INSPIRATION
Photo: Glen Karasiewicz 2011 via Flickr.
worlds bumped into one another. While
working on this issue of Peachy with her
close friend Blair Farris, Publisher and
Editor in Chief of Peachy, Tune hoped
to highlight the work of her cadre of
Southern friends who have created and
maintained The Southern Alliance for
more than 60 years.
Tune was delighted to learn that The
Southern Alliance’s primary beneficiary, The Crossnore School—located
in the Appalachian Mountains of North
Carolina—had just hired its CEO,
Brett Loftis, former executive director
of Charlotte’s Council for Children’s
Rights. For Tune, this was a wonderful
moment of Southern Serendipity.
“I came on the board again in 2013,
right around the time Brett moved to
Crossnore. I was so sad to lose Brett,
but excited for him and understand
his reasons for moving his family and
taking on this new adventure,” Tune
says. “It did not take me long to make
the connection between The Southern
Alliance and Crossnore and Brett.”
in 1914 by Dr. O. Latham Hatcher, a
faculty member at Bryn Mawr College
and a native of Richmond, Virginia.
From the start, the organization provided educational opportunities for
children living in isolated areas of the
rural South. By 1947, it became The
Southern Alliance, drawing together
its Chicago members through a common bond—their Southern roots.
“The Southern Alliance was a breath
of fresh air for me. The girls were ‘my
people,’” Tune says. “Not only did
everyone have Southern roots but we
were all new to the North Shore so
we had a move in common as well.”
“We’re a collection of, as I refer to us
‘displaced Southerners,’ ” adds Dee
100 YEARS OF DEDICATION
The Southern Alliance can trace its
founding to an organization that was
established 100 hundred years ago. The
Alliance for Guidance of Rural Youth
was created as a national organization
Members of the Southern Alliance (left
to right): Michelle Leiter, Laree Bobo,
Liz Martin, Mary Collins, Dee Fortson,
and Jolene Wilson
MARCH 2014
95