WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.005
"Why me?" has always been a question.

2
00:00:03.005 --> 00:00:10.208
Campus elections, and I certainly, like I said, I lived off campus and I wasn't really involved with that--.

3
00:00:10.208 --> 00:00:15.512
And student government was just a tiny thing on campus.

4
00:00:15.512 --> 00:00:19.957
It was really seen as, as you know well, as you go through the old Technician,

5
00:00:19.957 --> 00:00:25.477
it was one of those things you wanted on your resume as you went forward into government in North Carolina,

6
00:00:25.477 --> 00:00:31.248
so that's why you see a lot of governors were--[Right, were former presidents.]--student body presidents at different campuses

7
00:00:31.248 --> 00:00:35.126
But that was not me, you know.

8
00:00:35.126 --> 00:00:39.228
I honestly cannot tell you why I got involved.

9
00:00:39.228 --> 00:00:49.043
It was just a period of time when people were like, [Grumbling] "We need a change," [Grumbling], like that, and like [Grumbling] "Why don't you do that?" and I'm like, well, okay.

10
00:00:49.043 --> 00:00:54.825
Yeah. And I had started writing letters

11
00:00:54.825 --> 00:00:59.789
to the Technician about the athletic fee,

12
00:00:59.789 --> 00:01:08.443
which really stirred a pot, and that was really--. I was so shocked at how deeply a pot it stirred.

13
00:01:08.443 --> 00:01:15.895
I'm like, whoa, people really care about this. That was maybe what carried me over.

14
00:01:15.895 --> 00:01:22.172
I was also at that time involved with a man who became my husband, Gene Messick,

15
00:01:22.172 --> 00:01:26.548
who was fighting his own battles with the university, very, very intelligent man,

16
00:01:26.548 --> 00:01:31.488
and he really got it, how things worked, but nonetheless

17
00:01:31.488 --> 00:01:38.166
the universities at the time were so powerful, and they may still be, I don't know because I haven't kept up.

18
00:01:38.166 --> 00:01:48.977
But you weren't going to really win any battles with them as a professor--or he wasn't a full professor but he taught in the school of architecture--

19
00:01:48.977 --> 00:01:53.971
who had been told, we don't want you anymore. You're not going to win it.

20
00:01:53.971 --> 00:02:00.254
But he did everything to appeal it, and I became aware through him,

21
00:02:00.254 --> 00:02:08.655
and he was probably the biggest influence on me in terms of politicizing me to the times,

22
00:02:08.655 --> 00:02:13.286
to the times and the events that were going on, so that kind of combination.

23
00:02:13.286 --> 00:02:17.440
And how, you know, I still--. I have no clue.

24
00:02:17.440 --> 00:02:23.873
I look back, because I've been thinking about that. I don't actually remember but it happened.

25
00:02:23.873 --> 00:02:26.409
Suddenly I was there and then it just moved forward.

26
00:02:26.409 --> 00:02:28.828
It just moved forward on its own.