| Ramsey
- The love of New Jersey - at least for one Ramsey resident, has
reached far beyond the border of the Garden State.
Although Jeff Kauflin made the move to
Vermont to attend college, he never lost his sense of Jersey pride.
While at Middlebury College, Kauflin received his first taste of
others who did not share his enthusiastic view of his home state.
"What I went to college in
Middlebury, that was the first time I really found out about the bad
rap that Jersey had with other states around the country," Kauflin
said. "It was just frustrating and most of it was from people
who haven't even been to New Jersey."
From the sometimes strange smells of
the Turnpike to the alleged pollution, Kauflin said out-of-state
people always found a way to put down his beloved New Jersey.
In a strange twist of fate, when
Kauflin returned home during his first winter break, he spotted a
fellow Middlebury classmate at a concert where he learned of a
support group for New Jersey residents at his school. LOGS -
Lovers of the Garden State - is a club at Middlebury dedicated to
bringing together residents of New Jersey and fostering state pride.
LOGS founder and President Michael Kirkland invited Kauflin to join
the club. After attending a LOGS meeting once back at school,
Kauflin finally felt at home.
"I fell like there are a lot of
people who love the state and experience similar things when they go
to school out-of-state," Kauflin said. "There's really no reason
why New Jersey should get such a bad rap."
Renting out a lounge from Middlebury
once a week, Kauflin and his New Jersey cohorts took turns discussing
New Jersey current events, trivia, famous Jersey residents and
organized field trips to New Jersey.
As the popularity of the LOGS Club
grew, similar clubs began popping up. The Southern Society,
Midwest is Best and the Texas Club are some examples of the regional
pride that began to brew at Middlebury.
The clubs even had a regional
Olympics competition with events such as poker, twister, pool,
basketball, and a downhill ski race. Of course the Lovers of the
Garden State Club came home with the gold.
In February of 2003, Kauflin design
and launched a web site dedicated to the club and its Jersey loving
mission. JerseyPride.com offers an array of Jersey trivia, a
running list of famous New Jerseyans and the "You know you're from New
Jersey if..." list. The website also offers official LOGS
merchandise in the form of a green hooded sweatshirt marked with the
LOGS logo.
Since the launch of the
JerseyPride.com website, the club has been receiving an overwhelming
response from fans who share a love for Jersey. Other New Jersey
students have contacted Kirkland requesting to start LOGS chapters at
different colleges and universities across the country.
Maybe with he club we can reach out
to people who are embarrassed to say they're from New Jersey," Kauflin
said. "There's no reason they should be embarrassed - hopefully we can
reach out to those people and have them feel proud to be from the
Garden State."
Even though Kauflin now works in
Connecticut, he still commutes from Ramsey because he can't imagine
living anywhere else but New Jersey. He said what he loves most
about New Jersey is the people.
"First and foremost I love the people
and the aggressive mindset," he said. "After that, I've always
appreciate New Jersey's geographical location and the diversity of its
landscape."
As for his pride for New Jersey,
Kauflin hopes the website will encourage residents to remain proud of
where they're from.
"I would say for people from New
Jersey to never back down and always be proud to say you're from New
Jersey," Kauflin said. "There are a million reasons to be proud
of this state." |
