BillLindau

From teen sports stringer to California artist

Shay Alderman was a 15-year-old sophomore at Pinecrest High School when I hired her to help me with sports coverage at the old Citizen News-Record of Aberdeen, N.C.
She didn't know how to write, but she was friendly and brainy and I figured I could at least use her minimal photography skills and show her how to write along the way.
She did the best she could, calling me in advance when she was unable to do any of her assignments.
She went to the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and that was the last I heard of her, except for hearing that her father, Joe Alderman, passed away in 1990 or 1991. She has a kid brother, and as far as I know, her mother Linda still lives in Pinebluff. Shay was born in West Virginia and moved to Moore County sometime during her childhood.
Until this week.
She visited my profile at Classmates.com, after I'd visited hers. Then my curiosity got the better of me when I learned she was living in California, and I searched her.
I found four or five sites with information about her. Two of these sites displayed an individual piece of her artwork.
She has become a prolific artist, living in Oakland, with a studio there. I lost track of her when I couldn't find her name in the UNC listings (the list also had Starr Davis and Steve Gratz, whom I also knew at UNC). Last night I found the list of alumni from the UNC art school. She graduated in 1993 (going a straight four years after high school), with a BFA.
I was so pleased to hear how she made out. I thought the world of that young woman. I am glad she turned out to be such a success. The last couple of months she worked with me, the job was wearing her out. She had not learned to use the terminal and the editor at the time was leaning on me to get her to learn it, rather than turn in her notes from the game and me "transpose" them into a routine game story.
That editor's (what a douche bag!) insistence prompted her to quit. Right after I did.
That is some of the best news I heard yet, about how she has turned out. For awhile I figured she'd gotten married and gotten tied down with her family and everything, but if she has a family, she'd not letting it hamper her career in the arts.
I am so pleased to find out about how she has turned out. That is fabulous news.

Labels: Unpublished newspaper columns about Moore County

posted by Bill Lindau @ 2:49 PM