WACOAN

Welcome to Waco, Baylor bears! Whether you're moving in for the first time or the last time, living the dorm-life or moving off-campus, we want to make sure you and your family make the most of move-in weekend by exploring all the city has to offer. New students and parents, consider this your guide to all the fun ways to break out of the "Baylor bubble" and begin to embrace your new hometown.

A new community is coming to Waco - surfboards all loaded in the U-Haul. Waco Surf is making its latest expansion and creating The Desperado community, a 450-acre residential property with 88 homes and an array of amenities available to both residents and the public.

When Katie Binetti and Joseph Ferraro joined the Baylor Department of Anthropology in 2008, they brought with them an East Coast university tradition: an end-of-the-school year goat roast. They both previously taught at Yale, and Ben Arbuckle, a colleague coming to Baylor at the same time, had been teaching at Harvard. (Arbuckle is now a professor and associate chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina.) "And Harvard always had a goat roast," Ferraro said.

Ahe history of Waco is inextricably linked with the land and the river. Most of what is unique about Waco is due to geologic processes millions of years past and what early Spanish explorers so eloquently christened Los Brazos de Dios, "The Arms of God." Legendary Baylor geology professor O.T. Hayward spoke passionately about the Austin chalk, an escarpment that begins near Uvalde and extends to Arkansas.

Who doesn’t love the idea of a fresh start on January first? I know it’s a little cheesy, but having a firm date to commit to the reinvention of yourself — or your home — excites me. I’m also obsessed with organization, list-making and scheduling, so it’s not surprising that a preselected date on the calendar totally gets my design mojo going. With this being the first month of a brand new year, it feels kismet to be joining the Wacoan as your new home columnist.

Keeping a sharp and healthy mind isn’t just a concern for the senior population. Mental health disorders encompass a wide variety of issues that affect people of all ages. As we continue our series on mental health, this month we spoke with a psychotherapist about attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder – ADD and ADHD. These disorders are commonly known to be a problem for school-age children, and yet you’ll learn it’s not something to simply grow out of.

Big roads. Small roads. Highway roads. Roads that dead end. Roads that go on forever with parties that never end. There’s a road not too far from here you should take a trip to see. When you get to this road and roll down your window, you will hear the old friend you had almost forgotten. Your friend that is the enemy of toddlers and ad executives everywhere: silence. Unless a cow is nearby. Then you will hear silence, moo, silence, moo, moo.

When Rosalie Beck began her college career at the University of California San Diego, she had her sights set on becoming a doctor. She accomplished that goal, just not quite like she had first envisioned. Dr. Beck earned her Ph.D. in religion at Baylor University in 1984 and joined the faculty that same year. For 17 years, she was the only female teaching religion at Baylor. Now, at age 70, she’s retiring.

Dr. John A. Wood retired from the Department of Religion at Baylor University in 2004 after more than 20 years of teaching Christian ethics. Wood was a popular professor, known for his genial nature, off-beat stories and a passionate, lifelong love of baseball. How passionate? He has visited every Major League Baseball stadium. He has a man cave full of baseball memorabilia, including signed baseballs, posters, bats, pictures and books.

Four days after Julia Jurgensen moved into her new home, she put her children to bed, cleared the boxes from her dining room and sat down with me to discuss how she stays organized in the midst of a chaotic life. “We’re not perfect,” she said, glancing at the stack of boxes in the next room. “But we do the best we can.” Jurgensen is doing just fine. She’s a partner at Beard Kultgen Brophy Bostwick & Dickson, a mother of three and a Sunday school teacher at First Baptist Woodway.