A decorative timeline
Graduating student paints a parting gift for the President’s House
Posted on: December 11, 2017; Updated on: December 11, 2017
By Chris Horn, chorn@sc.eduy, 803-777-3687
The Pastides are celebrating their 10th holiday season in the President’s House, and part of the house’s extensive decorations this year are 30 hand-painted ornaments that celebrate some of the university’s milestone accomplishments of the past decade.
Those custom-made baubles are the handiwork of Kailey Gregrow, a former student assistant in the Office of Special Events.
“I was notorious for doodling on calendars in the Special Events office, and they noticed that I have some artistic talent,” says Gregrow, a history major who graduates this month.
That led to Gregrow painting the ornaments as a surprise addition to the Pastides’ collection of holiday decorations. About half of the ornaments celebrate academic achievements — rankings, national scholarship winners and the like — and the other half touting the accomplishments of Carolina athletics.
“It took me an hour or more to paint each one,” she says. “The ornament with the Darla Moore School of Business building took quite a while.”
With the Dec. 18 commencement program to help her kick things off, Gregrow is already in the holiday spirit with future plans to launch a career as a high school history teacher. She has been substitute-teaching this past semester and hopes to begin the alternative certification process for teaching credentials this spring.
“One of my AP history teachers in high school inspired me to pursue history as a major,” Gregrow says. “I started out thinking about advertising and design to make use of my creative talents, but I decided to keep that as an avocational pursuit. I love history and I like high school students — that’s my teaching niche, I think.”
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