From These Roots

“Students think specialization is what college is about. That’s not college. We need to make good citizens, people who can speak, think, and write clearly and coherently. We need to round out the whole person. Education is both intellectual and spiritual. How can a professor teach literature without a knowledge of a man’s deeper being? North Greenville offers a real and viable alternative. We’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing.” – Bernard Meredith

Everett Bernard Meredith, Jr. was born on April 7, 1940, in Winnsboro, Louisiana to parents Everett Meredith, Sr. and Rubye Miller Meredith. The family moved to New Orleans when Bernard was young and it was there that Bernard discovered his love of words and poetry. It all began when he was young and would spin the globe he had in his room. He loved the exotic names of the mountain ranges and memorized the names of the 25 tallest peaks. This love of words and language continued as he got older and in the ninth grade, he wrote a love poem to a girl in his class. In a 1982 interview with The Greenville Piedmont News, he said, “I didn’t win her heart, but I found that I liked writing poems.”

When he was around 23 years old, Bernard joined the army and served for three years stationed in China. He then returned to Louisiana and enrolled at The University of Southwestern Louisiana (USL) using the G.I Bill. While working on his bachelor’s degree at USL, Bernard realized that others enjoyed reading his poems. Some friends encouraged him to submit one of his poems to a school publication and, to his surprise, it was selected. This success gave him the courage to send more of his poems to other publications and some of his works were printed in nationally recognized poetry magazines. In that same 1982 interview, Bernard stated that he never made a conscious decision to be a poet. “I liked language and wanted to express myself with it. I think the poem just had its way with me.”

As a student at SLU, Bernard taught high school English classes at Teurling Central High School in Lafayette, Louisiana. In 1968, he welcomed his only child into the world, a daughter named Moira. He graduated from The University of Southwestern Louisiana with a B.A. in English in 1969 and immediately began working on his Master of Arts in English at USL. He rode his bicycle everywhere as a graduate student and developed a passion for cycling. He served as a teaching assistant in his master’s program and graduated in 1971 with a concentration in American Literature and a 4.0 GPA. That same year, he won the Poetry Award at the Deep South Writer’s Conference.

After completing his master’s degree, Bernard accepted a position as a professor of English at West Liberty State College (WLSC). While teaching at WLSC, Bernard enrolled in the American Literature Ph.D. program at West Virginia University. His dissertation was, “The Autobiographical Image in the Poetry of James Wright” and he completed his Ph.D. in 1979 with a 4.0 GPA. In 1976, he became a tenured professor at West Liberty State College, and in 1977 he was published in the book “From the Branches” with two other poets. From 1978-1980, Dr. Meredith served as the faculty advisor for WLSC’s literary magazine, “Ampersand”.

In 1978, Dr. Meredith and his wife, Gig, visited Greenville, South Carolina, and fell in love with the area. The couple wanted to live in a warmer environment but “still keep their backs to the mountains”. So, in 1980, the couple moved to the upstate without waiting to find jobs first. According to Dr. Meredith, “We wanted to find a place we would like to live first, then find jobs later.” The couple settled onto several acres at the foot of Glassy Mountain and Dr. Meredith was soon offered a position at a small 2-year school named North Greenville College.

When Dr. Meredith arrived at North Greenville, he discovered that the school’s literary magazine, The Mountain Laurel, had not been published in two years. One of the first things he did at North Greenville was to revive The Mountain Laurel by putting out a call for submissions in the fall of 1980. His work was successful and The Mountain Laurel was once again printed that spring. The Mountain Laurel has been published continuously since its 1981 revival. 1981 was also the year that Dr. Meredith published his book “Signing” which received the Winthrop College Chapbook Award in Poetry.

One of the biggest tragedies to strike the Tigerville community was the murder of Helen Wood during the robbery of the Wood’s Store on February 13, 1981. Dr. Meredith and his wife, Gig, were running near the store and witnessed one of the suspects fleeing the scene. Dr. Meredith ran into the store to see what had happened and found two bodies on the floor and an injured Willie Wood calling emergency services. Dr. Meredith took over the phone call and later served as a witness at the trial of the surviving accomplice. The man who had killed Mrs. Wood was shot and killed by Willie. Mrs. Wood had been a friend of Dr. Meredith and he wrote a tribute to her in The Skyliner, North Greenville’s newspaper, the next month.

Dr. Meredith’s accomplishments in poetry continued throughout his career. His third book, “Conversations with South Carolina Poets” was published in 1986. His poetry was published in numerous publications including “Book”, “Dragonfly”, “Adena”, “The Illinois Quarterly, “Social Work Quarterly”, “Xavier Review”, “Social Work Quarterly”, “Exile”, “Quality American Poetry”, “Reflections”, “Illinois Quarterly”, “Greenville Woman”, and “The Greenville Piedmont News”. He frequently participated in poetry readings at locations like Union University, The University of South Carolina, Newberry College, the West Virginia State Capitol, the Adena Poetry Forum at the University of Louisville, the Sundown Poetry Series at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, and the Writers at Furman Series at Furman University. He also wrote and performed a one-man play titled “Walt Whitman: Solitary Singer”.

Due to his accomplishments and talent, Dr. Meredith could have secured a position at a more prestigious school than a Baptist junior college in the country. At times, peers would ask Dr. Meredith why he stayed at North Greenville and he would respond, “I would rather teach in a small private school with no more than 1,000 students. Sure, sometimes I would like to teach upper-level and graduate courses, but I enjoy more the smaller classes and the associations with my students.” During his time at North Greenville, Dr. Meredith quickly became a favorite of his students and normally ranked in the top two professors after student evaluations.

Dr. Meredith was an avid cyclist and a member of the Greenville Spinners Bicycle Club. He and Gig enjoyed tandem cycling and took bicycle vacations each year to places like New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in Canada. Dr. Meredith also cycled from Toronto, Canada to West Virginia and from St. Louis, Missouri to West Virginia. He was participating in this activity he loved when he was tragically killed in a bicycle accident on October 25, 1987.

The North Greenville campus was shocked by the sudden death of a beloved professor. The 1988 Mountain Laurel was dedicated to Dr. Meredith, the 1988 Aurora yearbook included a memorium, and several North Greenville faculty members participated in his memorial service. North Greenville’s Senior Assistant VP of Operations, Billy Watson, had Dr. Meredith as a professor when he attended North Greenville as a student. He said of Dr. Meredith, “He told great stories and was very encouraging. I remember I wrote an essay and he told me it was excellent but my handwriting was awful. It was about a football offensive lineman I tried to emulate, John Hannah. Dr. Meredith said it was the best laid-out paper he had all year. His encouragement made me want to do well academically. He was, in general, very smart, kind, and a really good man.”

Dr. Meredith’s legacy at North Greenville continues with each printing of The Mountain Laurel and with each student who had their lives impacted by him.

“How does one say goodbye
but to wave perhaps
over the shoulder, to turn
before the afternoon light
is gone into the trees.

Words will sift like leaves
through anything else.
Sunlight will not hold
still in the branches
long enough to trace
the delicate curve of an arch
or something enduring
in the landscape.

It will descend the bark
like seasonal sap, gone
because the light is gone.
And we do not quarrel
with the light.
We see patterns only so long
as the Western glow favors
work.
This season is a finality
for something not yet
understood.”

– Equinox by Bernard Meredith