’ We don’t want to take our eyes off the small things.”

The Lady Flames have a bye in the opening round of the Big South Tournament and will face the winner of the No. 8 Coastal Carolina vs. No. 9 Gardner-Webb in the quarterfinal Friday, March 8 at 8 p.m. in Conway, S.C.

BATTLE is the assistant sports editor.

Jake mitCheLL| LiBeRty Champion

REAGANOMICS — Reagan Miller is tied for 11th in Lady Flames history for number of three-point field goals scored, with 84.

The Tebow Top 10 List

1. Home-schooler’s revenge — For all those loud and proud home-schoolers out there, your lifetime of getting picked on ends today. Tebow will probably say something along the lines of, “Who here was homeschooled — (with thumbs pointed back towards himself) this guy.”

2. Girls will have Scripture written on their face in eye black. Better still (or worse) — guys will too.

3. Girls will be waiting outside the Vines Center for Convocation — on Thursday.

4. Tim Tebow will not say anything noteworthy for the first 20 minutes or so, but in the last four minutes, he will come back and cement his place in Convocation history with an inspiring story that ties together the Gospel, the pro-life movement, international missions and relation-ships in a nice, repeatable quote.

5. Inevitably, because Tebow played in the SEC, Alabama fans will find a way to be obnoxious either with chants or signs — most likely both. Really, ‘Tide fans? Really?

6. Tim Tebow will pull a “Mike Huckabee” and join the campus band. We already know via his NFL “Mic’d Up” segment that he is an enthusiastic singer.

7. Liberty will make it into Twitter’s trending topics for the second time in three months (the first being Christmas Coffeehouse) with all the Liberty-Tebow related hash tags sure to explode during his speech.

8. Tim Tebow will “Tebow” on stage — to roaring applause.

9. During what will be an otherwise eloquently delivered introduction, Johnnie Moore will mistakenly refer to Tebow’s accomplishments “both on and off the football court.”

10. The Tim Tebow Convocation will, without a doubt, become the highest attended Friday-before-Spring-Break-Convocation ever.

Well everyone, it is finally here. The moment we have all been waiting for is nearly upon us: Tim Tebow arrives Friday, March 8. That being said, the Liberty Champion sports desk has compiled a short list of the things we are pretty sure could happen at the long-anticipated Convocation. SpoRtiqe|CReative CommonS


After guard Jaron Lane hit the lay-up to tie the game 81-81 and a UNC Asheville time-out with 37 seconds left in overtime, Liberty held the ball for one last shot.

Guard Jesse Sand-ers dribbled the ball up the court and passed it to forward David Minaya, who rose and at-tempted a shot. It clanked off the rim, but forward John Brown gathered the ball and tipped it in the bucket just as time expired.

The 4,000 fans that filled the Vines Center poured onto the court to celebrate an 83-81 Liberty victory.

This was the scene two years ago when the 15-9 Liberty Flames faced the 10-10 UNC Asheville Bulldogs.

Storming the court after a game is

a symbolic tradition that occurs when a team that has no business winning achieves victory against a top-ranked op-ponent. Recently, however, the tradition has become more of a regularity than a special moment.

In a two-week time period, there were at least eight games where fans stormed the floor to celebrate. Villanova has stormed the court twice, but schools such as In-diana, Butler, Gonzaga, North Carolina State and Duke all faced massive crowds.

The most notable incident was Thurs-day, Feb. 28, when the University of Vir-ginia upended No. 3 Duke, 73-68.

After the loss, Duke Head Coach Mike Kryzewski was not pleased that his team was unable to leave the court before the madness ensued, and he was worried about the safety of his coaches and play-ers.

“It’s not all fun and games when people are rushing the court, especially for the team that lost,” Kryzewski said to the Ra-leigh News & Observer. “Again, congratu-

lations to them, and they should have fun and burn benches and do all that stuff. I’m for that. They have a great school, great kids, but get us off the court. That’s the bottom line.”

Duke has been on the opposite end of the celebration for the past two decades. Before the game against UVA, they were at the mercy of three other ACC oppo-nents like rivals N.C. State, the Maryland Terrapins and the Miami Hurricanes.

Some would say that the legendary coach is a sore loser. However, Kryzewski may have a point.

Just ask current Charlotte Bobcat and former University of Kentucky Wildcat forward Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. In a game against the Indian Hoosiers, Kidd-Gilchrist ended up in the bottom of a mosh pit when Hoosier players and stu-dents trampled on him after their win.

Now, I am not saying that this action was done purposefully, but Kidd-Gilchrist could have been seriously hurt at the bot-tom of the dog pile.

Not only should the opposing players’ safety be considered, but that of everyone else who partakes in the frenzy.

Yes, it is a great when a team with no possibility of winning surprises students, along with the nation, but when fan reac-tions threaten or harm an opposing play-er, there is a problem.

It really hurts me to say this as a North Carolina Tar Heel fan, but I will come to the defense of Coach K. on this one. He is right this time, no matter how people look at it.

It is great to celebrate a victory, but players and fans need to wait until the op-posing team has left the court.

BATTLE is the assistant sports editor.

B4/Liberty Champion SPORTS March 5, 2013

Steven Abbott | Liberty ChAmpion

HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE — The Flames have outscored their opponents 22-7 in the Invitational.

Editorial: Fans, stay seated until we leaveCoach K. is upset with officials for not helping Duke leave the court after a 73-68 loss to University of Virginia

INVITE continued from B1

inning, when Nick Lacik singled and Pax-ton knocked him home with a two-run homer over the right field wall.

Lacik started the fifth inning with a walk, and then stole second and third. Third baseman Dalton Sype popped out, but Lacik made it home on the tag. Paxton was up next and hit a triple to right field, and then scored on a sacrifice fly from ju-nior Ryan Cordell.

“When you have a close game like that, you just have to stay focused, but we were really confident because we’ve been swing-ing the bat well,” Cordell said.

The Flames kept the scoring run alive in the seventh inning. Paxton completed his

cycle with a double. Cordell sent Paxton home with a single RBI, giving Liberty a three-run advan-tage (5-2). Justin Sizemore then brought Cordell home with a single to left field, putting Liberty up four.

The Black Knights came fight-ing back in the top

of the eighth with two outs. With the bases loaded, Army’s Michael Sands hit a single, sending two home and making the score 6-4.

“We just wanted to play hard, and we knew Army was a good team, but we were confident with (Carson) Herndon on the mound,” Cordell said.

Starting pitcher Carson Herndon al-lowed two runs on five hits during the first five innings and walked two. Closing pitcher Josh Richardson posted his first save of the year.

Saturday vs. SiennaFlames starting pitcher Brooks Roy

threw 103 pitches in eight innings, picking up his second victory of the season against Sienna March 2, 4-0. He retired five bat-ters and relied heavily on a defense that he described as essential to his team’s success.

“Honestly, I just have a great defense,” Roy said. “Cordell, Paxton, Lacik — all those guys. It’s pretty easy to pitch when you got those guys out there, tracking balls down, and our infield doing its job. I’m not a big strikeout pitcher, so it’s important to

have a good defense, and they did the job today.”

Sophomore closer Ashton Perritt picked up his first relief win of the year, including one strikeout.

Liberty out-hit Sienna eight to six and played error-free baseball.

It was Cordell and second baseman Bryan Aanderud who kicked off the scor-ing for the Flames early in the bottom of the first inning. Cordell singled, and Aan-derud followed with an RBI double into left centerfield.

Later, in the bottom of the third, left fielder Lacik singled into right field to start the inning and managed to steal second on the ensuing pitch. It was his first of two steals on the afternoon. Paxton popped out to deep right field, and Lacik advanced to third on the tag. Aanderud once again came through with an RBI double to score Lacik, which gave the Flames a 2-0 lead at the end of three.

In the sixth inning, the Flames offense found some rhythm — with a little help from the Saints. After Liberty shortstop Dalton Britt was walked, designated hitter Justin Sizemore hit a single inches above the outstretched glove of the Sienna sec-ond baseman. Britt advanced from first to third on the play. Third baseman Sammy Taormina followed and hit an RBI single, allowing Britt to score and sacrificing Size-more at second.

First baseman Alex Close kept the rally going with a single on a ball that hit the shortstop’s glove before falling to the turf. Lacik was then walked to load the bases. This brought on a pitching change for the Saints.

Matt Quintana took the mound for the Saints against Paxton, but he hit Paxton on his very first pitch, allowing Sizemore to walk to home plate for the Flames fourth and final run of the afternoon. Lacik and Aanderud topped the offen-sive leaderboard for the day, each getting two hits and scoring one run. Aanderud’s two RBI’s led the team, as did Lacik’s two steals.

“It’s tough to face our lineup,” Roy said. “We’ve got guys that scrap and get on base, and we’ve got guys that hit the long ball as well, too, so it’s a good mixture.”

Sunday vs. SiennaLiberty baseball continued Sunday with

a double-header — rematches against Si-

enna, and then Army. The Flames pitch-ing staff went to work on the Saints in the first game, with Trey Lambert pitching seven scoreless innings, giving up only five hits and one walk, as well as striking out three in a 9-0 victory.

Relievers Kyle McKelvey and Blake Fulgham each chipped in one scoreless inning to preserve the shutout win for the Flames. On the offensive front, the Flames bats produced 13 hits with five players.

Sunday vs. ArmyLater in the evening, fans and players

got their first look at the new ballpark un-der the lights. The second game against the Black Knights became an 11-inning romp, wrought with twists and turns that would have been more richly enjoyed in warmer weather.

Temperatures below 40 degrees paired with strong wind gusts kept the flags fully unfurled and fans bundled in blankets.

“It’s the coldest weekend I’ve ever played in my life,” Close said.

The Flames held a one-run lead at the top of the ninth when Army connected on an RBI single that tied the game at three.

After a hitless 10th inning for both teams, Army looked to have Liberty cor-nered in the top of the 11th, loading the bases with two outs. However, Liberty reliever Ashton Perritt mowed down the next batter in the lineup, who struck out swinging.

In the bottom of the 11th, Sizemore sin-

gled to lead off and Wimmer followed by a single that advanced Jake Kimble — who ran for Sizemore — to third base. Next up for the Flames was Close.

“I’ve been struggling lately. I’ll be the first to admit that,” Close said. “If I go into the batter’s box and don’t tell myself that I’m the best hitter, and continue to tell myself that I’m a good hitter, and the pitcher has no shot to get me out, I’m go-ing to get out every time. So my thoughts were, ‘You’re a dang good hitter. You’ve just got to put the bat on the ball, and good things are going to happen.’”

Luckily for the Flames, Close put his bat on the ball to the tune of a walk-off RBI single.

“We’ll give all the glory to God. That’s what we’re playing for — an audience of one,” Head Coach Jim Toman said. “I’m so proud of my players for battling. … The idea is to score one more run than your opponent, and that’s basically what we did here tonight.”

The Flames only allowed three runs in four games throughout the invitational, thanks in large part to a deep bullpen. To-man was pleased with his pitching staff and looks forward to making use of even more of them throughout the next few games.

TYREE is a sports reporter.

HARVEY is the sports editor.

BATTLE

ScoresLU 6 Army 4

LU 4 Sienna 0

LU 9 Sienna 0

LU 4 Army 3, 11 innings

James [email protected]

Kyle Hoppe studies worship at Liberty University, which for many students brings to mind stereotypical images of v-neck shirts, TOMS shoes and skinny jeans. Though these attributes describe Hoppe, it was his love of music that provided him with the passion to open his own pro-duction studio while still attend-ing college.

Proclamation Studios is not just the name of Hoppe’s stu-dio, although most of his work is done in Green Bay, Wis. The mixing and audio recording he does while studying at Liberty is also created under that title.

“I chose the name Procla-mation because it is my goal to make recording, mixing, master-ing and all those services acces-sible to anyone,” Hoppe said.

According to Hoppe, juggling schoolwork and recording can be a challenge, but his passion for the work lightens the load.

“It’s just what I love to do, so I cut down on video games and Breaking Bad to make time for it,” he said jokingly.

Hoppe also said that prioritiz-ing music and school helps him get better at what he does. His work includes recording, mix-ing and mastering both covers and original music by Liberty students.

The conflict between keeping prices low and sustaining pro-duction costs is one of the po-tential problems that Hoppe said

he faces when considering sound engineering for a living, and he laments the high prices charged by record studios.

“I think restricting art based on how much money people have is not really appreciating it,” Hoppe said. “Obviously, there are expenses in recording, but at the same time, if I’m just looking to make money, it is just a business. For me, music is not just a business.”

Although Hoppe is studying to become a pastor, he started pro-ducing music with the help of his father.

“My dad got me an eight-track recorder. It was my first digital

work station because I couldn’t afford a laptop. I did a lot of work on that until I got a computer.”

One of Hoppe’s friends, who also produced music, played a part in his decision to learn the craft.

“I got to watch someone expe-rience it in front of me,” Hoppe said. “I got the things that he was getting after I had already seen what he could do with them.”

Now that he can choose what artists to collaborate with, Hoppe said that he has had to make some tough decisions.

“It’s sad that sometimes I have to turn people down that I would normally want to work with be-

cause their music has horrible content,” Hoppe said.

According to his company’s website, Proclamation Studio’s goal is to record artists and give them the tools to share their mu-sic with the world.

“I’d love to see Proclamation Studios turn into a network of artists and engineers who work together to produce great mu-sic,” he said.

Hoppe said that he will contin-ue to work on his degree at Lib-erty, but the quest for new artists and engineers to work with is never finished. EBRAHIM is a feature reporter.

Liberty Champion/B5FEATUREMarch 5, 2013

Liberty student owns recording studio

Post office connectionsWill Luper allows his people skills to translate to customer service skills

Grammy-winner performs March 22

Chris Mabes | Liberty ChaMpion

YOU’VE GOT MAIL— Will Luper finds joy in the little things as he interacts with students over packages.

Emily [email protected]

For the outside observer, working at the Liberty University Post Office (LUPO) might appear like a monotonous job of swiping Flames Passes, lugging packages to the counter and scanning box after box while also dealing with the frustrations of damaged or missing items.

For Will Luper, an LUPO employee, this is not the case. Arriving at work at 6:45 a.m. two or three times a week and sorting through packages is just the begin-ning. Luper uses what may seem like un-interesting and repetitive work as a way to do what he truly loves.

Luper, who graduated with a degree in communications from Liberty in 2008, said that the best part of his day is com-municating with students.

“We have some students that come in pretty regularly, and we can recognize them and talk to them, and it’s fun,” Lu-per said. “I’ve had a couple of our stu-dents bring food and presents because we have a good rapport with our regulars.”

After sorting through more than 400 packages each day, Luper said that his cu-riosity sometimes gets the better of him. Interesting packages such as bananas, coconuts and even a single flip-flop with a message that its counterpart will soon follow are not in short supply.

“If you order something internationally,

they have to put what is in the package for customs,” Luper said. “(One package) came in, and it said ‘Cigarette Case,’ and I laughed and said (to the student), ‘Hey man, just so you know — that’s on (the package), but I don’t know what you’re using it for.”

Dealing with interesting packages is just one aspect of Luper’s job. Other aspects are not as humorous for the employees, or for the students.

“The most frustrating thing is when the United States Postal Service messes up, or when UPS messes up or FedEx messes up,” Luper said. “We are obviously the face that people talk to, so we deal with a lot of frustration.”

When circumstances like damaged or missing packages occur, Luper said that he understands that students are not mad at him personally. He has learned to let things like that roll off his back.

“If somebody’s mad, personally, I like to explain stuff and make sure they un-derstand what’s going on,” Luper said. “My goal is to make sure that people will leave here understanding what’s going on, not having questions about stuff and being satisfied with the way things are go-ing and also knowing that we’re going to work as hard as we can to get it to them as soon as it’s here.”

Freshman Christina Campbell-Brunson has experienced Luper’s friendly manner despite the frustration of a de-

layed package. “He’s really nice,” Campbell-Brunson

said. “He asks how your day is. If you go a bunch of times, sometimes he’ll remem-ber your name. To deal with that many people, especially around holiday times, and to be able to remember faces and names is pretty cool.”

Campbell-Brunson visited LUPO mul-tiple times over the past few weeks in search of her package and said that she was received with kindness each time.

“They’re really understanding and re-ally nice about it,” Campbell-Brunson said. “I was actually skeptical (about) go-ing back all the time without getting an email. I thought they’d get annoyed, but ... they were really understanding.”

Luper said that his pleasant attitude and mentality comes from knowing that there are unfriendly people that students have to deal with, and he does not wish to be one of them.

“If I go someplace, I want to be treated nicely,” Luper said. “I don’t want to be another grumpy face. Most of the time, everyone is really nice, so I’ll smile … and try to make conversation.”

According to Luper, his personal ap-proach to the job has made all the differ-ence.

WEBSTER is a feature reporter.

Jessica [email protected]

Christian hip-hop artist and rap-per Lecrae, who won a Grammy last month for best Gospel album, will perform in concert with Andy Mineo and Propaganda at the Vines Center March 22 at 8 p.m.

Lecrae, whose full name is Lecrae Moore, attended a Gospel conference with hundreds of other teenagers and stood in awe of the participants’ dem-onstrated faith, according to reachre-cords.com, the website for the recording company to which Lecrae belongs. This conference is where his love for Christ began, and, according to the Reach Re-cords website, it gave him the passion to found Reach Life Ministries five years later in 2005 with Ben Washer, a friend he met through youth ministry.

According to the Reach Records website, Lecrae began his outreach by volunteering, speaking and rapping at a juvenile detention center. Lecrae has released five albums since 2005, and his latest album — entitled “Gravity” — won him a Grammy. His third al-bum, “Rebel,” became the first Chris-tian rap album to ever sit in the No. 1 position on Billboard’s Top Gospel Charts. “Rehab,” his fourth album, brought him to No. 3 on the Top 10 Albums chart on iTunes as well as a Grammy nomination.

“Lecrae has a talent for word-play-ing, with metaphors and examples of Christianity,” Liberty sophomore Mal-lory Corpe said. “I admire how he so bluntly portrays the Gospel through rapping. I am really pumped to get ‘cray at Lecrae,’ to see how crazy the crowd gets, and to see such a popular artist perform.”

However, some students had no pre-vious knowledge of Lecrae’s ministry before his visit was announced.

“I have heard a lot of Liberty stu-dents on campus talking about Lec-rae but have never personally heard his music,” Liberty junior Kimberly Jamison said. “I am excited to hear him perform and witness for myself his … talent. I am glad that Liberty is bring-ing in a performer with such a different take on Christian music and that they are being so open to more current, modern styles of worship.”

Tickets are already being sold online for the March 22 concert, and they are $5 for Liberty students and $10 for the general public. For more information, call 434.582.SEAT or purchase tickets online.

JORDAN is a feature reporter.

Kyle Hoppe discovered his passion for producing music at an early age and now runs Proclamation Studios

Lecrae to visit

“I’d love to see Proclamation Studios turn into a network of artists and engineers who work together

and produce great music.” — KYLE HOPPE

B6/Liberty Champion FEATURE March 5, 2013

Jenny House | Liberty CHampion

GAMING — Members play and discuss games during Thursday night meetings.

Virtual exploration

World of Social Media

Freshman student starts Liberty video game club

Alumnus Josh Beaty visits Liberty to share knowledge

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Josh [email protected]

Each Thursday in DeMoss 4066, video game enthusiasts meet under the leadership of freshman and Liberty University Video Game Club President Jonathan Cole.

According to Cole, the group meets for a variety of game-based discussion, as well as for watching and playing games, but the club might not have been created had it not been for a friendly challenge.

“I was eating at Doc’s with a friend last semester, and we were joking about having a video game club,” Cole said. “The next day, I was talking about it with other friends, and some said I could not do it.”

Cole said that he would prove them wrong, and he did, officially launching the club Nov. 27, 2012.

The video game club now boasts a unique distinction. Almost all of the club’s officials are second-semester Lib-erty freshmen. The only difficulty they ran into, according to Cole, was finding a professor to approve the club. After a week, Associate Professor of Informa-tion Systems Jerry Westhall signed the

much-needed paperwork, making their club official.

“(The meeting discussions) range from creation of games to overall design,” video game club member Kevin Wheel-er said. “(We) usually end up playing a popular game with 50 other people.”

Some of the group’s short-term goals include game tournaments, Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) teams, and a university-wide Minecraft server, ac-cording to Cole.

In the long run, they hope to compete with other colleges and organizations, send a group to Electronic Entertain-ment Expo (E3) and establish an out-reach program — through which they would like to visit other colleges and high schools, sharing Christ along with their passion for video games, Cole said.

Cole also explained that as part of the outreach, they are considering finding a way to integrate with Campus Serve to have kids in the community play video games with them in order to have the op-portunities to minister to them.

BRANDENSTEIN is a feature reporter.

Greg [email protected]

Diamonds are said to be a girl’s best friend, and in a way, Liberty University alumnus Josh Beaty makes his living on them.

Beaty, the director of social media and community for Diamond Candles in Raleigh, N.C., visited his alma mater Thursday, Feb. 28 to share some of the secrets of his trade with Liberty’s chap-ter of the Public Relations Student Soci-ety of America (PRSSA).

The “World of Social Media” event, which was held on the third floor of De-Moss, was open to PRSSA members as well as the public.

According to Kristen Gorsuch, the president of Liberty’s PRSSA chapter, Beaty gave Liberty public relations stu-dents an opportunity to learn how to “ef-fectively utilize social media and keep up with trends.”

During his address, Beaty revealed some of the best websites to attract cus-tomers, manage the company’s social media outlets and analyze the successful-ness of his efforts — including desk.com and mention.net.

“Students will benefit from the wis-dom that Josh (Beaty) can share from his past and present successes in attracting attention to a thriving business,” Gor-such said.

After graduating from Liberty in 2008 and completing a master’s degree from Liberty in 2012, Beaty now oversees all of his company’s involvement in various social media, including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Diamond Candles boasts nearly 250,000 likes on Facebook and has nearly 25,000 followers on Twitter.

Beaty explained the value of effectively meeting the needs of customers through social media, while surrounded by a dis-play of colorful rings and candles.

Each scented candle made by Dia-mond Candles contains one ring worth $10, $100, $1,000 or $5,000 buried be-neath the wax, and the excitement of the PRSSA members reached a peak

as Beaty announced that each person would receive either a candle or a ring to take home.

According to Beaty, Diamond Can-dles has experienced substantial growth in its first few years of doing business, due in part to the company’s social me-dia efforts.

As PRSSA members sampled the scents of their free candles after the event, Beaty said that the most impor-tant piece of advice that he hoped peo-ple would remember from his talk was that people should work for a company that they have a passion for.

The reason Beaty has a passion for managing Diamond Candles’ social media is not hard to figure out when he views videos and pictures of customers pulling out a ring from the middle of a wax-filled candle. For Diamond Candles and many other businesses, connect-ing with customers is what his job is all about.

LEASURE is the feature editor.

rutH bibby | Liberty CHampion

PRACTICE— The cast rehearsed for 4-5 weeks before the play’s premiere.

pHoto provided

BLING — Each candle has a ring.

ALL MY SONS continued from B8

“This is obviously a grand view scale of what dishonesty can do,” Towns said. “In small ways, this is what it does every time.”

According to Brasher, each production demands approximately 70 hours of preparation from the cast.

“Probably the most gratifying thing is to see the progression of the ac-

tors, especially because this is a theater education program,” Brasher said. “We have some very good actors in this cast.”

Tatum said that she is excited to see the reac-tion that people like her grandfather, a Korean War veteran, will have to the show.

“People who grew up in that time period, I’m excited to see their reac-tions,” Tatum said.

Brasher has included a note in the program, ded-icating the performance

to the veterans of World War II and all the mem-bers of the armed forces. According to Brasher, that is a message that the cast and crew of “All My Sons” wants to clearly de-pict.

“All My Sons” will be performed six times, concluding with a perfor-mance March 5 at 7:30 p.m.

WARRENDER is an asst. section editor.

Liberty Champion/B7FEATUREMarch 5, 2013

Mission funding gets creative Liberty students sell goods and perform music as a new approach to raising money for mission trips Sophia [email protected]

“Buy a donut to help send me to Southeast Asia,” one student yelled as she stood outside of the Vines Center before Convocation. Stu-dents at Liberty University are al-ways finding new ways to raise mon-ey for their mission trips.

Liberty frequently sends out mis-sion teams to help spread the Gos-pel. Students who volunteer for these trips usually raise their own money, and many get creative in their efforts.

Nikko Stuart, a junior majoring in audio broadcasting, went on a mis-sion trip to Italy last June. Stuart said that he raised money in several different ways before he left, includ-ing holding a benefit concert, post-ing statuses on Facebook and selling bracelets and desserts.

“Facebook was very convenient and could get the word out to all of my friends quicker than asking individually,” Stuart said. “I also know people love music and will pay to watch and listen, especially for a good cause, so I thought that (the benefit concert) was a good idea.”

While many students said that raising money can sometimes be a strenuous process, Stuart said that he found it enjoyable. According to him, he scheduled a benefit concert in Towns Auditorium, which was moved to a smaller classroom be-cause of complications. However, the move only helped his proceeds, and he was able to receive donations for his entire mission team.

“I think it turned out better than it would have in the Towns Audito-rium because everyone was so close together,” Stuart said. “It felt more personal.”

Chris Cannon, a senior majoring in criminal justice, took an alterna-tive route to raising money for his mission trip. Cannon went to Guate-mala the same summer Stuart went to Italy, but instead of raising all of his funds beforehand, he received

donations during his trip.During the three months that

Cannon spent in Guatemala, he sold souvenirs through Facebook that he bought in Guatemala as well as original songs that he had recorded through iTunes.

“The missionary we were working with in Guatemala mentioned that it would be a good business plan to buy souvenirs cheap in Guatemala and sell them for profit in the United States,” Cannon said. “Instead of doing it for profit, I did it for fundraising.”

However, other students prefer a more typical form of fundraising, asking for money from friends and family through letters and other cor-respondence.

Tom Sosin, a junior majoring in psychology and Christian counsel-ing, took the more direct route of asking for donations. Sosin has been on numerous mission trips since go-ing to Germany in 2009, including living in Norway for the past four months in order to be a more hands-on missionary.

“I sent out letters and then inten-tionally followed up with people — on the phone, face-to-face,” Sosin said. “In three months, God built my monthly support team, a network of churches and prayer warriors con-sisting of people of almost every profession.”

According to Sosin, instead of get-ting all the money he needed right up front, a support team gave him smaller amounts of money each day he was on his mission trip. So-sin learned about this technique through his career missionary prepa-ratory course, which helps prepare students for mission trips.

“God put people in my path,” So-sin said. “All credit to him.”

From seeking donations to selling goods, Liberty students raise money many different ways, but the goal remains the same — spreading the Gospel to all the world.

HAHN is a feature reporter. Photo Provided

GROUP EFFORT —The FACS Association sells bracelets for Threads of Hope organization.

Photo Provided

GUATEMALA MADE — Chris Cannon sells souvenirs through Facebook to raise funds.

FRIDAY, APRIL 12 • 7:30 P.M . • VINES CENTER

TICKET INFORMATIONLIBERTY STUDENTS - $7 ADV : GENERAL PUBLIC - $10 ADV

featuring Rend Collective Experiment & Moriah Peters

FOR TICKET INFORMATION CALL (434) 582-SEAT OR PURCHASE ONLINE AT LIBERTY.EDU/SAFOR MORE INFORMATION EMAIL [email protected] OR CALL (434) 592-3061

Sara [email protected]

A storm rolled across the stage of Liberty University’s Tower Theater opening night March 1 as the cast prepared to reveal a story riddled with tragic themes.

According to Neal Brasher, the play’s director, “All My Sons” is a naturalistic play set in the mid-20th century. The play follows the story of a post-World War II family who deals with the loss of Larry Keller, who is supposedly missing in action.

Kate Keller, the mother of Larry and Chris Keller, struggles through daily life without Larry and with the realization that his previous love has transferred her feelings to Chris.

“The first act is all about cover-ing up those issues and putting on a smile, but in the second and third act, things start getting churned up,” Witney Tatum, who played Kate Keller, said.

Joe Keller, the father of Larry, supposedly produced faulty parts for WWII fighter planes — causing the death of many men. The play leaves the audience unsure about the truth of this until the perfor-mance’s conclusion.

“Jesus talked about loving your neighbor as yourself,” Brasher said. “The moral of this play is about human beings all being responsible to each other — that we belong to each other.”

According to Brasher, the sym-bolic actions and lighting effects used in the play are expressionistic. Many of the cast members often refer to a fallen tree displayed on set. The tree holds hidden value, according to Brasher.

“Right after WWII, a lot of fami-

lies would plant trees in honor of fallen family members,” Caleb Towns, who played Chris Keller, said. “The fact that it fell down on this day, and everything was com-ing out, that’s Larry in the show. If we reference that tree, we’re think-ing about my brother, their son, their lover. He’s still a very real part of the show.”

The nine-member cast of Liber-ty students depicts mature themes throughout their performance. Ac-cording to Tatum, each attending audience’s reaction is different and

provides the cast with a fresh start. “I’m really hoping that our work

and Brasher’s insight … will result in something that is truthful and relatable to people who have expe-rienced something like this,” Tatum said.

Some audience members may not sympathize with the feeling of such a tragic family occurrence, but according to Towns, many values can be taken away from this pro-duction.

See ALL MY SONS, B6

FEATURE MARCH 5, 2013

‘All My Sons’ premieres

Bridal show provides ideas

Master’s Inn offers free fun

Liberty’s cast depicts subtle themes in a play dedicated to veterans

Liberty students can participate in activities at the Lynchburg camp

Melissa [email protected]

Soon-to-be brides were invited to attend the an-nual Bliss Bridal Show at Tresca on 8th in down-town Lynchburg Sunday, March 3.

Brides attended numer-ous workshops designed to help them plan their upcoming weddings. Par-ticipants were welcome to visit various vendors from the Lynchburg area from 1:30-5:30 p.m.

Jennifer Prince, own-er of Hill City Bride and Clutch, a business dedicated to bringing re-sources to future brides through print and the Web, coordinates the an-nual event.

“I really wanted to do something to educate the brides,” Prince said. “The premise of this event is to help the bride feel em-powered to plan her wed-ding the day after attend-ing.”

Brides were treated with a fashion show fea-turing wedding gowns from Celebration, catered food from Cater This and Love Is In The Air, an interactive photo booth from Lynchburg Snap-shot Studio, and a grand prize of a Jamaican hon-eymoon giveaway along with various door prizes.

“When I attend this event, I learn many prac-tical things that I can use while I am planning my wedding,” participant Shannon O’Brien said.

Workshops were of-fered for the brides to attend, including Do-It-Yourself (DIY) for Brides,

Tending to Your Atten-dants, Beauty Outside the Box and The Less Stress Bride.

“Sessions are meant to be helpful in general, and not just steer a bride to-ward a particular venue,” Prince said. “We offer workshops on budgeting your time and money, personal style, and how to be a DIY bride without getting up in all the de-tails, and we offer a dance session.”

Prince said that she had

many friends in the wed-ding industry who saw the need for a local wed-ding blog in Lynchburg since weddings happen so often. In response, she began Hill City Bride at hillcitybride.com.

Prince’s goal is to plan upscale events to help brides as they prepare for their special day.

“I would recommend attending this event to any future bride. The experience is a good one. I was able to decide on

a photographer and a caterer for my June wed-ding,” participant Molly Carter said.

Hill City Bride is plan-ning another Bliss Fine Wedding Affair for the fall in Roanoke. They are also planning a ven-ue tour entitled Bliss the Venue Tour for Nov. 10 of this year.

SKINNER is a feature reporter.

Photo Provided

BLAST — Master’s Inn provides opportunities to soar.

Josh Brandenstein [email protected]

From paintball tourna-ments, ropes courses and horseback riding to dodge-ball tournaments, hayrides and wakeboarding, The Master’s Inn offers many opportunities designed to get the blood flowing — all of which are free for Lib-erty University students to take part in.

The camp has been around almost as long as Liberty — it was founded in 1974 — and, according to the camp’s staff, most employees and volunteers are Liberty alumni or cur-rent students.

“It’s pretty much the most fun you’ll ever have in your entire life,” Children’s Camp Director Adam Mullins said.

According to the camp’s website, The Master’s Inn Ministries is designed to share the Gospel with ev-eryone from children to adults through camping and outdoor recreation.

While paintball costs only $5, and wakeboarding costs $10, all of the activi-ties offered are otherwise free of charge for students, according to Mullins.

“We’re just awesome like that,” Mullins said in refer-ence to the cost. “We just started this program for Liberty students to come out and have a blast. It’s something we enjoy doing, so we know you’ll enjoy it too. We’re trying to get the word out now. It’s surpris-ing how few students know about us.”

According to Mul-lins, those who come to The Master’s Inn will be hooked. The camp also offers a kickball tourna-ment in March and a night dodgeball tournament in April.

“Paintball, horseback riding and our ropes course are the main things we’ll be doing with Liberty students, but there’s plenty more to do,” Camp Direc-tor Sean Mills said.

The Master’s Inn has two available paintball courses. One is a smaller course with various natural and man-made obstacles, and the other is a longer field containing two tree forts and crisscrossing trenches. Horseback riding takes students through the forest. The ropes course features a rock climbing wall, a leap of faith from a telephone pole to a tra-peze bar, and a mish-mash climbing course through suspended tires, rope lad-ders and nets.

The Master’s Inn web-site also lists multiple wakeboarding opportu-nities that will take place throughout the month of April.

“The counselors and staff are easy to talk to, and they make a point to get to know you and invest in you and your life,” previous summer camp counselor Julia Weisenstein said. “I made some friends to last a lifetime and learned verses that are forever hidden in my heart. It’s amazing to see how (God) works in and through everyone who steps foot on the property — whether they are camp-ers, church leaders or staff. I wouldn’t trade it for any-thing.”

According to Liberty Student Activities, they help promote The Mas-ter’s Inn, and students can find more information about what is available to Liberty students at liberty.edu/sa.

Some of the activities offered have already start-ed, but they will continue throughout the semester. To find out more about upcoming events, visit the themastersinn.com/lib-erty.

BRANDENSTEIN is a feature reporter.

Jake Mitchell | liberty chaMPion

WEDDING BELLS — Gowns from Celebration are shown to future brides.

Jake Mitchell | liberty chaMPion

CATERED — Future brides enjoy refreshments at the event.

ruth bibby | liberty chaMPion

TRUTH — The play demonstrates the consequences of dishonesty.

Liberty Champion, March 5th, 2013

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