Meet the Maroons: Jacob Friedrich

Jacob Friedrich's dorm room at Roanoke College is an eclectic blend of his interests and hobbies.

The room, on the Pi Kappa Phi floor of Chesapeake Hall, is a true reflection of his art history major, German minor, and concentration in anthropology and global business.

The color scheme is red, gold and blue, incorporating the colors of Friedrich's fraternity and his favorite color. It features "an 8-foot red area rug, a framed fake $100,000 bill, gold frames for [my] papyrus from Egypt and mirror, a gold deer head, a gold paddle and a Himalayan salt lamp," Friedrich, a junior, said.

"I had to celebrate my newfound freedom and unity in brotherhood with the most over-the-top room that I [could] possibly think of," he explained.

The Egyptian papyrus was purchased during his time in Egypt last summer. He was there on an archaeological dig, working as an assistant ceramicist under Dr. Leslie Warden-Anderson, assistant professor of fine arts at Roanoke. She had been hired by the German Archaeological Institute for an excavation in Elephantine.

The most impressive element of Friedrich's room is a stained glass window with a moon and a sun in the upper corners that he made and installed. It was his first attempt at stained glass-making, and he finished it in four weeks - quickly for what is a laborious process. When he showed the finished product to a woman at the art store in his hometown in Tennessee where he purchased supplies, she was so impressed that she offered him a summer internship in the store, specializing in repairs, construction and design of stained glass.

This spring, Friedrich will be studying abroad in Bamberg, Bavaria, Germany. He hopes to bring back a gilded cuckoo clock from his travels to add to his room.

Friedrich was featured on the Pi Kappa Phi National blog, the Star and Lamp.