{"id":9728,"date":"2022-07-29T14:54:03","date_gmt":"2022-07-29T18:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/?p=9728"},"modified":"2023-02-15T11:01:12","modified_gmt":"2023-02-15T16:01:12","slug":"the-camouflaged-optimist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/2022\/07\/29\/the-camouflaged-optimist\/","title":{"rendered":"The Camouflaged Optimist"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Columnist and Photographer Bunny Ware Connects Savannah<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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For Bunny Ware (\u201992), life is best off-script.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019ll tell you she can\u2019t write, but her social column, \u201cBunny in the City,\u201d has been a beloved entertainment fixture in Savannah for the last 12 years. Ware never studied photography, but is arguably the most invited event photographer in town, while decked in camouflage, flip-flops and a high-flying ponytail, even for some of the city\u2019s most prominent affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her superpower?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ware is an optimist. A lifter, a doer, a connector. Belying her unabashed exuberance, her seemingly endless stream of energy, Ware\u2019s greatest fulfillment comes from connecting people, and she is widely appreciated for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m a connector because I care enough to see what someone needs,\u201d said Ware. \u201cI can quickly match a person to who they need to know, that will benefit them most, without expecting anything in return. When you don\u2019t have anything to gain from it, it\u2019s a genuine connection. I think that\u2019s why Savannah has put up with me acting, dressing or saying the things that I do because they recognize my intent is genuine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have a gift that I can help other people with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That gift flourished on Georgia Southern University\u2019s Statesboro Campus beginning in the 1980s. From Wadley, Georgia, Ware and most of her friends attended Georgia Southern, about an hour away from home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ware\u2019s studies didn\u2019t come with ease. She first signed on as a history major, but realized she didn\u2019t want to teach and switched to psychology. However, a tendency to flip numbers in a required statistics class caused her to bump her minor in communications up to a major.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At that time, she was also dealing with personal issues, and communication studies professors Beverly Graham, Ph.D., and Chris Geyerman, Ph.D., allowed her to do independent study for a semester. Once back in classrooms, she was forever changed by the husband-and-wife duo who continue to teach at Georgia Southern today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey had such a huge impact on how I live my life,\u201d said Ware. \u201cI gained learning tools that I could live my life by. I learned things like northerners stare longer than southerners, or how southerners get closer to you. How they blink more. Or the placement of things on a desk, or their body language. The things that you can learn to help read people do really well with how fast I can work a room, how well I did in sales and how well I pose people with photography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy classes at Southern prepped me to be very successful being in front of people. I was very prepared for the jobs that came my way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After graduation, Ware briefly worked in hospitality in Atlanta before accepting a position at AAMCO Transmissions in Statesboro, a dream job for the self-proclaimed car fanatic who grew up in a town of 2,000 people where \u201canything that has a wheel in it \u2014 we learned to drive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Later, a relationship pulled her to Savannah where she served as a travel sales rep for automotive company LKQ, a role that allowed her to blend her love of cars with her communications prowess and understanding of people. During that time she was introduced to master photographer Dan Leger, now a tour guide in the Savannah historic district. Ware was drawn to the social aspect of photography and volunteered to work with Leger, an ex-military officer who taught her how to pose people and shoot angles quickly, in her free time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The camera soon became Ware\u2019s gateway to adventure, as she freelanced traveling cross-country to shoot ribbon-cuttings for Virginia College. For seven years, Ware experienced the U.S. through its backroads, from the east coast to west, along the Pacific coastline and through Alaska. Later, she traveled to Ireland, Iceland and beyond, a long-lens camera always in hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2003, LKQ cut its East Coast position and Ware\u2019s thriving career skidded to a halt. At the top of her field, \u201cI\u2019m either going to have to move or change professions,\u201d she recalled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon after, on a visit to the former New South Caf\u00e9, she suggested to the owner that he needed music, paintings on the walls, and to wear a chef\u2019s uniform. Several visits \u2014 and rounds of advice \u2014 later, he asked Ware to work for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI told him, \u2018I don\u2019t know anything about your world, but I know how to promote you in mine,\u2019\u201d said Ware.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The networking began. Within a year, the restaurant was thriving and eventually housed a Georgia Restaurant Association Award. Ware photographed all of the restaurant\u2019s events and posted them online to Savannah Master Calendar, a media marketing website that brought small businesses and nonprofits together with the help of a free master community calendar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While attending a culinary event, Liberty Powers, a rep from Savannah Morning News asked Ware for permission to share her photos on the news site. For the next 10 years, Ware contributed nearly 2,000 galleries to the newspaper with an expansive portfolio that grew to include Savannah\u2019s citizens across a variety of venues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A year into her new gig, the paper posted an ad for a social columnist position. Ware pursued the editor, Mona Lisa Castle, relentlessly for four months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m already taking photos for you,\u201d Ware told her. \u201cI have a degree in communications. I didn\u2019t tell her that I made a \u2018C\u2019 in my writing class because I\u2019m so awful at it, but I understood how to write well enough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The editor finally gave Ware a chance, and asked her to cover an event with 1,200 words and 20 photos. After a 10-hour stretch of crafting something that resembled a column, Ware turned the piece in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBunny in the City,\u201d a social column that only showcases the best of Savannah, finally had a home. Castle coached Ware through the process for a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe said, \u2018Bunny, you\u2019re never going to be a great writer.\u2019 She\u2019s right. I never got better. But I\u2019m smart enough to know that, and talented when it comes to getting people to tell me their stories.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2021, Ware was voted \u201cSavannah\u2019s Best Local Newspaper Columnist\u201d by the readers of Connect Savannah, who also featured her as Savannah\u2019s \u201cBest Connector.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, her weekly column moved to Connect Savannah, where she will continue to provide weekly entertainment news, and she is the host of a new weekly segment, \u201cWhere\u2019s Bunny Ware?\u201d on WSAV-TV. Especially close to her heart is an ongoing partnership with Step One Automotive Group, which hosts significant veteran outreach, while she zips around to city happenings in a sponsored Jeep Gladiator, photographing and connecting Savannah, one event at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think I\u2019ve paved my own way and I\u2019ve done it exactly the way I wanted to,\u201d said Ware. \u201cI get to pick who I work with and I only work with people who do good deeds. How blessed am I?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ware continues to go off-grid as much as possible. Next stop, Austria and Romania. As for the 40,000 travel images stored on her iPhone, and the many stories that accompany them, \u201cBunny\u2019s Backroads\u201d may land on bookshelves one day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As always, Ware remains loyal to Georgia Southern, recognizing the education and support she received.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know that my background, from psychology to the theories of communication that seeped into my consciousness, worked,\u201d she said. \u201cFor some people, it\u2019s just something that they learn and they forget. Mine was a life application. Some people are lucky enough to have an education that they benefit from. I\u2019m one of those people. It was a gift. It\u2019s still giving.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014\u00a0Melanie Bowden Sim\u00f3n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Columnist and Photographer Bunny Ware Connects Savannah For Bunny Ware (\u201992), life is best off-script. She\u2019ll tell you she can\u2019t write, but her social column, \u201cBunny in the City,\u201d has been a beloved entertainment fixture in Savannah for the last 12 years. Ware never studied photography, but is arguably the most invited event photographer in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":9731,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[70],"class_list":["post-9728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","tag-fall-2022"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}