Contact:Laura CorbinAssociate Director of CommunicationsWofford College429 N. Church StSpartanburg, SC 29303-3663(864) 597-4180(864) 597-4219 fax[email protected]www.wofford.edu
(EDITORS: Photographs from Kris Neely's travels are available upon request. They may be viewed at http://www.waterandthespirit.com. His journal entries also can be found on the Web site.)
SPARTANBURG, SC--Growing up as a Southern Baptist, water was always a focal point of Kris Neely's spiritual formation. "The moment of immersion signified a coming of age that illustrated spiritual maturity," he once wrote.
Today, Neely is in the midst of his yearlong travels around the world seeking connections of water and the spirit, a journey made possible by his selection as the 16th Wofford College Presidential International Scholar. Each year's Presidential International Scholar is chosen by the college president based on his assessment of which student can best benefit humankind through travel and research in developing nations. The scholarship is funded through an anonymous donor. Neely was the first selection made by Dr. Benjamin B. Dunlap, who became Wofford's 10th president last spring.
"Now that I am Episcopalian, the notion of the Baptismal Covenant plays an important role in defining how I try to live each day," Neely wrote in the first installment of the daily journal he has kept since his travels began in October 2000. "I believe that within my soul somewhere these two understandings of the religious importance of water flow together to make me unique in a spiritual context, as every human has some singularity of spirit to bring to the world. Understanding this concept of self--a self that is physically more water an any other ingredient--from there one can see a holy mystery that water holds. There is more to life than simply water, but I believe that there is no life completely independent of water."
Neely is circling the globe by water, studying the spiritual, economic, sociological, historical and political connections between peoples and waters. By July 2001, he will have visited seven seas and seven rivers, moving eastward from the Caribbean to Brazil and the Amazon, Peru, South Africa, Zimbabwe, the eastern Mediterranean, the Netherlands, India, China, the Pacific island of Yap, to the Aleutians and Alaska. Armed only with one change of clothes, but bearing a digital camera, laptop computer, and satellite phone, he is maintaining contact with Wofford and the Spartanburg community, including weekly reports on his Web site, www.waterandthespirit.com, which is maintained by Wofford College, and periodic reports by the local newspaper, the Spartanburg Herald-Journal.
"It was such a shame to just have only one student experience the world when we could have a lot of students following along," said Boyce Lawton, the executive director of institutional research who also is the college's webmaster.
"When he's out in the open and has a straight shot of the sky, he uses the satellite phone to send stories from his laptop computer," Lawton said. Lawton places the stories and photographs onto the Web site and sends e-mails to more than 400 people on a mailing list. That number grows as Neely travels and meets new people who want to follow his trip, Lawton said. A class at Neely's old elementary school is studying the Amazon and watching the Web site, too.
"When I met with President Dunlap, we talked about ways to make this trip reach more people--a new vision with a new presidency," Neely said. "We wanted to take it to a new level."
The Internet site has gotten the attention of the editors of "Yahoo Internet Life" magazine, who have interviewed Neely for an article on college students' unique uses of the Internet. The article is set for publication in May. The hope is that all the exposure also will bring attention to Wofford and this unique scholarship, Neely said.
Wofford's Presidential International Scholar is always a rising senior who the president believes is "the singular student best fitted to benefit humankind." Once the scholar is named, it is up to the recipient to map out a travel plan. The scholar basically has to narrow the world so it can be traveled in nine months.
The Wofford religion major, who plans to become an Episcopal priest, returned home just 15 days after his trip began as his older brother, Erik, died unexpectedly following an epileptic seizure. Normally, the Presidential International Scholar does not return until the journey is complete. Neely's family encouraged him to stay home for Christmas, but he knew that if he had stayed it would have interrupted his trip to the Amazon River, the place that his brother Erik wanted him to visit the most.
"This is a way I can continue to express my love for Erik," Neely said.
So, he turned 22 on Nov. 21 as he traveled the Caribbean, then spent his first Christmas away from his Spartanburg home traveling along the Amazon River. His travels also have taken him through the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Town and Milnerton, South Africa; to Amman, Jordan, and the Nile, the Mediterranean, the Jordan and the Sea of Galilee.
Neely will rest in Zurich, Switzerland, March 11 through 19, then proceed on his journey. Planned destinations include the Ganges River, Nepal, India, the Yangtze River in China, the Pacific Ocean, Micronesia, and the Bering Sea to Alaska and Aleutian Islands. He will complete his travels in July.
Neely's older brother Scott was Wofford's 14th Presidential International Scholar in 1998-99. He has published a book, "A Good Road to Walk," based on his travels. He will be the guest speaker March 15 at a convocation at Wofford, after which he will autograph copies of his book, for which he received the first Benjamin Wofford Prize for Nonfiction Writing. The book was edited by Wofford professor of English John Lane and published by Holocene Publishing.
Scott and Kris Neely are the sons of the Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Kirk Neely of Spartanburg. The Rev. Dr. Neely is pastor of Morningside Baptist Church.----------------------------Opened in 1854, Wofford College is an independent liberal arts college affiliated with the United Methodist Church. It has one of the nation's 255 Phi Beta Kappa chapters and is ranked in the top third of 162 "national liberal arts colleges" by US News & World Report. Wofford also is noted for its superb information technology network and Franklin W. Olin Building; its opportunities for studies abroad (8th nationally in one study); its graduation rate for student athletes (10th in NCAA Division I); and its student volunteer service programs. The new $14.5 million Roger Milliken Science Center opened in 2001. With an enrollment of 1,100 students, Wofford is the smallest college fielding an NCAA Division I-AA football team and is the summer training camp home of the NFL Carolina Panthers.# # #
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