“In Another Time”
Golden Leaf Scholar Luncheon
April 21, 2022
Hi everyone, my name is Lani Allred. I’m a senior here at UNCG, but I came from Randolph County. To be more precise, I live right on the line of these two little towns - Liberty and Ramseur, but I don’t think anyone likes to claim Ramseur just because of its name. I find it interesting that we all came from different counties, with different backgrounds, chose different degrees and concentrations, and experienced different aspects of college. I personally never left home and have commuted all four years, and I can imagine living at home with my parents, sister, 5 dogs and 3 cats is perhaps different from each of your own college life experiences. My major is Communication Studies and my minors are ASL and English. From what I’ve heard, we have a wide variety of majors here. If any of you are wondering what I did to give a speech today, I think it’s important to note that I’m a managing consultant at the Speaking Center on campus and developing speeches is just what I do. Others of us are leaders in different academic and social clubs. What ties us all together in this room today is that we are Golden Leaf scholarship recipients. Golden Leaf financially supported all of us in obtaining an education we can be proud of. If you’re like me, you happily, without question, accepted the money and went on your merry way to UNCG. But how many of you know about the background of the Golden Leaf foundation?
I think it’s common knowledge that Golden Leaf scholars have to come from qualifying rural, economically distressed, tobacco-dependent counties. The keyword here is tobacco. For most of the 1900s, large tobacco industries thrived on raising and selling tobacco products. The companies ended up advertising to youth, despite the eventual health epidemic tobacco produced. The Master Settlement Agreement put an end to cigarette manufacturers targeting youth, while also imposing restrictions on advertising and promotions. On top of this, the tobacco industry is now required to annually pay the settling states billions of dollars. The Golden Leaf Foundation was created to receive 50% of North Carolina’s annual payments made by these cigarette manufacturers.
What I find fascinating about this information is that we come from counties that grew tobacco because it was just the thing to grow. And then the industry faced repercussions in 1999.
Many of us were just toddling around at that time.
In another time, we would’ve likely been expected to raise tobacco, or be part of the industry in some way in our home counties. Maybe we wouldn’t have even been expected to get a college education. But we are Golden Leaf scholars, and because of the financial support provided to us, we have more opportunities.
We are the generation that will replace the tobacco community. So what are we going to replace it with? What are we going to do with our college education that will assist our communities back home?
Golden Leaf is creating opportunities, so let us be part of the process. Let us recognize that with this great honor comes great responsibility. What will our generation choose to represent?
