College students are famously known for their horrible eating habits and minimal budgets. Being a young professional, and college student, in my spare time I like to create extravagant meals on a college friendly budget. I bargain hunt and frequent my local farmers market looking for amazing deals.

My name is Luke. I am 20 years of age. I consider myself a creator. 

Atlanta –  Fall is coming and so are the college students. Its that time of year again. Homecoming is here and Georgia Sate kicked theirs off with the annual Homecoming Parade.

Oct. 3 – Imagine Students lining the streets, the sun shining brightly accompanied by the slightest gust of wind and a whole lot of panther pride. “Go panthers!” they chant as the homecoming floats make their way down Gilmer St. waving excitedly at their fellow students.

The attendees of Georgia States annual Homecoming Parade don’t have to imagine because they were there to see it. The Homecoming Parade is an annual event at Georgia State University where students can take pride in their school, and commemorate their fellow panthers. This year’s parade included a variety of “golf cart floats” giving students a lot to look at. “ I think this might be the best parade yet, they didn’t have this many participants last year, the streets are flooded!” said one student in the mist of the parade.

Starting promptly at noon, the homecoming parade was headed by an intricately decorated float that held this year’s homecoming court. Colby Williams, a new student at Georgia State said “My friend is on the homecoming court, that’s why I came, they’ve been decorating that cart for weeks, I just wanted to see the finished product honestly.” As the float made its way down the route some students began chasing it. The students aboard the float throw beads, T-shirts and other GSU merch into the excited crowd of students, increasing their cheers. “Oh this is lit, I wish I transferred here last year.” Said Williams as he watched the crowd slowly begin to follow the floats. The next few floats held students from a vast variety of extracurricular clubs at GSU including the spotlight program, who planned the event this year. The spotlight program acts as the main coordinators for all events on campus and off campus. Associate Director, Cedricka Davis says this year’s Homecoming Parade was not easy to pull off. “Between planning and actually executing this event, I’d say I’ve probably gotten a full 24 hours of sleep in the last two weeks.” says Davis.  Even so, all the members of the Spotlight Executive Board agree that the scariest part of throwing these types of events is marketing.

Marketing director, Kamaria Simmons says “ I feel like I have the hardest job. My team does all the heavy lifting for the event, but in the end it falls on me to make sure people know about it, and they actually show up, if we put all this work into it and no one comes out to see it, everyone will look at me!” 

2 This year’s Homecoming Parade Flyer

“This years marketing was primarily done through different social media. It’s the easiest way to reach as many students as possible with the least amount of effort and I, personally, believe strongly in efficiency.” Simmons said jokingly. However, the turn out was anything but humorous, as hundreds of GSU students gathered on the streets in anticipation. The Spotlight Board members say although they hoped for it, they didn’t expect such a big turn-out. The recent influx of students transferring to GSU has almost doubled the number of students on campus on a day to day basis. Many students weren’t even aware of the event taking place, they just got caught in the crossfire. “I didn’t even know there was a parade today, I just walked out my dorm and saw all of this.” Said Julie Makawao, freshman.

Students were jam packed along the streets awaiting their turns to see the homecoming floats. It was such a tight squeeze that some people left, clearly irritated by the amount of people in the area. At one point in the event Williams fell trying to chase a float and was almost trampled. Too excited to care, he hopped back up and continued the chase along side his fellow students. “what’s that one song? we all fall down but we get up” he said while laughing.

None the less, the Homecoming Parade was a success! By 2 p.m. most students were drifting away from the festivities eagerly inquiring about more upcoming events for this year’s homecoming. The floats were making their way back through the route as the students aboard said their goodbyes while flinging the last bit of goodies off of the floats and into the crowd.

3 Students wave goodbye as the Homecoming Parade comes to a close

If you missed this year’s Homecoming Parade make sure you make it out next year. You never know what will be in store!

Savannah, Georgia– It all started a keyboard, a computer and a dark room. Coming home after a long day of skipping school he discovers a keyboard in an old box in his parents garage. He lifts it up in amazement before racing to his room eager for what came next. On that day, he wrote his first song– having no idea that he had just begun the journey that would define his life.

Duwap Kaine, born on Feb. 21 2002 is a Savannah, Georgia native. Born and raised, he and his family began in an impoverished neighborhood on the south side . This small town is where Duwap would learn his rebellious ways, and become the delinquent we hear him rap about today. “ I started skipping school so young I don’t even remember how old I was. I know I had to still be in elementary at least, I would just go sit in the trap” he said.

            A young Donald, who would later be known as the Rapper Duwap Kaine began making music at the age of 11. Judging by his earlier hits you can tell Duwap has a real love for the same things any other kid does. “When I was writing songs like “Elmo Freestyle” and “A Stove Is a Stove” I was actually a kid, I was just talking about things I’d heard and seen around me. I was in the trap but I was still a kid” he said.

            Making his own beats on his laptop and engineering his songs through apps like Garage Band Duwap Kaine is a one man band. “ Once I learned how to make my own music I never even thought of having someone do it for me. it came to me so natural. I never needed any help. I’m the only one that knows exactly what I want it to sound like so why would I let someone else mix it” he said.

            In march 2016 Duwap releases “Pouring Codeine” which would be his first sound cloud mega-hit. In that same year, famous rapper Lil Yachty released a remix to the song giving Duwap his first taste of global recognition. “ I had no clue he was gonna do that, Its not like we got in the studio together and planned that out, he just took the song, added a verse and released it. I’m sure he sent it to me but I never seen the message until after that so I heard the remix with everybody else” he said.

            After grabbing the attention of the world, Duwap followed up with a mixtape named “Candy Kaine” where he collaborated with upcoming rap artist Lil Candy Paint. “ I remember when I met candy, we literally met on the internet, now that’s my brother in real life” he said Some notable hits from this mixtape are “Ak47” and “Peephole” which was produced by up and coming producer and rapper K$UPREME. “ K is my brother, I been knowing K for so long and he always showed love, him and slime sito. Yeah him and slime, them my brothers” he said.

            In 2018, Duwap Kaine released his first studio album titled “Underdog”. “When I was making underdog I honestly didn’t feel like I had anything left to prove. I named it “,Underdog” but that was just to remind everyone that doubted me that I hadn’t forgotten” he said. “people used to try to diss me because I’m young, try to ignore my talent, now they cant ignore me” he said.

            Across the country in LA, California a new but very similar artist is born. Lil underdog is Duwap Kaine’s self-proclaimed biggest fan. “ I started doing music after I discovered Duwap, nobody sounds like him, you cant say he stole his sound from anywhere because he literally created it, and I thought that was so cool” he said. Lil underdog doesn’t have any notable hits yet but says he’s currently working on his first mixtape. “I’m still finding my sound because I listen to Duwap so much sometimes I accidently sound like him, I don’t want him to think I’m biting his style so I’m still working on finding me” he said.

            Today, Duwap Kaine spends a lot of his time interacting with his fans on social media. “ I talk to new fans every day, I’m on social media anyway so I might as well talk to my fans, why wouldn’t I they’re the reason I’m up right now” He said.

“ I’ve never met Duwap but he’s liked and quoted my tweets before, he’s a troll, he’s always on twitter and if you dm him on like Instagram its likely that he will respond, he’s actually like a normal kid like the rest of us” said Lil underdog.

            Normal kid to local rap super star Duwap Kaine says he has no intention on stopping. “ I’m no where near done, I’m just pacing myself, I’m trying to have a long career, I don’t want to burn out”.

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Atlanta – It’s the holidays and for the retail industry that means peak time! Tommy Bahama is no exception. Holiday season means increased traffic but have you ever heard the saying more money more problems? Tommy Bahama has been experiencing increasing amounts of fraud. Customers are taking advantage of the return policy to trick cashiers into giving them the company’s hard earned money. The retail giant has been experiencing the problem company wide. The district manager Abby Powell had this to say when asked to explain what’s happening “To be short, Customers, or Scammers I’d say are taking advantage of our return policy leniency and have scammed the company out of thousands of dollars at this point.” Tommy Bahama believes in helping the customer in any way possible and usually the company culture calls for exemplary customer service. “The employees are trained with a sort of  the customer is always right motto” said Powell. The Tommy Bahama return policy currently reads: “We are happy to make any changes necessary for fit or preference. We will accept returns of unworn, unwashed or defective merchandise within 90 days of purchase for a full refund. Items must be in the condition you received them, in the original packaging and with all the original tags attached. Worn and washed product may be returned if damage is due to manufacture defect. Women’s swimwear must have all tags and hygienic liner intact. Returns after 90 days of purchase will be reviewed and may be subject to a reduced refund.” However, in the name of pleasing the customer the company admits they are often lenient regarding returns and will try to accommodate the customer even if the return is outside of the policy guidelines. The company claims that up to three stores have been hit sweeping the company of about $5000 total. When asked how this happened, Powell had this to say “Basically what they’re doing is stealing merchandise , maybe from stores, maybe from some of our warehouse locations, we haven’t been able to track the items yet but they are stealing them. They’ll then bring them into the store and return them for the full value. It took us a minute to catch on to what was happening but our inventory system is very advanced so it wasn’t long before we said ok something isn’t right here. We just didn’t know what at first.”

2Phipps Plaza Tommy Bahama

            One of the stores that was most recently hit by these return scams was the Phipps Plaza location in Atlanta. Manager of the Phipps store, Manon Bennett had this to say about the recent events when asked if she’d experienced anything suspicious at the Phipps location “Yes actually, just recently we had two men, that we later came to believe knew each other come in and try to do returns with fraudulent receipts. They even used the same shopping bag and just filled it with different clothing, and came in separately. One receipt was home made, and obviously printed from a regular home printer, and the other was a store copy of a receipt that is meant to be kept by the store for records and not given to the customer. Due to the policy I was able to confiscate the store copy receipt but I still had to process both of the returns.” The store lost a total of $2000 due to these fraudulent returns. The other Georgia location, which is in Alpharetta at the Avalon, has also been hit by the same perpetrators totaling a district wide profit loss of about $3500. Powell says “We do have the perpetrators on camera , but for legal reasons we are choosing not to show those pictures or reveal their identities to the public at this time.”

            When asked how the company plans to handle this type of return fraud moving forward district manager, Powell had this to say “we’ve sent out a few company wide announcements and we are in the process of implementing new policies. the first announcement details the events, just so that there’s an understanding of what’s happening here. The second one included time stamped images of the perpetrators at out Topanga location in California, and more details on the incident. We’ve updated our return policy, and our system so that now when a card that has the name of any flagged customer in our system is entered a message will pop up informing the employees, and they’ve been instructed to deny the return in the event that the card doesn’t match the one in our system, or the items purchase record cannot be tracked.” The company has also updated their return policy to include specifications regarding returns, and has decided against leniency with returns until the problem is solved. Bennet said “To process the return the customer must have the original copy of the receipt which must be able to be verified in the system. The customer must also have the original card the merchandise was purchased with, and show a form of ID that matches the name on the card or we can refuse the return, and we will” With all the new changes to policy It looks like Tommy Bahama is well on its way to living the island life again!