Five Things About Me
A&S Staff Spotlight: Shane Barton from UK College of Arts & Sciences on Vimeo.
Shane Barton is the Program Coordinator for the University of Kentucky Appalachian Center. He moved to Kentucky from his home state of Virginia with his wife Adanma Onyedike Barton in the summer of 2009 and began working at the Appalachian Center in October of that year. Prior to working at UK he served two years as a VISTA volunteer with Upper Tennessee River Roundtable in the headwaters of the Clinch River in Cedar Bluff, Virginia and spent one year with Chesapeake Bay Foundation co-coordinating the Virginia Watershed Education Program. Shane received two undergraduate degrees from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) including a B.S in Environmental Science and a B.S. in Urban Studies and Geography in 2004, and his Maters in Urban and Regional Planning, also from VCU in 2009. He has been a rabid VCU basketball fan and supporter ever since he attended a monumental comeback victory against the University of Louisville in 1999, he still attends at least three VCU games a year. Shane lives in Berea, Kentucky with his wife Adanma who is an assistant professor of Theater at Berea College.
1. What do you do in your spare time? In the winter I dream and plan. I dream up big ideas and think about what it takes to make them realities. In the non-frigid months you’ll find me tending to my garden.
2. What is your favorite movie or book? I love bad movies and only like to really read nonfiction. There is tie between my two favorite movies though. I had an uncle from Fed’s Creek, Kentucky that gave me an old VHS tape with a couple movies on it in the mid-1980s, I watched it over and over until two of those movies somehow became my favorites, still to this day I can watch American Ninja and/or Commando anytime, anywhere in any language-I know all the words.
3. What is one ambition or goal you have for the next year? I would love to get back out on the water in some capacity, whether that be in a canoe, or a kayak or just strolling the bank. It’s one of the things I really miss about living in Virginia-the great paddling and trout fishing.
4. What is the most interesting/your favorite place you've been? I think one of the most interesting places I have ever spent time in was Todos Santos Cuchumatán in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenago.
5. Have you ever had a brush with fame? I tend to shy from fame or the famous but I have had a couple brushes with famous or potentially famous folks. A good friend from high school and childhood football teammate (I was the center and he was the quarterback) was drafted out of high school to be a starting pitcher for the Kansas City Royals. In Berea I have the pleasure of being neighbors and friends with bell hooks but to me she is just a normal person who is a blast to hang out with, I cherish her friendship because in many ways she has become a great mentor to me.