After Hours

By Felix Winternitz

 

For eight hours every day, work is the priority for the University’s faculty, staff and administrators. But at the end of the day, well, it’s the end of the day: Time to unwind, test the boundaries and exercise something more than gray matter. For some, this means jumping in a canoe and navigating raging whitewater rapids. For others, it means sitting down for a game of Japanese chess or standing up in front of a crowd and singing great choral works. Their interests are as diverse as the University itself, but they all share one thing in common: Whatever their pleasure, they pursue it with passion.

A DOSE OF H2OHHHH

Susan Namei’s Mecca isn’t the National Road, but the National River—West Virginia’s New River Gorge National River, to be specific. Among the oldest and most challenging waterways in North America, it’s become a second home to the nursing instructor and veteran whitewater canoeist.

Prompted by what she calls a "near fiasco" canoeing trip in Canada, she took paddling lessons with the local Sierra Club chapter in 1989 and immediately became hooked. The sport, she says, is a free-flowing adventure, avocation and psychological expedition all in one.

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