Editor's note: This is the eighth day of a two-week series highlighting remarkable Ohio University undergraduates. The 25 selected students come from the nominations of students, faculty, staff, administrators and Post staff.
The Athens music scene is teeming with everything from quiet solo artists to raucous barroom exhibitionists.
All of them find a place to display their talents, but few make it outside the confines of the city. Here are two Ohio University students making a name for themselves on more than one front.
Jerry Green
Jerry Green can be found doing homework at Donkey Coffee and Espresso, 17 1/2 W. Washington St., almost every day. He's such a fixture that the 22-year-old Ohio University senior says someone once drew his portrait and taped it above his usual spot.
Green, an honored philosopher in OU's Honors Tutorial College and drummer of Athens-based band Paper Machetes, has his work cut out for him.
As a philosophy major, Green is writing essays for publication and working on a thesis, in addition to a full course load that includes Greek.
Green has managed to garner acclaim in the philosophy world already. One of his essays, Conflicting Values in Moral Realism
will be published by an undergraduate journal called The Interlocutor. In the past few months, he has presented another paper at the Illinois Wesleyan University Undergraduate Philosophy Conference and the Indiana Philosophical Association Spring Meeting.
It was a really good fluke that I got in to the conference Green said. I was 10 years younger than everyone there.
Jerry's extensive early experience should make him a standout in the philosophy field, said Mark LeBar, an associate professor in the department.
It's pretty rare for an undergraduate (to speak at a conference) and I think that it's a good testimony to Jerry's energy and ambition he said. I think it's a real feather in his cap.
Green also has taken time to develop his musical interests. After drumming in high school, he joined a couple of different Athens bands, including a two-year stint with Fine Dining, before starting with the rock band Paper Machetes in January.
The band plays around five shows a month, but Green rarely turns down a performance, said Dan Whiteley, bass guitarist and vocalist.
One time he even brought his work to The Union and was reading his book in between sets
Whiteley said.
After he graduates, Green said he plans on pursuing a doctorate in philosophy with the intention to teach ' but not lose his edge.
I want to be the professor you see at rock shows
Green said.
Erica Boehnlein
Erica Boehnlein is a small person with a quiet manner, but give her a guitar and some lyrics, and she's big and bold.
A junior journalism and women's studies major, Boehnlein has been playing guitar since middle school. When she arrived at Ohio University, she began playing at open mic nights around town before forming her band, EricA and the Littlebeans, last Spring Quarter.
Boehnlein, who sings and writes music for the band, discovered singer/songwriter Ani DiFranco in high school, and DiFranco's career as a musician and feminist activist had a profound effect on her music and personal life.
Boehnlein often writes her songs about politics, women's issues and gay rights, and while she also writes about relationships, she avoids using gendered pronouns so her music is relevant to all audiences.
Apart from her musical role, Boehnlein is the president of Empowering Women of Ohio. The group, formerly known as Swarm of Dykes, was created in the 1990s and saw many changes in direction and leadership, said Amy Russell, adviser for the group.
Boehnlein decided to bring the group back at the beginning of the school year, and after the first few weeks, she decided a name change was in order.
A lot of people wouldn't consider the group
she said. The name turned people off.
Along with the new name, the group broadened its focus from an LGBT theme to include feminist activism as well. Since the change, the group has gone from a few women to 10 members, Russell said.
When Boehnlein became president of EWO she wanted to use her journalism experience to create a magazine for the group. Instead, she combined this idea with her job in the LGBT Programs Center. Boehnlein is editor-in-chief of OUTwrite, an online journal and newsletter published by the LGBT programs center that put out its first issue in March.
After graduation, Boehnlein said she dreams of living in a big city like Chicago where she hopes to create her own magazine for female musicians and make it mainstream. The publication will cover anything from high school bands to professional musicians with a feminist spin, she said.
Everything in my life I've been doing ' journalism
music
women's issues ' this magazine is a culmination of everything I'm passionate about
she said.
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