Furman Magazine. Volume 47, Issue 1 - Full Issue

Furman Magazine Volume 47 Issue 1 Spring 2004 Article 1 4-1-2004 Furman Magazine. Volume 47, Issue 1 - Full Issue Furman University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarexchange.furman.edu/furman-magazine Recommended Citation University, Furman (2004) "Furman Magazine. Volume 47, Issue 1 - Full Issue," Furman Magazine: Vol. 47 : Iss. 1 , Article 1. Available at: https://scholarexchange.furman.edu/furman-magazine/vol47/iss1/1 This Complete Volume is made available online by Journals, part of the Furman University Scholar Exchange (FUSE). It has been accepted for inclusion in Furman Magazine by an authorized FUSE administrator. For terms of use, please refer to the FUSE Institutional Repository Guidelines. For more information, please contact . SPRING 2004 Furman Spring 2004 F E A T U R E S 2 THE CO-OP WAY A minister's vision helps residents of an Atlanta neighborhood meet their needs -and build a stronger community. by Bill Banks 10 All THING S A N N O Y I N G Are you easily irritated and constantly complaining? Maybe you should talk to Robin Kowalski. by Leigh Gauthier Savage 14 NATION IN TRANSITION A summer internship takes a law student to Guyana, where the intensity of daily life is reflected in her work. by Elizabeth Reid 20 LAS E R SHARP Mike Duncan's cutting-edge research has placed him among the most sought-after chemists of his generation. by Phil Williams 24 SCIENTIFIC P I O N E E R Nobel laureate Charles Townes i s honored anew b y the city and the university where he spent his formative years. by Jim Stewart FURMAN R E PO RTS 26 PHILANT H R O PY 32 ATHLETICS 34 ALU M N I NEWS 36 THE LAST W O R D 48 Printed on partially recycled paper ON THE COVER: Chad Hale '67 has been a minister in inner-city Atlanta since the mid-1970s. Photo by Charlie Register m The Co-op Way The four co-ops in the Georgia Avenue Food Cooperative serve 200 families, or about BOO people. Each co-op meets every other week, and each has a steering committee comprised solely of co-op members. Page 4: Chad Hale says that the members of the community where he has ministered for so many years "give me a lot with their strength and endurance. I feel privileged to be where I am." 2 A MI NIS T E R F I N DS HIS C ALL I N G I N AN I M PO V E R IS H E D ATL A NTA CO M M U N ITY, W H E R E N E I G H BO RS CO M E TO G ET H E R TO N U RT U R E A N D S US TA I N E A C H OT H E R . By Bill Banks � � H•k ;, • preoohe< in Atl.,ta, 0• .• • 1967 g<•do•to of Fonn•n who fo< the I•" qo•rt« oontmy h" lived worked in one of the city's most punishing neighborhoods. When I mention Hale to friends of mine I try explaining the four food co-ops he has established out of his church, the Georgia Avenue Church, which is two miles southeast of downtown. Usually I mention in passing somebody like Constance Hawkins, a faithful member of Hale's congregation for 20 years whose father, James "Big Hawk" Hawkins, was once a millionaire, with three limousines, two homes and a bevy of women, all from his days as a legendary drug dealer. In any case, my listener usually shrugs and says, "I know a preacher like that," and mentions a church that runs a Monday night soup kitchen or serves a big meal to the homeless on Thanksgiving. But this hardly describes Hale and his work at all. On one hand, the Georgia Avenue co-ops are exactly what they sound like - groups distributing food to people who are hungry. B ut they are also part community, part therapy, part church service and often several parts chaos, with an inner structure thoroughly baffling to outsiders. In 1991 Hale and his longtime associate, B rian Lowring, started the first co-op, but in the years since these groups have acquired temperaments and habits reflecting their members more than the founders. Therefore it seems fitting, in telling Chad Hale 's story, to slide around him momentarily and start with someone who has not only been a longtime co-op coordinator, but has a history with the church and the formidable territory surrounding it. n cl1 kie Palmer is a 48-year-old African-American woman who divorced her husband years ago, leaving him after nearly burned down their house from freebasing cocaine. She raised three children on her own, sometimes holding three jobs simultaneously. She is very dark skinned, but there are patches of even darker pigment on her face, leaving the impression of a storm cloud's passing. Sometimes her speech pours out with such an emotional flux it's as if every word has an exposed nerve ending. "Around the time I was getting m y divorce," Jackie says, "I had a distant cousin who told me, 'Woman, you need some churchin ' . Said it just like that. I told her, 'No . ' I said, ' I ' m going through this separation and I prefer to take God in my own way. I don't like dressing up and I don ' t want to fool with no big-time preacher in Atlanta. ' "But this cousin shook her head and said, 'This one's a white man I ' m talkin ' about, and he preaches in blue jeans. ' " When Jackie and Hale met, it must have been an epiphany for both. Hale had some theories, and Jackie knew the neighborhood, its people and its protocol. Thinking about Hale in this context reminds me of the American composer Duke Ellington, whose sweeping, ecumenical vision never would have been fully realized without an orchestra he kept consistently employed for almost 50 years, a unit that could coax all those novel combinations of sounds from his head. Similarly, I believe, Georgia Avenue 's v arious ministries never would have evolved as they have without something wholly separate fro m Hale, specifically a harmony of individuals starting with (and at times dominated by) the raw, bravura force that is Jackie Palmer. She says, "Not long after I met him Chad came to me and said, 'Jackie, I ' ve been studying up on this co-op thing . ' Lord only knows why he was telling me this. But I knew, from the first time I met Chad, a message done been sent. It was the way he greeted, he consoled, he let people confess. He didn 't rush all this way and that. And we had so many people around here who were on food stamps, or who were addicted to one thing or another. Chad was trying to figure out how he could help supplement these households with food." 3 1 is a little over 6-feet tall with a drooping, lrus-like mustache dominating a longish face that can be at once weary and radiant. Before we met I knew a few things about him. I knew, as his close friend and college roommate Ed Bridges '67 told me, that Hale had been "a big deal " at Furman, where he was president of the senior class and was elected to Quaternion (the select honorary men's society) and Who 's Who. From Furman he went to Andover Newton Theological School, where he graduated in 1971, and then spent the next two and a half years in Providence, R.I., as associate pastor of a mid-sized, all-white Baptist church. Hale, however, was never comfortable as a (...truncated)