Attention to Orders! includes information about current activities related to The Citadel that would be of interest to our class, such as events and sports schedules. Plans for our 40th class reunion in 2003 would be posted here.
Tuesday, August 24, 1999
By KRISTINA TORRES
Of The Post and Courier staff
Peek into this world of red books, white books and blue books.
Of sir-yes-sirs and sir-no-sirs, reflected in shiny brass and nervous eyes.
Blistered feet in stiff black oxfords.
Ma'am-no-excuse-ma'am.
They had been warned all summer about this. Knobs. First-year Citadel cadets. Military training. IN-YOUR-FACE. The media gave it a name a few years ago: Hell Week (Cadre Week, according to cadets).
Not even the haircut is free; $5 for guys, $8 for girls, charged to a student account. By the end of the day, three full trash bags of clipped individuality.
"The idea is to tear you down ... and build you back up into The Citadel man or Citadel woman," Brig. Gen. Emory Mace, commandant of cadets, told more than 650 sleepy faces at 7 a.m. Monday.
Among their ranks are 38 women who will more than double the number of female cadets on campus. They're part of the biggest freshman class in two decades. Two of their classmates had already quit by that morning.
"Look at the person to your right," ordered Kenneth Bath, the senior regimental commander and highest-ranking cadet on campus. Not a rhetorical order. All heads turned. "Look at the person to your left. That's how you're going to survive. Depend on the person next to you. Don't ever, ever let one of your classmates quit," Bath said.
Cadre members, the upperclassmen who train these green recruits, ran together before sunrise and barked out their presence. They put more into training to lead than the knobs do this week to follow. Rank-holders, these cadre members. Men and women together training men and women. The final nail, one cadet said, in the single-gender coffin. The knobs do what they say. The knobs, after all, are also in this together. No one is better than another. One stumbles, they all stumble together
"You cannot be a leader unless you learn how to follow," Mace said.
Fourteen percent of students will drop out by the end of first semester. By the end of four years, 66 percent of those remaining graduate - the best four-year rate in the state. Those graduates turn into alumni who survived and thrived on this storied campus, surrounded by sand-castle-like barracks and ramrod expectations. Thus, they try and top each other with stories of goofs and greatness. But that's if they make it.
"The knobs are coming," rang out the cry Monday morning. And the knobs came. Learning left foot from right.
Kristina Torres covers higher education. Contact her at 937-5491 or ktorres@postandcourier.com
FOR RELEASE
April 28, 1999
First Krause Business Plan Competition a Success
Competing for $30,000 in scholarship money, five teams of four cadets at The Citadel presented entrepreneurial plans in front of a panel of judges on April 15 in the first Krause Business Plan Competition.
The competition is funded by a generous grant from the Krause Foundation—a private foundation established by Citadel alumnus and advisory council member Bill Krause, ’63, and his wife Gay. Open to cadets of all academic disciplines, the competition was designed to encourage Citadel cadets to become involved in launching new real-world business ventures. Seven of the 20 cadets competing represented academic disciplines other than business—civil engineering, computer science, education, history, and psychology. Each of the teams was assigned an advisor from the business community—executives in-residence at The Citadel and Citadel business faculty.
The proposed new ventures presented by cadets were an international internet business, a retail furniture company, a pool service firm, a firm with innovative household convenience products, and a computer education services firm. The teams were judged by Bill and Gay Krause and Drs. Bob Williams and Ron Zigli of the department of business administration.
The winners of the competition were announced at an awards banquet on April 17 in The Citadel Riverview Room. Winning the first place scholarship award of $20,000 was the POOLPRO team, composed of Cadets Peter Murray, William Stephenson, Bradley Hunnicutt, and Michael Pelland. The second place scholarship award of $10,000 was awarded to the GoSystem(Gosis) team—Cadets Patrik Smida, Patrick Mullevey, Brian Chang, and Chris Coggins. And because the judges deemed that none of the teams were losers in the competition, an honorable mentioned scholarship award of $1000 was created and awarded to each of the three remaining teams.