1. NEW Article: Part 2 of Students and Colleagues Remember Biology Professor Dr. Jean Pugh.

2. Students and Colleagues Remember ... Dr. Jean Pugh, Part 1.

3. Completed Article: Native American and British Place Names ... Part 3, The Shires (Accomac Shire--Virginia's Eastern Shore).

4. NEW Article: Celebrating CNC's Class of 1971, the First Baccalaureate Class, Part 1.

5. NEW Humor: A Bottle of Wine.

6. NEW Cartoons: Honoring Our Moms.

          Dr. Jean Pugh was one of those rare, remarkable people who provide a pivotal presence in the lives of others by simply representing the reach of possibility. Among my favorite memories are the simplest of interactions--botany walks through the CNC neighborhoods, clean-up mornings on her farm lawns, bus trips with the basketball team, even those relentless Friday quizzes--but most of all that smile....many [of us] were enriched by the time we shared with her on this precious green planet.

Brenda Burnette Tagge (CNC alumna)

          Colleague DR. MARY LU ROYALL wrote that as Coach of the first Women's Basketball Team (1968-69), Dr. Pugh "was promised $500 for ... this additional duty, but at the end of the season, Dean Jim Windsor told her there was no money available, so she didn't receive anything for her efforts--except the satisfaction of having helped the team and the College ....The costs of basketball uniforms and other expenses that first year were paid out of Jean Pugh's pocket. The first uniforms were white blouses embroidered on the front with CNC and the players' numbers in blue (photo above). Jean purchased the shirts and paid a little old lady in Gloucester to embroider the letters and numbers. The blue shorts worn by team members were part of their physical education uniform" (Memories of Christopher Newport College: The First Decade, pp. 105-06).

          Alumna TERRY GOODING, who later played for the ODC Lady Monarchs, remembered an unforgettable personal encounter with Dr. Pugh, her first basketball coach and one of her favorite CNC professors: "At that time we were still playing six girls on a team with stationary and rover positions...at basketball practice, she was emphasizing the effectiveness of setting screens--getting in a position to impede a player's movement. I was playing stationary guard at mid court. A teammate passed me the ball and I turned to drive down the court. No one told me Dr. Pugh had set a screen on me, [so] Kapow! I ran full force into her. She stood her ground, but paid the price with a monster black eye that stayed with her for days. We laughed about that years later."

          Before the College had its first bus, the used and sometimes unreliable "Blue Goose," Jean helped provide transportation for both the first Women's Field Hockey team (1967-68), coached by Lil Seats, and the first Women's Basketball team--driving players to and from games in her own car. If a player was injured during a game (photo above), it was often Jean also who performed first aid on her. (colleague A. Jane Chambers)

          Biology colleague and Jean's close friend HAROLD CONES sent this amusing memory: "In 1968 or 1969 there was a faculty talent show. Tiny Tim was the person of interest at the time, so we decided to work him into the talent show. Picture this: Dark Gym. Spotlight. Into the spotlight I stepped. I moved slowly across the floor, singing 'Tiptoe through the Tulips.' As I approached a poor representation of three closed flowers, they slowly opened, revealing Jean and two of our colleagues. I would like to think it was pretty cool, but as I look back on it, it was probably pretty bad--but, we won the contest."

          Colleague BARRY WOOD wrote: "Under President John Anderson (1980-86), Jean Pugh was annually elected by the Faculty as Faculty Representative to the Board of Visitors. At that time, I served as Secretary to the Board of Visitors. That Jean was chosen over and over again always seemed to me to demonstrate that the Faculty wanted to be heard and to be understood by the Board and they knew, above all else, that Jean's speech was neither soft nor timid. Even if she were in the proverbial Lion's Den, she would announce herself forth rightfully. For years, I recorded her hand-pounding speeches in the "Open" sessions of the Board, and then had to put my pen aside in the "Closed" sessions, where President Anderson often had to take her voice under the control of his comedic detachment."

          Jean contributed substantially to campus-wide beautification in the early decades, when there was no money for professional landscaping. As HAROLD CONES wrote in Memories of Christopher Newport College: "Almost from the minute I arrived, I joined Jean Pugh, Ron Mollick, and several students in a campus-wide landscaping effort that occupied many Saturday mornings....There existed only one professionally landscaped area on campus, the azalea garden in front of the president's office. Each Saturday, an azalea or two was removed from that garden and moved to the front of Gosnold. The beautiful azalea display each spring in front of Gosnold [was] testimonial to the president's garden and the selective replanting done by the Saturday group" (pp. 223-224).

          By the time the first biology majors were in their senior year (1970-71), there was a Biological Society, which did much landscaping with Dr. Pugh as its Spiritual Leader, Dr. Bankes as its Physical Leader, and biology major Danny Peters as its Emperor. This student-faculty group installed nearly all the landscaping around the first buildings, with Jean Pugh contributing not only her time, muscle power, and red truck, but also most of the money for purchasing plants, mulch, fertilizer and so forth. Among the major landscape acquisitions which Jean made possible were 50 camellias, donated by a camellia specialist who died in Hampton, and a large number of sugar maple trees. ( A. Jane Chambers)

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Published May 7, 2021

Students and Colleagues Remember

Biology Professor Dr. Jean Pugh

Part 1

by A. Jane Chambers

Revised April, 2021

Jean sat under a tree one day with me when she was

about to leave, and told me that when I retired, nobody would

thank me for what I'd done. She was correct when it came to

the Powers, but she certainly wasn't when it came to the

students and the colleagues.

Dr. Jane Carter Webb, CNC colleague

DR. JEAN ELIZABETH PUGH (1928 - 2012) joined the CNC faculty in its fifth year (1965 - 66)--the second permanent member with a Ph. D. Then Director H. Westcott (Scotty) Cunningham hired her to head the Biology Department and lead it quickly into a position to offer a BS degree in biology--just as, four years earlier, he had hired Dr. Wallace Stephen (Steve) Sanderlin, Jr. (1921 - 2010)--CNC's first Ph.D.-- to chair the English Department and lead its development of a BA degree in English. Like Steve, Jean was a Tidewater native, had earned her PhD at UVA, and was lured away from Old Dominion College (now ODU) by Cunningham.

Initial Encounters

          In July 1967, young HAROLD CONES, in his "very best gray-striped seersucker suit and tie," entered Gosnold Hall for his job interview with Dr. Jean Pugh, whom he recalled thus: "Like a hurricane, the office door burst open and a figure in red shorts moved quickly into the end office and yelled in a very authoritative voice, 'Are you here for the interview? Get in here. I don't have much time.' My interview took place ... while she ate a cheeseburger during a break in a summer school class .... I have no idea today what we talked about ... but I felt an instant liking for [her] ... and I hoped all would turn out well for me. And it did" (Memories of Christopher Newport College: The First Decade, p. 57). They became both colleagues and close friends.

          Some years later, biology department chair DR. HAROLD CONES recalled "interviewing a very prim and proper candidate for biology's secretarial position. I had just said, 'You might hear some things that are a bit strong, so I want to warn you.' As if on cue, Jean came bursting through the outer door, yelling, 'Shit! Why in the Hell can't these God-damned students study!' and slammed her office door. All I could say was, 'Sort of like that.' "

          Alumna DALTON KELLEY BLANKENSHIP remembered her first day in Biology 101, in 1965, thus: "I was totally unprepared for this dynamic onslaught of a personality! 'This is college people! Get used to it!' And we did. What a presence! I was just not quite ready for college, or hard work--which she required--and I produced--under duress. She was born to teach. We all knew that as soon as we met her. I was just not mature enough at the time to realize what her teaching meant to her, or to me."

          Alumnus KENNETH FLICK shared his memory: "It was a Thursday morning at 8:00, my first day as a freshman at CNC. I was in the biology lab, getting to know my lab partner, when Dr. Pugh walked in with one of her lab assistants. In their hands were stacks of trays. She took a drag off her cigarette, a sip of her cola, and loudly said, 'I'm Dr. Jean Pugh. This is Biology Lab 101. If you are not signed up for this lab, get out!' She then put the trays down and added, 'Here are the frogs. Go to it!' "

          Colleague BARRY WOOD, a young English instructor in 1965, remembers Jean Pugh's initial arrival for her first classes at CNC: "Jean made her rather unconventional campus debut riding her motorcycle. When she had circled the flag-bearing ellipse that gave shape and direction to the campus, she headed her cycle to and (in a sense) into Gosnold Hall. Reaching the breezeway that linked the parts of Gosnold, she bumped her cycle onto it, only to find that the slate slabs that formed the floor had not yet taken hold and thus, the cycle's force dislocated and broke several slabs. Jean did not wear embarrassment well under any circumstance, but on this, her first day, such a cloth was added to her attire."

Professor Extraordinaire

          KENNETH FLICK described Dr. Pugh as "one of the greatest teachers I ever had. Her dedication to her students and to CNC was second to none. I was never one of her greatest biology students ...; I might have been one of her worst, but she always had time after class to help me through her courses, as she did with all of us."

          Psychology Professor DR. SAM BAUER, like Dr. Harold Cones a close friend of Dr. Pugh, wrote that Jean's "mastery of the 'GRAND EXIT' strategy of classroom discipline was legend at CNC," as he once witnessed when visiting her large Elementary Biology lecture. Such classes, Sam explained, "usually composed mostly of freshmen students, tended at times to get noisy and generally out of order. Normally Jean had little trouble keeping her students' attention, but occasionally, as all of us who taught large lecture sections know, a class would become so disengaged that the usual tricks for gaining attention simply failed."

          Sam described "Jean's most elegant solution," which he called "the Grand Exit," thus: "After attempting to establish order and failing, she slammed her textbook shut, quickly picked up her notes and marched out of the lecture hall without saying a word. The students sat quite stunned until they figured out that the day's class had ended and began leaving the room. Jean would return to her office and then a steady stream of students would come by offering apologies and concerns. I learned that one such Grand Exit was sufficient to keep order for the whole semester or even the year by way of the student grapevine."

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Published April 27, 2021

Southside Elizabeth City Shire (now Suffolk, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, & Virginia Beach)

          Although not shown on the multi-colored Shire Map of 1634 shown previously, Elizabeth City Shire included the South Hampton Roads area now occupied by the five independent cities named above (map right). In 1636, King Charles I granted the request of Adam Thoroughgood, an immigrant from Norfolk, England, to name the entire area after his English home. The king named it New Norfolk County. Thoroughgood had started a colony with 105 people along the Lynnhaven River (Wikipedia). The next year, New Norfolk was divided into Upper Norfolk County and Lower Norfolk (map left below). Upper Norfolk County became Nansemond County in 1646, named after the Nansemond tribe living there.

The Anglo-Saxon Place Names (Norfolk, Suffolk, Kent, and those Sex Places)

          Some of our Tidewater place names are over a thousand years old, going back to the Anglo-Saxon era in England (450 - 1066)-- the time when Germanic tribes from the northeast of Europe--the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes--invaded the British island from the North Sea and over a long period settled in what is now England and lower Scotland. They killed, drove out, and bred with many of the natives, the Celts (except in upper Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall). The invaders shared a common history, culture, and language (with variations in dialects) which we call Old Engish, or Anglo-Saxon, and over time created independent kingdoms.

          From 757 to 1066 (the Norman Conquest) there was an informal confederation of seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the place the conquerors named Engla land ("land of the Angles")--Wessex, Sussex, Kent, Mercia, Essex, East Anglia, and Northumbria (map above left). The Jutes founded the kingdom of Kent ; prominent Virginia colonist William Claiborne, born there, established New Kent County in 1654, in territory annexed from York County. One kingdom of the Angles, East Anglia (map above right) had two parts: the North Folk ("people of the north") and the South Folk ("people of the south"). These became the place names Norfolk and Suffolk.

          Virginia's House of Burgesses established the "Towne of Lower Norfolk County" in 1680; it was incorporated as the City of Norfolk in 1705. Portsmouth, located directly across the Elizabeth River from Norfolk, was founded by House of Burgesses member Colonel William Crawford and established as a town in 1752 by an act of the Virginia General Assembly. It was named for Portsmouth, England (Wikipedia).

          Suffolk was originally just a small port town on the Nansemond River in Nansemond County called Constant's Warehouse, for settler John Constant. It was renamed Suffolk in 1742 after Royal Governor William Gooch's English home. The Native American Nansemond tribe that has lived in villages along Suffolk's Nansemond River since at least 1584 continues to live there as one of Virginia's federally recognized tribes (Wikipedia). West of the Nansemond River, forming the border between Suffolk and Isle of Wight County, is Chuckatuck Creek. It is a short distance from my house and actually a wide river, not a creek. Like the much wider Nansemond River, it empties into the James. Chuckatuck is an Algonquin word meaning "crooked creek." The Suffolk community also called Chuckatuck dates back to the 19th century.

          The Saxons established the kingdoms of Essex, Sussex and Wessex--located in the east, south (suth), and west below Mercia and East Anglia (see map left above). The names have no connection with sex. The Old English forms of them were Eastseaxen, Suthseaxen, and Wesseaxen--seaxen meaning "Saxon." Each name means "the land of the Saxons in the place that is east" (or south, or west). Not on that map is Middlesex (Old English Middelseaxen)--originally an area in Essex between Essex and Wessex, very close to London. Much of London is still in Middlesex. On the Southside of the James, south of Surry, there is a Sussex County. And Virginia's Middle Peninsula (map below) has Essex county and a Middlesex county--all named after these Saxon kingdoms.

Middle Peninsula Place Names

         Other British county names on the Middle Peninsula are King and Queen County, established in 1691 from New Kent County and named for King William III and Queen Mary II (as was The College of William and Mary); King William County, formed by English colonists from the above in 1702 and named for the same king; and Gloucester County , founded in 1651 and named for Henry Stuart, Duke of Gloucester, third son of King Charles I. Mathews County was part of Gloucester County until 1791, when the Virginia General Assembly split Gloucester, creating Mathews from it. The new county was named for the new American nation's Brigadier General Thomas Mathews (Wikipedia).

          The Middle Peninsula's southern border is the York River; its northern border is the Rappahannock River, from the Algonquian word lappihanne (or toppehannock), meaning "river of quick, rising water" or "where the tide ebbs and flows," the name used by the local Rappahannock tribe (Wikipedia).

Accomac Shire (Virginia's Eastern Shore)

          As small as it is (only 70 miles long and extremely narrow), our Eastern Shore has at least nine Native American place names. During my research for this section of this article, I happened upon an article entitled "How Did Places like Machipongo and Wachapreague Get Their Names?" The author, a blogger named Ryan Webb, describes himself as "a sociolinguist ... from Machipongo," with "a Master's degree in applied linguistics, the scientific study of language, from Old Dominion University in 2017." He further states that since 2017 he has "begun to research and preserve the language, culture and history of Virginia's Eastern Shore." I will cite Webb's comments on some of the Algonquian names below.

          In discussing the Native American names, I will begin with the first such name on the bottom of the map below and move upward. Kiptopeake is the name of a community and a State Park at the southern end of the Eastern Shore, near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. It was the name of the brother of Debedeavon, the chief ruler of the Accawmack tribe that lived on the Eastern shore when the first English colonists arrived. His title was "Ye Emperor of Ye Easterne Shore and King of Ye Great Nussawattocks." Because he was jovial, he was called "the Laughing King" (Wikipedia).

          The village of Machipongo was named after "the Matchipungoes, one of the larger native tribes" on the Eastern Shore that "established several villages.... The word now spelled as Machipongo means fine dust and flies and was the Algonquin name for Hog Island" (Ryan Webb).

          The town of Nassawadox "was named after the first church organized on the Eastern Shore in 1623, Nuswattocks Parish .... The Nuswattocks were a small Native American tribe that lived near present-day Nassawadox Creek" (Ryan Webb). [Note the paragraph on Kiptopeake above and "Nussawattocks"]. 

        The name Pungoteague [left on the map] "comes from an Algonquin word meaning sand fly river. Accomack County court sessions were held in the town's two taverns from 1663-1708" (Webb). 

       This "Seaside town in Accomack is named for one of the Machipongo villages that was located at or near present-day Wachapreague. The name roughly translates as little city by the sea" (Webb).

          The bayside town of Onancock "is named for an Algonquin word that means foggy place. It was originally occupied by Native Americans until 1670" (Webb).

          The name Accomac was discussed fully in the opening paragraph of the section.

          The name Chincoteague "comes from an Algonquin word that means large inlet. The island is named after the Gingoteague tribe that lived on the northern mainland of the Eastern Shore. As late as 1872, the post office on the island was called Gingotig" (Webb)

          The name Assoteague is from the name of the Native American tribe that lived in the upper part of Virginia's Eastern Shore.

          I hope you have enjoyed reading this article as much as I have enjoyed writing it and learning from it. I believe it is the longest article for this website that I have ever written. I promise not to write another one this long!

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Published May 7, 2021

Celebrating CNC's Class of 1971, the First Baccalaureate Class

by A. Jane Chambers

          The 1971 Class of Christopher Newport College of the College of William and Mary in Virginia would be celebrating its 50th Reunion on the CNU campus this month (on May 7th) were our planet not still battling Covid-19. But we will celebrate that Class of 1971 here, beginning this May of, 2021, by recalling various ways in which the word first applies to the class. The photo above, from page 124 of the CNC Trident, shows some of the degree candidates marching toward Ratcliffe Gymnasium, and the one below, also from that page, shows the procession inside Ratcliffe, led by Dean of Students William H. (Bill) Polis.

          From the beginning, the goal of CNC's first leader, H. Westcott Cunningham, was not merely to build a very successful two-year branch of The College of William and Mary (his alma mater), but also to prepare that junior college to transition into an outstanding senior college. Thus, in 1963 he hired English professor Dr. W. Stephen Sanderlin to chair the English Department and lead its development of a BA degree in English, and in 1965 he hired Dr. Jean E. Pugh to head the Biology Department and lead it quickly into a position to offer a BS degree in biology. Additional highly qualified PhDs were hired in major fields in the later 1960s, so that by academic year 1970-71, CNC was ready to award baccalaureate degrees in five fields: English, history, government, psychology, and business.

          The seniors expecting to receive baccalaureate degrees in June of 1971 found themselves needing much more time in the office of Registrar Mrs. Jane Pillow than usual. She had the burdens of counting course hours, computing grade point averages, sending transcripts to graduate schools, and ordering academic regalia and invitations. Every bachelor degree candidate needed her help in planning for graduation. To show their gratitude, the Trident staff, which included many seniors and was headed by senior Dinah Everett, dedicated the yearbook to Mrs. Pillow, pictured here with degree candidates (1971 Trident, p. 13).

          The 1971 commencement program at CNC was the first program that had more than one page! More importantly, however, the 1971 program was the first one to include an image of CNC's first four-year college seal. It was designed by student Kenneth Michael Flick, who won a campus contest in 1969-70 to create a new seal. Ken submitted the drawing (below left) which began with his copying the historically accurate image of Captain Christopher Newport (below right) that dominates the 27-foot-long mural painted in 1957 by Hampton artist Allan D. Jones, Jr. Located in West Avenue Library in Newport News, which closed to the public in 2014, this mural depicting the 1607 landing in Virginia should be relocated now so that it can again be seen by the public.

          Ken Flick added to his sketch a ship's wheel, held by Newport with his right hook and left hand. He based the wheel on the pilot's wheel on the seal of the City of Newport News, symbolizing the area's shipbuilding and seafaring history. Finally, Ken put three historically important images within the wheel. Top left is the Wren Building, from the seal of The College of William and Mary--a reminder of CNC's beginning as a two-year branch of W&M. To the right of that is the central image from CNC's first seal, with the date 1960, the year CNC was established by the General Assembly. And at the bottom is an image of the three ships that Newport commanded, also based on the Jones mural. Together, the three images, Ken says, "show the ties" of CNC "to the community, education, and history." Circling these three symbols are the words "Christopher Newport College."

          The U.S. Continental Army Band, based at Fort Monroe, participated for the first time in a CNC commencement on June 12, 1971, and Mills E. Godwin, Jr. gave the commencement address--the first governor of Virginia to do so (photo left below). Graduates also had their degrees handed to them by President James C. Windsor, then serving his first year as CNC's second president. Senior Wayne M. Barry received the first four-year degree (photo below right) --"just because," he said, "mine was the first surname on the alphabetized list." Both photos are from page 125 of the 1971 Trident.

          In offering the baccalaureate degree in 1971, CNC did not turn away from those students seeking the associate degree, as shown on the below list of candidates in the June 12th program. It continued to offer both degree levels for a number of years.

          The back of the program listed the senior class officers: President, Jon Grimes, Jr.; Vice President, Wayne M. Barry; Secretary, Kathryn H. Green; and Treasurer, William N. MacGlaun.

          There was also a summer commencement on August 2Oth, which will be included in Part 2 of this article--along with more firsts and more pictures. We will welcome additional commencement 1971 photographs!

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Published May 8, 2021

          A young woman was driving home from one of her business trips in Northern Arizona when she saw an elderly Navajo woman walking on the side of the road. As the trip was a long and monotonous one, she stopped the car and asked the Navajo woman if she would like a ride. With a silent nod of thanks, the woman got into the car.

          Resuming the journey, the young woman tried in vain to make a bit of small talk with her passenger. The old woman just sat silently, however, looking intently at everything she saw inside and outside the car, studying every little detail. Then, noticing a brown bag on the seat next to the driver, she asked. “What's in bag?” “It's a bottle of wine," said the young woman. Pleased to get a conversation started, she added cheerfully, "I got it for my husband!” 

          The Navajo woman was silent for another moment or two. Then,speaking with the quiet wisdom of an elder, she said: “Good trade.”