Omnibus

By Audrey Selley

Wiping sweat from his forehead, Bruce Tucker laughs as he scrubs dirt off the windshield of a Mazda3 sedan. His older brother Tom laughs back from the other side of the car where he meticulously sprays and wipes the windows like he’s polishing a trophy. 

It’s a Wednesday close to closing time at Carolina Car Wash And Detail in Carrboro, which sits right on the corner of Brewer Lane and East Main Street. Alongside the co-managers, Bruce and Tom, is the usual team of employees, including Chello Hernandez. Hernandez has been working at the car wash for 15 years, exactly the age of her daughter, Donna, who comes back from school just as the sedan is engulfed by the mechanical scrubber cylinders.

Donna greeted Bruce and Tom’s 85-year-old mother, Willey D. Tucker, behind the register just as Bruce walked into the lobby. 

“Donna! How was your quinceañera?” Bruce asked.

To Bruce, his employees are extended family. He’s lived with them through their ups and downs. He has watched as their kids grew up and learned how to ride a bike, and even as they got their first job— which, for a few of them, was at the car wash itself.  

However, it’s not exactly like Bruce needs more family in his life. He grew up with 11 siblings on the west side of Chicago with his mom. Although they had just enough money to keep the lights on, it was a golden childhood. It was one where school clothes were immediately changed into play clothes when they came home. 

They would play cops and robbers, tag and kickball until dark, waiting just long enough until their mother would whoop their butts for not being home by dinner. On weekends, they’d all squeeze into a station wagon and visit their grandparents, who also lived in Chicago.  

“Those were the good old days,” Bruce said. “Some people can’t imagine having 11 siblings, but it was one of the most beautiful experiences I could imagine.” 

Carolina Car Wash and Detail

When a 25-year-old Tom bought Carolina Car Wash and Detail in 1997 and called Bruce, 23, to ask him to help with the business, Bruce didn’t want to. He was living his best life, constantly traveling as a project engineer for the United States Postal Service and golfing on his days off. 

Three weeks later, he was in Carrboro learning how to put on a proper coat of Chemical Guys Extreme Bodywash & Wax— family is family. Even though he would curse out his siblings in a heartbeat, he would even more quickly uproot his life for them. 

“It was so hard to sacrifice that; I was at the peak of my career. But Tom needed someone to help out, and I was one of the only siblings who could,” Bruce said.  

Tom’s purchase of Carolina Car Wash and Detail coincides with his founding of Peregrine 9, a real estate development company based in North Carolina. As Tom began working towards his goals of expanding throughout the southeastern United States, Bruce stepped up as co-manager of the car wash to handle the day-to-day operations.

Family Ties

But beyond the real estate incentive, Tom bought the business to give his mother a job where she didn’t have to stand all the time. Despite the gentle urging of Tom and Bruce for her to take some time off, 25 years later, she still greets customers behind the register every day.

Their mother has always supported her children. Throughout their childhood, she somehow managed to keep all 12 of her kids busy with museum trips, summer camps and sports teams.

“She’s always been our biggest fan; she would do anything for us,” Tom said.  

Working with his mom every day is his favorite part, but only as long as he remembers she will always be the boss, he said laughing.

In fact, Bruce not-so-jokingly jokes that their faithful customer base is because of Willey D. Her smile would make the Grinch’s heart grow three sizes. Her motherly advice has calmed generations of UNC-Chapel Hill students, and her impressively deep breadth of sports knowledge has engaged customers like former UNC-CH men’s basketball coach Dean Smith and current coach Hubert Davis.

“We actually thought about getting her picture on the side of a city bus because there are so many people that know her,” Bruce said.

Community Connections

The brothers also believe that they have an opportunity and responsibility to impact the community around them. Tom served as the president of the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership, which advocates for policies and projects to support businesses. In addition, Tom serves on the Northside Neighborhood Conservation District Advisory, which was created in response to the increasing gentrification in the historically Black Northside neighborhood in Chapel Hill. 

In terms of their business philosophy, the brothers aren’t trying to squeeze every cent out of their customers. They would rather spend their time providing quality service and ensuring the happiness of their customers, Tom said. 

Their upbringing taught them that it’s not about having all the money in the world. Bruce said at the end of the day, they want to focus on what’s most important, cultivating relationships with their customers.

He will surprise customers with a free car wash if they are having a particularly bad day and gives away complimentary car washes to local schools and charities as well. Beyond the car wash, Bruce loves engaging with the customers and swapping life stories. 

“If we send customers out of here with that warm and fuzzy feeling, and they feel good about everything that happened,” said Bruce. “I’m just convinced that that’s going to replicate itself, and it’s gonna repeat and pay itself forward.”

To Bruce, a successful business only means one thing:

“Our family is growing.”

Edited by Chloe Teachey and Collin Tadlock

By Hannah Kaufman 

Kameron Thomas reached for the next purple grip, his hand calloused and caked in the white powder that has now stained most of his good pants. 

“On belay?”

“Belay is on.”

Easily maneuvering his feet to the left, he stood and pulled the rest of his body up. Climbing a 5.11, which is a harder rock-climbing route, Thomas hurdled the overhang with ease. He wiped his dirty blonde hair out of his face with a grin and looked down at the other climbing staff confidently.

Thomas is a sophomore at UNC-Chapel Hill and a second-year climbing staffer at the campus’ rock walls. Lean and muscular, he’s happiest when using his hands. He sews sweaters for his girlfriend, he sculpts ceramics in art class and sometimes, he even flies planes, having earned his pilot’s license at age 17.

And last year, Thomas was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

A growing solution

The headaches began junior year of high school. Thomas went to 10 different doctors, each one telling him he was crazy in the same way a cheating spouse reassures a panicked partner: repeatedly, nonchalantly and with confidence.

Then, one doctor noticed something unusual after looking closely at his eyes: a malignant tumor on his pituitary gland. 

The tumor is the source of Thomas’ headaches, as well as heightened hormone levels that affect his mood and cause kidney stones. But for now, it’s too small to be taken out immediately.

 So, Thomas is waiting for it to grow. 

He goes through scans every six months, but as the tumor grows larger, the time between Thomas’ appointments will get shorter.

The day he found out about his tumor, Thomas felt glad. At least then he could define the problem, as his strategic, rock-climbing mind prefers clear-cut problems and solutions. 

“I thought it was a little funny,” he admitted. “I went through all this s— in my life, I keep on trudging through s—, and then ‘Oh, maybe I’ll get a break.’ Nah, you have a brain tumor now.”

Although frustrated with the hormonal impacts of the tumor, Thomas is not worried about its presence. His biggest fear is that it’s pushing against his eyes, which could cause him to lose his eyesight — and then his ability to fly.

His first experience on a plane was at 5 years old. Thomas was on a flight from Colorado to North Carolina by himself, so the staff let him walk around, racing through the aisles and meeting bemused passengers. Eventually, the pilots told him he could sit in the cockpit while they flew the plane.

Thomas watched, his eyes wide as he took in the stretching sky and array of flashing knobs and buttons. Perched in the pilot’s seat like an anxious baby bird, he fell in love with the feeling of freedom that being in the cockpit gave him. 

It was a relief that he had yet find anywhere else, including his home.

The path to a ‘sense of self’

Thomas’ parents were never married. His father lived in North Carolina and was often in and out of jail for drugs or violence, so Thomas and his brother lived with their mother in Colorado. He has seven other siblings, but he has never met most of them.

Growing up, his mother was always drunk and regularly did meth, heroin and crack. They moved around a lot, causing Thomas to miss kindergarten. By the time he was six, his mother had been reported to social services multiple times as teachers noticed bruises on his face, and after slamming her high heel into his brother’s head, the two boys were put into foster care.

In each of the six foster homes the two lived in, they were subjected to varying degrees of neglect. When a foster family was especially bad, Thomas’ brother would run away, and they’d be sent somewhere new.

 At 9 years old, Thomas was adopted by his father’s parents and went to live with them in Leasburg, North Carolina. His grandparents owned a logging company and had the means to support almost any hobby Thomas was interested in, such as glassblowing, metalworking, wood chopping and furniture building. 

But soon, real friends trickled in through his sturdy walls. He attended a local high school for two years before transferring to boarding school at the highly competitive North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics.

Although it took a while for most students to get to know him in high school, people were drawn to his strong sense of self, his friend Lauren Subramanium said.

“It was funny because when I saw him around campus, he always wore these cowboy boots,” Subramanium said. “I thought of him as ‘cowboy boots guy.’”

Something as cool as luck

Now, Thomas has a couple of close friends, but prefers to operate alone. Strangers find him reserved, while friends find comfort in his kind blue eyes and easy laugh. Yet, most of them couldn’t tell you more than a few basic things about him.

He’s traded his cowboy boots for a pair of Blundstones. He wears brown wide-legged pants, a cropped sleeveless shirt and has chipped matte green polish on his fingernails (he plans to repaint them soon). Thomas works at the climbing wall a few times a week, studies art and computer science and regularly bakes cookies with his girlfriend.

The raging headaches haven’t stopped. He still doesn’t tell friends about his tumor or his childhood because, honestly, people never know how to react to that sort of thing. And he finds himself wishing he had reached out to his mother before she committed suicide last year.

He still doesn’t know if she had a funeral. 

Sometimes when the hubbub of school and distractions goes away, he feels sad and angry. Thomas doesn’t feel unlucky — he wishes it was something as cool as luck. He thinks that bad things just happen.

“I don’t think my life is very interesting,” Thomas said.

“Sure, I don’t have parents, but other people don’t have parents, too,” he said. “I have cancer, but other people have cancer, too. So what? I think the only interesting thing is that I know how to do things.” 

Thomas sets his jaw and looks up at the asymmetric pattern of blue grips above him. He’s attempting a 5.12 at the rock wall. 

Smiling once he’s found the perfect route to take, Thomas puts his hand on the wall, like he’s done a million times.

“Climbing?” 

“Climb on.”

Edited by Kaitlyn Schmidt and Clay Morris

By Anna Neil

While Jade Earnhardt did own items essential to a university student’s wardrobe, such as a school spirit shirt and basketball jersey, she made just as much use of a floor length, bubblegum pink dress during her time as a UNC-Chapel Hill student.

This easily distinguishable frock – with sheer pink sleeves, an off-the-shoulder neckline and a crown adorned with blue jewels – belonged to Princess Aurora, a character Earnhardt grew to know during her time in the Disney College Program.

Earnhardt, a UNC-CH alumna who graduated in spring 2022, spent two semesters in Orlando, Florida working at Walt Disney World Resort.

The Disney College Program allows students to work full time at Disney World, typically in a restaurant or gift shop. However, Earnhardt dreamed of landing a role as a face character since her eighth grade trip to the parks.

“I was just watching the little girls looking at princesses and just the gleam in their eyes, and I was like, ‘I want to do that.’ And my mom was like, ‘Yeah, that would be so fun’. But I was like, ‘No, I literally want to do that,’” Earnhardt said.

Auditioning for her dream job

Earnhardt auditioned to be a face character – a character who does not wear a mask – three times in high school. By the time she entered her final audition the summer before her freshman year of college, the casting directors already knew her name.

Earnhardt did not hear back from the casting directors before school started, instead launching into her career as a UNC-CH student. However, as she sat in Davis Library during an ordinary October day, a ding in her email inbox alerted her that she had been selected to become part of Princess Aurora’s story.

“Does that mean you’re leaving?” Earnhardt’s roommate Nikki Salazar asked.

“I guess it does,” she responded.

Disney Auditions casts face characters based not only on performance, but the auditionee’s height and physique. This selectiveness makes it common for character prospects to go through the casting process and never hear back, Earnhardt said.

Earnhardt’s Disney career begins

With only one semester at UNC-CH under her belt, Earnhardt set out for Disney World to live alone in Florida. She was only 19 years old.

“A lot of people thought I was insane for leaving my freshman year,” Earnhardt said. “Because basically, if you want to study abroad or anything, you do that your sophomore year, never your freshman year.”

Just as Earnhardt had waited years to be cast, guests at the parks had waited just as long to meet the beloved Princess Aurora. On her first day, a 5-year-old girl in a matching pink dress offered her blanket to the princess as a gift.

“I was doing the twirl, and I was just looking around. And this little girl comes up from the back and just rams into me,” Earnhardt said. “She’s like, ‘Princess Aurora! You’re my favorite princess. I’ve waited 6 years and I’m 5 years old.’”

A range of student opportunities

Tucker Watson, a UNC-CH junior majoring in sports administration, completed the Disney College Program during the second semester of his sophomore year. Unlike Earnhardt, he attended to learn about the Walt Disney Company as a business, hoping to one day own a company himself.

Watson spent his semester selling lightsabers and droids at Galaxy’s Edge, a Star Wars-themed gift shop in Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Although Watson was focused on the inner workings of the business, he found opportunities to immerse himself in the magic.

“We had a whole day of training that was just based off of coming up from our stories of living on the land and stuff like that,” Watson said. “And so that was really, really cool getting to kind of immerse yourself into Star Wars and kind of become a character.”

Watson attended the Disney College Program alongside UNC-CH junior Taryn Knudsen, a nursing major and friend of Earnhardt’s. Knudsen appreciated the diverse environment at the parks, as it was different from the small town she grew up in.

“Within Disney World, you have so much diversity and you’re gonna come into contact with every different kind of person that there possibly is,” Knudsen said. “And so, I think learning about different cultures and perspectives while we were there was really important for me.”

Knudsen worked at Amorette’s Patisserie in Disney Springs, where she made crepes and educated customers on their pastry offerings. In her free time, she enjoyed riding Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and meeting Cinderella, another princess Earnhardt grew to know.

Logistics behind the Disney magic

Earnhardt refers to herself as a friend to Princess Aurora and Cinderella, terminology that Disney employees use to separate themselves from the characters and avoid suggesting that someone is simply dressing up. These meticulous efforts protect the magic.

Earnhardt’s process to put on her dress and accessories and make it to her set location took a total of one hour. With this fast turnaround, she would often put on her foundation makeup before coming to work.

Outside of twirling across Disney’s Magic Kingdom to greet guests, Earnhardt took several academic courses while in the program. One of these classes was about marketing, connecting directly to her advertising and public relations major at UNC-CH.

Bidding farewell to Princess Aurora

After her semester in the Disney College Program, Earnhardt was hired to work seasonally and stayed in Florida for the remainder of 2019. When she came home on Dec. 24, she expected to see Disney World again in the spring. Instead, she and approximately 28,000 others were laid off due to the pandemic.

“I feel like I didn’t really appreciate my last shift, you know,” Earnhardt said. “I was like, ‘Oh, last shift and then my flight is tomorrow,’ you know. I was just kind of going through the motions just because I was just so used to it.”

By 2020, Earnhardt was back at UNC-CH, wearing school spirit shirts and her basketball jersey. Since graduating, she has traded this wardrobe for a blazer, working as an account strategist at a Colorado marketing agency. And while she no longer sees Princess Aurora every day, Earnhardt will always remember walking with her “once upon a dream.”

Edited by: Mackenzie Frank and Jane Durden

By Guillermo Molero

Sometimes they’re blue. Other times they’re green — a little corduroy number stretching from head to toe. Or maybe burnt orange or bright yellow, like leaves falling from trees.

Whatever color they are, Megan Murphy always wears overalls. 

For the co-president of Campus Y, a student-run advocacy group at UNC-Chapel Hill, they’re more than just a fashion choice. Overalls have long been a symbol of her willingness to take charge and do what she must to get things done. 

The Nashville native was always involved in something.

Murphy’s road to activism

When she was a young girl, her mother, a local chaplain, founded an initiative to help women who had been the victims of violence and trafficking. 

These women were all around Murphy during her childhood. They were her babysitters. They watched her and her friends build makeshift towns out of old cardboard boxes and other junk in her yard.

They were farmhands, by her side as she tilled the soil in her overalls. They were at Thanksgiving, passing mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce along a crowded table. 

They were family and Murphy did everything she could to help them.

“I was 8 years old with a very complex understanding of injustice, inequality and systemic reasons why people would end up in the situations that they were in,” Murphy said.

“And it made me really fiercely angry, honestly.”

That fire kept burning all throughout high school, even if she wasn’t the liveliest kid when she first started there. She was an aspiring ballerina, whose most distinguishable trait was her good posture — that is, to those who didn’t know her better. 

“I wouldn’t say she was shy,” said Spindel, a friend that Murphy met in seventh grade.

“This is still Megan Murphy we’re talking about.”

Spindel, who prefers to be referred to by their last name, talked about how Murphy eventually garnered a reputation for activism, even if she was quieter than most. 

A baby radical in a sea of plaid-skirt conservatives, Murphy found herself blacklisted by the “cool girls.” They often made group chats to make fun of Murphy’s more “liberal” beliefs. 

They added insult to injury by including her friends in these toxic text groups. 

After being cast aside because of her body type at an audition, Murphy permanently stepped away from ballet. It was difficult for her, she said. 

But the dance she once thought so beautiful and graceful had become repetitive and repressive. 

Murphy’s pointe shoes felt like shackles; her tights were suffocating. She needed to break free. 

And through her activism, she did.

The 2016 election came around the same time as that audition. Spindel talked about how the moment marked a turning point for Murphy. It was almost an enlightenment.

Murphy had become fed up with the toxic rhetoric of that election’s eventual winner. She was shocked by the apathy displayed in those supporting him and how they treated disadvantaged communities. 

She couldn’t just stand by as the world around her became nastier. Murphy had to do something. She had to help them. 

She had to make a change — and she had to do it right then and there. 

“The thing that’s unique about her is that it’s not about her at all,” Spindel said. 

“It’s not about Megan Murphy.”

 And it wasn’t.

It was about those battered women she had helped as a child and who she still works with today. Murphy is committed to helping them move on from their painful pasts and start a new life that is filled with love. 

It was about the victims of gun violence. She helped rally 300 classmates to walk out of school during the March for Our Lives.

It was about people in Nashville struggling with homelessness, whom she went to bat for at all those Town Council meetings. She sought to help them cope with the onset of gentrification in their neighborhoods.

“And that was what I lived and breathed,” Murphy said.

“It was everything to me.”

From Nashville to Chapel Hill

Murphy eventually applied to UNC because of the Campus Y, which she saw as the perfect place to continue serving her community. 

But this time, she’d have more help doing it — help from people like Laura Saavedra Forero, who joined the group last year. 

At the same time, Murphy was in charge of recruitment for the group. Both Murphy and Saavedra Forero ran into each other often at meetings for first-years and other new members. 

Not long after, they started hanging out outside the confines of the Y and quickly became close friends.

November of 2021 saw another turning point for Murphy, this time while sitting in her home alongside Saavedra Forero. 

The two of them were eating tomato soup and grilled cheese. Murphy slightly burnt hers, but it still tasted good. 

They talked about what their experiences had been like at the Y, all of the great work they’d done so far and what they wanted to do in the future. 

Murphy shared her thoughts, good and bad, with her legs stretched out on the floor where they sat. Then Saavedra Forero. Then back again to Murphy. 

Eventually, Murphy and Saavedra Forero decided they could do more than they were doing at the time. So they both ran for the group’s co-presidency. In the spring of 2022, they won. Then it was back to work. 

Only just getting started

Saavedra Forero said the start to this year has been a dream due to the word that she, Murphy and their executive team have been able to accomplish.

They have supported their campus community and helped those seeking affordable housing in Chapel Hill.

But she also said that it’s Murphy’s kindness and her effervescent energy that has made the job all the more fulfilling. 

“She’s stepped in and showed up, especially during some of the hardest times that I’ve had, both as a friend and as co-president,” Saavedra Forero said.

When Saavedra Forero went through major surgery this summer, Murphy was always the first one to ask how she was doing and tell her she loved her.

And when her friend Sam Toenjes needed a roommate this semester, Murphy was there, too. 

He met Megan at first-year student orientation in 2019, and the two have been good friends ever since. 

Murphy’s current achievements would probably surprise many of her high school friends, but Toenjes said he knew immediately that Murphy had a knack for that sort of thing.

“I mean, the overalls at orientation were a pretty dead giveaway,” Toenjes said. 

He said living with her has been simple. Murphy always knows when to step in, whether to do chores around the house when Toenjes is studying or to ask if he wants to get coffee when he’s having a bad day.

“She’s so intuitively helpful. She can always sense when something’s off,” Toenjes said. 

“She has a sixth sense for these things.”

Murphy deeply knows what it means to help other people and is more than willing to put her ego aside to do it. She always has.

Edited by Caleb Sigmon and Brooke Dougherty

 

By Abigail Keller

Throughout campus, Sarah Ferguson zooms along the uneven sidewalks. Often attached to an electric scooter, her wheelchair pivots and twists to narrowly avoid absent bricks sticking out like chasms. 

Ornamented with a “Finding Nemo” keychain and a plethora of personalized embroidered art, her blur is impossible to miss as flaming red locks blaze behind her. 

Most Saturdays, Sarah’s long ginger mane is tied and tucked into a shako carrying the university’s emblem and a plume of vibrant blue feathers. For members of the Marching Tar Heels, the shako is a symbol of pride and community atop their heads.

For Sarah, it represents a journey of hurt, music, and finding belonging. 

It began in the fourth grade. Sarah can remember hearing brash notes fill the house as her brother soulfully played the saxophone. From the first time her hands gripped the hand-me-down brass instrument, she knew there was no going back. 

Sarah attended Burns High School in the lush countryside of Lawndale, North Carolina. After watching the local professional drum corps, Carolina Crown, perform at Gardner Webb University every year, the decision to join her high school marching band was obvious. 

Towards the end of her junior year, she left Burns High School to study at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics – an academic journey that was cut short.

A life changing experience

Midway through NCSSM’s first trimester, Sarah suffered a traumatic brain injury that led to the development of epilepsy and the declining function of her autonomic nervous system. 

Her life spiraled into a cyclone of doctor visit after doctor visit. 

It wasn’t until a geneticist diagnosed her with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, an inherited disorder affecting the connective tissues, that her questions were answered. 

Immediately after her stroke, Sarah was hemiplegic – unable to move the entire left side of her body. Eventually, her upper body regained mobility, but the lower extremities never did due to a tethered spinal cord.

Sarah’s newly diagnosed condition made her significantly more aware of her overly flexible joints and fragile arteries, but she played on. 

With the love and support of her mother, who Sarah compares to a protective pit bull, she returned to Burns High School for yet another fresh start. 

“A lot of things change when you become chronically ill and disabled, you lose a lot of friends and learn who’s real,” Sarah said. “My mom has always been one of my biggest advocates.”

Up until her senior year of high school, Sarah methodically marched across the field as her fingers danced up and down her conical bore of an instrument. During her last season with “The Marching Dawgs,” she was a part of the marching band’s front ensemble, flying from the keys of marimbas, xylophones, and vibraphones.

Every Friday night, she got high off the roar of the crowd and the glaring lights illuminating her smiling face after every half-time show.

But just four months after her senior marching season concluded, a worldwide pandemic upended the life that she knew. 

It was just one of those moments.

Everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing as the world rapidly began to shut down.

Students thought they were getting an extra break in the school year, but that quickly transformed into clicking on a Zoom invite for class and waving to their friends from their bedroom window. 

For Sarah, 2020 ushered in many major life events.

It brought her high school graduation day and the beginning of her time at UNC-Chapel Hill.

It also brought a stroke and adjusting to life as a paraplegic.  

Already home due to the pandemic, Sarah continued her virtual studies and returned to campus as a sophomore last year. 

However, she was fixated on one question.

Was there a place for her in the marching band?

“I was really nervous to ask about joining the marching band,” Sarah said. “But my roommate kept bugging me and bugging me, claiming that I can’t stop talking about it, so I decided to send an email.”

This email leaped through cyberspace and landed in the inbox of Jeffrey Fuchs, director of UNC-CH’s university bands. 

Before she knew it, Sarah was sitting in his Hill Hall office and discussing all the details of her becoming a Marching Tar Heel for well over an hour. 

There was no hesitation on either side, it was an immediate yes. 

“Music’s been a source of opportunities and a place where I feel like I belong to people,” Fuchs said. “That’s what I try to do here … it’s about the music, but more importantly, it’s about the experiences band members have that they couldn’t have otherwise.”

Not only was Sarah going to look the part, donning the esteemed Carolina blue jacket of a Marching Tar Heel, but she was also going to be back on the field, getting the full experience.

Finding her legs

The first step? 

Finding someone to march on the field with her.

During that year’s end-of-season banquet, Fuchs casually mentioned that Sarah would be joining the Marching Tar Heels in August. He knew that someone with music and marching experience would be the preferable choice to assist her.

At that moment, Annie Flanagan, a junior trombone player, knew that role was for her. 

Since Annie has arthritis in her jaw, playing her instrument throughout the day and at nightly marching practices often led to immeasurable pain. 

Already a human development major and accessibility advocate, it was as if this position was kismet. 

Sarah often refers to Annie as her “legs” since she treks across the 100-yard stage pushing her wheelchair during practices and performances. 

Even though they are two separate beings, they move as one.

If Annie gets lost or confused on the field, Sarah’s hand gingerly tilts her wheel to guide her in the right direction. 

Like a flower during the cusp of spring, their bond has blossomed into a relationship scarily close to telepathy. 

But Annie is no hero.

“My belief is that things should just be inherently accessible,” Annie said. “I’m not doing some amazing service. I’m just playing my part in what I can do to help make this experience more equitable.”

For many, music is a melting pot for individuals from all walks of life to dive into and revel in. 

And for Sarah, the excitement of being back on the field enveloped by music was incomparable.

An old and new life interwoven.

“It was a feeling I thought I was never going to have again,” Sarah said.

 

Edited by Eric Weir and Monique Williams

By Harrison Clark

Charlie Schuls finally laid down in bed, physically and mentally drained. His legs felt like jelly and he stressed about what he was missing back on campus. 

The Villanova University men’s tennis team had completed a taxing doubleheader in Annapolis, Maryland. The squad took on the Navy in the early session and finished the day playing Morgan State University. Schuls competed in three matches in one day: two in singles and one in doubles.  

At night, Schuls thoughts left him tossing and turning. He was not motivated, had no energy and the wear on his body was taking a toll. Behind in classes, he missed being home and craved balance.

Schuls commitment to tennis was getting in the way and it was sucking the life out of him.

A cherished memory

Pushed by his tennis-loving father Erik Schuls, Schuls had a racket in his hand since he was six years old. After starting on a smaller Quick Start net at Gaston Country Club, he graduated to hitting over the real net, something he had long been waiting for. In celebration, his mom, Emily Schuls, made his favorite pesto pasta. 

Schuls won his first state championship at 10 years old and dominated state rankings growing up, representing Forestview High School and competing in club matches. 

While Schuls relished the competition, the joy he found playing with his friends is what he cherished the most; none more so than with his close friend Dillon Gooch. The two played club doubles together for over seven years, learning each other’s strengths and weaknesses like the back of their own hand. 

Before heading off to college, Schuls and Gooch made sure to enjoy their last match together at Cary Tennis Park. Underneath their warmup jackets and sweatpants, they matched navy-blue tank tops with the phrase, “Weights Before Dates,” in white block lettering coupled with $4 gold chains from Walmart. Schuls wore a dull orange headband in stark contrast to his bleached hair. The lower half of his outfit featured skin-tight black shorts, rainbow socks and neon blue Adidas tennis shoes. 

They won the title and celebrated by throwing on a new neon green tank top that read “BEAST” across the chest. 

“It was such a funny but awesome moment,” Schuls said. “We honestly stole all the momentum because the other doubles team could not believe what we were wearing.” 

Later on, Schuls waited patiently for one of the four courts to finish before getting his match against Xavier University underway.

By the time Schuls took the court, the scoreboard read 3-3. In the race to four points, Schuls’ match would decide the winner.

After losing set one of the best-of-three in a tiebreaker and going down 5-3 in the second set, a fire lit inside Schuls. He battled back to win the second set and set up a winner-take-all third set.

Schuls was down three match points in the final set and his legs weak from sprinting all over the concrete floor. He aggressively pounded winning shots with no fear, many grazing the baseline and often hitting the corners, with him finally clinching the match in a final set tiebreaker. In a frenzy, the entire team mobbed Schuls on the court, similar to a hitter walking off a baseball game. 

For a moment, it was fun again. It was his moment. 

The burnout begins

For Schuls, the burnout ignited shortly after he stepped foot on Villanova’s campus in the fall of 2018. He immediately had a schedule and routine that he would follow for a full year.

6 a.m. workouts. Class. Practice in the afternoon. Lifting. Late-night labs. Homework. Sleep. 

Repeat.

Schuls’ entire perception of practice changed. Fun practices he remembered in high school turned into tiring, lethargic afternoons; with sweat pouring down each player’s face and no smiles to be seen. 

Zero goofing off.

Burnout for collegiate athletes is extremely common. Many associate it with physical and mental exhaustion; others see it as a lack of motivation. 

While outsiders desire the popularity, financial benefits and talent that comes with being a collegiate athlete, they often overlook the lack of balance in an athlete’s typical college life. The sport becomes an occupation, leaving room for struggles in the classroom and a lack of social life off of the court. 

Most Division-1 athletic teams do not accept athletes who are STEM majors as labs tend to interfere with team activities. Villanova gave Schuls the unique opportunity to help him as the only player to study pre-med on the team.

“My coach worked with the school to get me labs that did not affect my tennis schedule,” Schuls said. “It was one of the main reasons I chose to go to Villanova.”

Schuls tennis requirements meant his nights carried over into the library and chemistry labs. He consistently studied late at night and never felt up to date.

Schuls rescheduled exams midweek in preparation for the weekly matches. It made him further behind. He had no time or chance to be successful, especially in his field.

Finding a balance 

In March, Emily and one of her close friends attended one of the four matches she got to see in person. They both could immediately sense her son’s frustration and lack of motivation.

“This is not the same kid anymore,” the friend said to Emily.

And it was true. His usual bright smile had vanished. 

He had academic goals. He wanted to be social. He wanted balance. Tennis was not fun anymore.

His win against Xavier flashed in his mind. He felt he had already had his big moment, that another one was inconceivable. 

He shared frequent calls with Erik and Emily, yearning for change, upset about constantly missing class and wearing his body down.

At the end of freshman year, the tennis chapter closed and his new life at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill started.

UNC-CH was the only school Schuls applied to out of high school. Hopeful of a medical future and with friends attending, it seemed like the perfect fit, until Villanova offered.

Schuls called his tennis buddy Luke Townsend on the UNC club tennis team, curious about what they had to offer. Townsend gave him the rundown.

Optional practices.

Full social freedom.

Great competition.

The balance Schuls had wanted.

Ready to graduate in December of 2022, Schuls could not be happier. He has represented the club tennis team and played throughout the year in tournaments on his own time. He also joined the Sigma Nu Fraternity, fostering a new group of friends and allowing him to finally have fun again. Now, he’s decided to go pre-dental and has applied to multiple dental schools across the nation. 

“I have all I want here,” Schuls said. “I found the balance I had been searching for all along.”

Edited by Ryan Mills and Macon Porterfield 

 

By Audrey Selley

Three hours before the game. Six miles from the doors to Kenan Memorial Stadium, Otis is swarmed by family and friends in a frenzy to get him polished and prepped for his awaited appearance, first at the UNC Bell Tower for pictures and autographs, then on the field at the stadium.

Every UNC student knows Otis, but they don’t know they do. The 3-year-old, 225-lb hunk of wool could easily pass as any other sheep — except for the handmade, monogrammed blanket wrapped around him and the paint on his horns (which sticks on for months like fingernail polish), both Carolina blue.

As soon as Otis barrels out of the stadium’s tunnel and onto the field, he transforms into Rameses. The booming from the cannon, fans screaming and the band’s fight song are so loud they vibrate the field underneath him, the same field his predecessors have run across for one hundred years.

Rameses’ roots

Behind it all is the Hogan family, with roots in Orange County stronger than Otis’ horns. Henry Hogan began Carolina’s live mascot tradition back in the 1920s as a way to emulate the star quarterback of the UNC Football team, Jack Merritt, who was known as the “battering ram.”

Back then, the Lake Hogan Farm was the name of his dairy farm and not a real estate development. There were more than 50 family farms in the area instead of the handful left today, and store-bought food, not farm-grown food, was a luxury. 

Otis made his debut as Rameses XXII during the 2021 football season, following in the steps of Rameses XXI, who spent a decade on the throne.  

Out of earshot from the Bell Tower and away from the hustle and bustle of UNC’s campus, Otis enjoys his tranquil reprieve at Hogan’s Magnolia View Farm in Carrboro, where the sounds of cicadas and wind provide a welcome solace from the 50,000 screaming people and stadium fireworks.

Until it was sold in the mid-1990s, every Rameses lived on Lake Hogan Farm along with a hodgepodge of cows, horses, pigs, chickens and dogs. Hogan’s Magnolia View Farm was initially where the Hogans grew food for the animals at Lake Hogan Farm, but now it’s where the few remaining farm animals, including Otis, live.

Chris Hogan, Henry’s grandson and one of the fourth-generation caretakers of Rameses, grew up on Lake Hogan Farm. Chris remembers loading up Rameses in a pick-up truck on every Saturday home game and driving to the stadium, holding him steady in the back alongside Chris’ cousins and siblings.

“It’s always fun when we take him slowly through Carrboro and then down Main Street and Franklin Street with all the blowing horns, and everybody’s just hooting and hollering and having a good time,” Chris said.

Times were less strict then. Anyone who managed to place a hand on Rameses while he ran through the tunnel was allowed to stay with him on the field, and now only four people are allowed.

To the Hogan family, it’s a family tradition more than a UNC tradition. To this day, flocks of family and friends gather at the farm hours before the game. Everyone takes a turn to paint his horns (endearingly now deemed “Hogan Blue” by the local hardware store).

At the Bell Tower, a line quickly forms where little kids jump up and down waiting for their turn to touch Otis and get a picture like he’s Santa Claus.

“I don’t care if you’re two or 92, the first thing you do when you see him is smile,” Chris said.

Straying from the pack

Instead of hailing from the farm lineage like previous Rameses, Otis is from a breeder in Virginia. He’s one of the few horned dorset sheep left in the U.S., because more and more wool breeders remove the sheep’s horns.  

While fans are used to the golden-retriever-like friendliness of Otis, past mascots haven’t all been as fluffy and warm as their wool. Horned dorset sheep are known to be an aggressive breed.

Hugging and petting Rameses and getting photographs with him wasn’t even a thing for earlier mascots. Some who were so belligerent they had to be chained up during games.

The key to Otis’ congenial, easygoing nature? He grew up without other male dorset sheep around. This was intentional, because male dorsets can be competitive and aggressive with each other.

“While they are domesticated, they’re not pets. Otis has done wonderful, but he knows exactly what those horns are for. It doesn’t take but a flick of his head to hurt somebody,” Chris said.

Anytime he’s invited to alumni events, fraternity houses or parties, his appearance unleashes an electric energy in the room, as kids, students, and alumni of all ages become one, brought together by an unspoken connection to Otis.

The tension in traditions 

But being in the spotlight also draws some unwanted attention. 

As kids, Chris and his cousins would sleep in the barn before rival home games, hide themselves in the hay and keep quiet. They propped their BB guns up on the hay barrels for a good aim if they caught any potential ram-nappers.

One time, a group of Duke fraternity brothers successfully stole Rameses and spray-painted ‘Duke’ on his wool before a football game (thankfully the blanket covered it up).

Another time, some students from an out-of-state school tried to sneak up on Rameses in broad daylight. But Chris, laughing, said he snuck up on them first.

“It was all in good spirit. And that’s what all this is about and why we do it, just team spirit and having fun,” Chris said. “It’s just always a wholesome event, where people of all ages can touch and hug him and get pictures with him.”

Continuing the Rameses tradition is also a way for the Hogan family to expose an increasingly urbanized and developed Orange County to the small part of family farming that remains.

“There’s a real disconnect with the agriculture community and the urban community, and that’s all part of what this is about too, keeping that connection,” Chris said. “It’s really very important. My family is a perfect example of it. I mean, there’s nobody that’s going to go back into farming. It’s just not feasible financially to do it.”

Since it began, the Rameses tradition has stayed constant for the Hogan family — a reminder that some things never change, and you always have your home to fall back on.

Like the paint on Otis’ horns, some things just stay the same.

Edited by Emily Gajda and Annie Gibson

 

By Guillermo Molero

Sometimes they’re blue. Other times they’re green, a little corduroy number stretching from head to toe. Or maybe burnt orange or bright yellow, like leaves falling from trees.

Whatever color they are, Megan Murphy always wears overalls.

For the co-president of the Campus Y, a student-run advocacy group at UNC, they’re more than just a fashion choice. They’ve long been a symbol of her willingness to take charge and do what she must to get things done.

The Nashville native was always involved in something.

When she was a young girl, her mother founded an initiative to help women who had been the victims of violence and trafficking.

These women were all around Murphy during her childhood. They were her babysitters, watching her and her friends build makeshift towns out of old cardboard boxes and other junk in her yard. They were farmhands, right alongside her and her overalls as they tilled the soil. They were at Thanksgiving, passing mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce along a crowded table.

They were family. And she did everything she could to help them.

“I was 8 years old with a very complex understanding of injustice, inequality and systemic reasons why people would end up in the situations that they were in,” Murphy said. “And it made me really fiercely angry, honestly.”

Murphy the ballerina

That fire kept burning all throughout high school, even if she wasn’t the liveliest kid when she first started there. She was an aspiring ballerina whose most distinguishable trait was her good posture — that is, to those who didn’t know her better.

“I wouldn’t say she was shy,” said Spindel, a friend she met in seventh grade. “This is still Megan Murphy we’re talking about.”

Spindel, who prefers to be referred to by their last name, talked about how she eventually garnered a reputation for activism, even if she was quieter than most. A baby radical in a sea of plaid-skirt conservatives, Murphy found herself blacklisted by the “cool girls.” They often made group chats to make fun of her more “liberal” beliefs, adding insult to injury by including her friends in these toxic text chains.

After an audition where she was cast aside because of her body type, she stepped away from ballet for good. It was difficult for her, she said. But the dance she once thought so beautiful and graceful had become repetitive and repressive. Her pointe shoes were like shackles. Her tights, suffocating. She needed to break free.

And through her activism, she did.

Murphy the activist

The 2016 election came around the same time as that audition. Spindel talked about how the moment marked a turning point for her — an enlightenment, almost.

She had become fed up with the toxic rhetoric of Donald Trump, the race’s eventual winner. 

She was shocked by the apathy with which she thought he and those supporting him treated people from disadvantaged communities. 

She just couldn’t just stand idly by as the world around her became nastier. She had to do something. She had to help them. She had to make change — and she had to do it right then and there.

“The thing that’s unique about her is that it’s not about her at all,” Spindel said. “It’s not about Megan Murphy.”

And it wasn’t.

It was about those women she had been helping as a child and still works with today, helping them move on from their painful pasts and start a new life filled with love.

It was about the victims of gun violence for whom she and the 300 classmates walked out of school for the March for Our Lives protest.

It was about people in Nashville struggling with homelessness, who she went to bat for at more Town Council meetings than she cared to admit, and who she helped cope with the onset of gentrification in their neighborhoods.

“And that was what I lived and breathed,” Murphy said. “It was everything to me.”

Murphy the leader

She eventually applied to UNC because of the Campus Y, which she saw as the perfect place to continue serving her community. But this time, she’d have more help doing it — help from people like Laura Saavedra Forero, who joined the group last year.

Murphy was in charge of recruitment for the group at the time, so the two often ran into each other at meetings for first-years and other new members. Not long after, they started hanging out outside of the confines of the Y, quickly becoming close friends.

November 2021 was another turning point for Murphy, this time sitting in her home alongside Saavedra Forero. The two were eating tomato soup and grilled cheese. Murphy slightly burnt hers, but it still tasted good.

They talked about their experiences at the Y — the great work they’d done so far and what they wanted to do in the future. Murphy shared her thoughts, both good and bad, with her legs stretched out on the floor where they sat. Then Saavedra Forero. Then back again.

Eventually, they decided they could do more than they were doing at the time. They both ran for the group’s co-presidency. In the spring they won. And then, it was back to work.

Saavedra Forero said the start to this year has been a dream, largely because of how much work she, Murphy and their executive team have been able to do by supporting their campus community and helping those seeking affordable housing in Chapel Hill. 

But she also said that it’s Murphy’s kindness and her effervescent energy that has made the job all the more fulfilling.

“She’s stepped in and showed up, especially during some of the hardest times that I’ve had, both as a friend and as co-president,” she said.

When Saavedra Forero went through major surgery this summer, Murphy was always the first one to ask how she was doing and to tell her she loved her.

And when her friend Sam Toenjes needed a roommate this semester, Murphy was there, too.

He met Murphy at freshman orientation in 2019 and the pair have been good friends ever since. Murphy’s current achievements would probably surprise many of her high school friends, but Toenjes said he knew at first sight that Murphy had a knack for that sort of thing.

 “I mean, the overalls at orientation were a pretty dead giveaway,” he said.

He said living with her has been so simple because she always knows when to step in, whether it’s to do chores around the house when he’s studying or asking if he wants to go get coffee when she can tell he’s having a bad day.

“She’s so intuitively helpful. She can always sense when something’s off,” he said. “She has a sixth sense for these things.”

She knows so well what it means to help other people, and is more than willing to put her ego aside to do it. She always has.

Edited by Madison Ward and Brianna Atkinson.

By Lauren Fichten

When Nisarg Shah and his friends took a month-long boys’ trip to Iceland over the summer, they spent their days exploring, eating and embracing the culture—the holy trinity of tourism.

However, the trip wasn’t all hiking and bar hopping. They came to Iceland on a mission: to expose an entire country to a new sport in the hopes that it will eventually qualify for Olympic consideration.

The sport is pickleball, and it’s only “new” to Icelanders because the sport is not commonly played there. Once a retirement community favorite, pickleball is now the fastest-growing sport in America— especially among players under 24.

“Literally anybody can play. It’s super easy to pick up, and there’s now a push to make pickleball an Olympic sport,” Shah said.

In order for pickleball, a combination of tennis, badminton and pingpong, to qualify for Olympic recognition, the sport must meet a set of criteria established by the International Olympic Committee. For one, the sport must be widely practiced by men in at least 75 countries across four continents and also by women in 40 countries across three continents. This goal has not yet been reached.

The Traveling Picklers

Shah, along with Harrison Lewis, Kobe Roseman and Bobby McQueen, set out on a quest to spread the good word of pickleball. The disciples of the sport dubbed themselves “The Traveling Picklers.” 

The Picklers are a product of Morehead-Cain, a competitive merit scholarship program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The group met during the interview process before the start of their first year and remained friends throughout their time at UNC-CH. They were able to secure funding for their pickleball pursuit through the scholarship’s Summer Enrichment Program.

Aside from hosting spontaneous clinics, The Picklers engaged in extensive outreach prior to the trip with the goal of connecting with Iceland-based tennis organizations, IOC members and people from towns along the Icelandic Ring Road. Establishing their presence before entering the country seemed the best course of action but garnering responses proved difficult.

“You get an email from a random kid in a random other country saying a random sport name that you’ve never heard of in your life. That’s an email that a lot of people might just delete and move on,” explained Roseman, a recent graduate of UNC-CH.

Despite the lack of replies, The Picklers moved forward undeterred, becoming more comfortable in an unfamiliar town and setting up camp in the hopes that people’s interests would be piqued.

They hoped word would spread quickly, and according to Roseman, that’s exactly what happened.

Typically, after pitching their nets in a local park, The Picklers began to play in hopes of attracting curious spectators. The group hit the ball back and forth over the net. Guided by small paddles, the plastic balls caught air – and the attention of park-goers.

In one instance, a crowd ranging from pre-teens to adults in their twenties slowly started to abandon whatever they had been playing to gather around The Traveling Picklers, enthralled by the new sport.

Shah estimated that around twenty strangers played for about two hours that day. For him, it felt like a scene out of a movie.

“You’re in a foreign country; you have no idea what you’re doing. You don’t know the local language at all, but somehow, there’s this connection of just inherently everyone is attracted to [the] sport,” Shah said.

Though The Traveling Picklers seemed to have a mammoth objective, it wasn’t entirely unfeasible due, in part, to Iceland’s size. Raleigh’s population alone is larger than that of the entire nation of Iceland. Reykjavik, Iceland, where the group spent most of their time, is home to around a third of the population— a little over 100,000 people.

Playing pickleball and gallivanting across Iceland sounds deceivingly effortless but their crusade was not immune to struggle.

While some of their challenges could have been foreseen– like the fact that the weather in Iceland is generally not conducive to pickleball— other mishaps were less predictable.

Trials along the road

The Picklers arrived in Reykjavik in June, fresh off the red-eye flight from Raleigh. Lugging two thirty-pound nets, around 50 paddles and their luggage into a taxi, they set off to the address of their Airbnb. 

Except they didn’t. Their driver had dropped them off at the wrong location, confused by the spelling of a street name.

After realizing they were in the wrong place— what appeared to be some sort of construction site— they chased the driver down and were met with reassurance that the Airbnb was around the corner. The apartment was not around the corner and neither was their taxi as it drove out of sight.

Unable to hail a cab, there was only one solution.

“We mapped it, and it was like a 1.5-mile walk. And we’re like ‘Alright, we’re just going to kind of have to deal with this,’” Shah said.

With over 60 pounds of equipment in tow, the group accidentally saw all of downtown Reykjavik over the course of an hour and a half. In true Traveling Pickler fashion, they made the best of the situation, absorbing a city exploding with color, bursting with the smell of seafood restaurants and populated by lively tourists, conveniently ignoring the baggage weighing them down.

Occasional hardship, like getting a flat tire on the Icelandic Ring Road, had established itself as an inherent aspect of the trip, and it was best to embrace it.

Aside from the casual goal of introducing an entire nation to an unfamiliar sport, they made time to appreciate Iceland’s culture and acclaimed scenery. 

“I had no idea how many waterfalls we would see, and it’s really just, nature wise, a beautiful place,” Lewis said.

Beyond Iceland

As The Picklers neared the end of their trip, one of its most unexpected moments arrived in the form of an Instagram direct message. 

Ruth Ellis, a retired family doctor living in Washington, D.C., became an avid pickleball player after picking up the sport four years ago. Born in Iceland, Ellis visits the country every few years.

Noting a lack of pickleball opportunities in Iceland, she reached out to The Traveling Picklers after reading a blogpost written by Shah on The Dink, a pickleball platform. 

Upon expressing interest in carrying on the clinics and further exposing the sport, she hopped on Zoom with The Picklers to discuss the details— like obtaining the equipment provided by sponsors. Just like that, the torch was passed.

Ellis has three events scheduled in November alongside the USA Pickleball Ambassador for northern Virginia and Washington, D.C. (Yes, that’s a thing.)

Aside from the motivation to introduce pickleball for the love of the sport, Ellis also wants to see pickleball qualify as an Olympic sport in the near future.

Edited By: Chloe Teachey and Collin Tadlock

By Meg Hardesty  

Norwood Pritchett orders the same meal for lunch almost every day while he sits in the same white plastic chair on the outdoor patio of Seaboard Cafe. 

At this point, he doesn’t have to order his old-fashioned chicken salad on whole wheat with Lay’s potato chips and a blueberry lemon muffin. Pritchett is a regular customer at Seaboard Cafe in Raleigh — the staff know his order by heart.

Since 1991, Seaboard Cafe has been located inside Logan’s Garden Shop, a repurposed space in the historic Seaboard Railroad Station. Logan’s sold its property in 2021 with plans to relocate, but without the local cafe.

For many customers, Seaboard Cafe is more than somewhere to eat lunch. It is a gathering place, an adopted family… a second home. As the news broke that Seaboard Cafe would be closing soon, Pritchett and other regulars will lose that sense of community.

A Safe Haven

Pritchett’s wife preceded him as a regular. She ate lunch at Seaboard Cafe multiple times a week for seven years while working for the Wake County Public School System.

He had accompanied her a couple of times before she died in 2007. To honor her memory, Pritchett began to eat lunch frequently at Seaboard Cafe.

“I decided in my mind I was not going to be the kind of person to sit at home and watch television,” Pritchett said. “After losing a loved one, if you turn inward it can be very dangerous.”

Her sacred lunch place became his favorite spot to socialize and get out of the house.

“That was my therapy, to be around other people,” Pritchett said. “While I’m retired and live by myself, it helps quite a lot.”

Seaboard Cafe became Pritchett’s second family, the staff always greeting him by name. Every year on his birthday, the cafe staff celebrates with a song and cupcakes. With the cafe closing soon, Pritchett is sad to abandon his happy place.

“Go crazy and go starve to death is what I’ll do,” Pritchett said. “That’s what our concern is, that we’re all going to starve. I really just might.”

Another regular, Candy Lewis, remembered how she and her mother, Polly Horton, once shopped for flowers at Logan’s in the spring. Stopping inside, the two made a ritual of grabbing one of Seaboard’s homemade muffins. 

When Horton was diagnosed with dementia 20 years ago, Seaboard Cafe and its customers became like a big family for them; Lewis called it a home away from home.

“She felt so safe there because everybody was so friendly,” Lewis said. “My mother never forgot that.” 

Over the years, people who have frequented Seaboard Cafe have dropped off family pictures and Christmas cards at the restaurant. The cafe’s founder, Richard “Rick” Perales keeps a bulletin board to house these mementos. 

“Rick still has the picture of my mother’s 88th birthday we had there up on the bulletin board,” Lewis said. “I look up there every time I go in.” 

When Horton died, Lewis found herself in Seaboard Cafe to seek familiarity and a sense of community.

“The thing I like most about it is you feel like you’re sitting on your own home patio,” Lewis said. “You feel like you’re comfortable there.” 

Lewis said she tries to limit herself to a maximum of four days at Seaboard’s a week, but it’s hard to stay away from her place of refuge. 

Dining until close

Seaboard Cafe has a plethora of regulars — if it’s not for the food, maybe it’s something about the lack of air conditioning. 

“For 31 years, there’s been no A/C,” said Michael Evans, another Seaboard Cafe regular. “Ambience, that’s the most important.” 

Surrounded by eclectic knickknacks and original paintings from North Carolina artists, Evans frequents the cafe three to four times a week, always on Saturday. Recently, he reconnected with an old friend over Greek and chicken salads at his favorite lunch spot. 

Evans had not seen his former co-worker, Corliss Wilson, in over two years. Time escaped the pair in the cafe as they talked for hours. 

“He’s gotten to know people who come here daily,” Wilson said about Evans. “I would have never come if not for him.”   

For some regulars like Evans, they are guaranteed to see someone they know every time they step foot in the cafe, spending hours catching up. Oftentimes, Evans and his newfound friends are ushered out of the restaurant’s big greenhouse doors when the staff closes up shop — it’s like they never want to leave.

‘Everybody thinks they’re his favorite customer’

When Perales first opened Seaboard Cafe in 1991 in the historic Seaboard Train Station, he did not anticipate his restaurant’s impact. After recovering from alcoholism and sustaining multiple layoffs, Perales thought he would sell hot dogs from a cart.

“All I wanted to do was look people in the eye and make them feel comfortable,” Perales said.  

Now, he greets the majority of his customers by name. 

“Rick loves people and he makes it evident when you come in the door,” Lewis said. “Everybody thinks they’re his favorite customer.”

Perales built a family by making people feel special. He kept his family by making Seaboard Cafe a home.

The news of Logan’s relocation means that Perales and Seaboard Cafe will not be coming with the garden shop. As of now, the land may be used for up to 20 stories of apartment towers and a parking deck. What was once a historic landmark — and a home away from home for many — will be gone in the property’s future establishment.

“Every day is my favorite day over there,” Lewis said. “It’s going to break my heart. They’re taking away our paradise.”

Edited by Macon Porterfield and Kaitlyn Schmidt