Quin Crumb, 11, is a social activist who performs plays with his theater group. He is wearing a hat and holding a mask from "Zeb's Mountain's Complaint," the play in which he played the part of a fox.
Staff Photo by Allison Carter/Chattanooga Times Free PressABOUT HIM• Name: Quin Crumb.• Age: 12.• School: 6th grade at Center for Creative Arts.• Heroes: Jack Black, Will Ferrell and Johnny Depp.• Wishes more people: Used geothermal heating/cooling, conserved electricity, recycled and composted.• The greatest threat he sees in the future: Global warming.• Hobbies: Reading, whittling, playing video games, hiking and camping.CLAIM TO FAMEQuin Crumb practices environmental activism by acting in plays, spearheading the revival of his school's environmental club, and attending rallies against mountain top removal coal mining.TALENT SHOWDo you know a child age 13 or younger with a precocious talent in academics, athletics or the arts? The Times Free Press is searching for children to feature in "Talent Show," which appears in the Life section on Tuesdays. To nominate a child as a possible subject of a future feature article, e-mail staff writer Casey Phillips at cphillips@timesfreepress.com or call him at 423-757-6205.
To most kids, yard work is a chore to be avoided. Quin Crumb, on the other hand, is looking forward to spending his vacation tilling and weeding.
Interestingly, he'll be doing it at school.
Reclaiming a long-dormant garden in an athletics field behind Center for Creative Arts is just one of the projects Quin, 12, an environmental activist, hopes to tackle with the school's newly revived Earth Club.
The club was founded by Quin's oldest sister, Maya. He and his other sister, Mirel, have spearheaded the effort to bring it back.
Before they can take on issues like a school recycling program or getting rid of foam trays in the cafeteria, they will get their hands dirty tidying up the garden, which went to seed after the original Earth Club disbanded.
"It still has all the plants they planted, but it needs weeding and trimming and all that stuff," Quin said. "I think that's what our first project will be. We're going to have the CCA Weed-A-Thon."
As a toddler, his mother, Jeannie Cerulean-Hacker, involved Quin in environmental activist plays when the family lived in Taos, N.M.
Quin said he mostly slept through his first role as a street cat in a modified version of "Puss in Boots" (Puss takes on the ogre of global capitalism). Since the family moved to Chattanooga in 2003, however, Quinn has played a more active role.
Now a theater major at CCA, Quin has helped his mother write two plays: "Waste Stream Dream," which highlights the potential damage caused by throwing away non-degradable material, and "Zeb Mountain's Complaint," a piece focusing on his most passionate cause, mountain-top removal coal mining.
In September, Quin went to Washington D.C. to take part in the Appalachia Rising rally against mountain-top removal mining where he participated in a performance with Bread & Puppet, a Vermont-based political theater group.
In March, he petitioned in support of the Tennessee Scenic Vistas Act against mountain-top removal coal mining at the Mountain Justice Spring Break in Northern Alabama. This summer, he said he plans to attend Mountain Justice Summer in Kentucky.
Quin said he became interested in speaking out against mountain-top removal practices after his family became aware of the practices used on Zeb Mountain near the Tennessee-Kentucky border.
Seeing the leveling of a mountain and the subsequent effect on the surrounding environment is a strong motivator to take action, he said.
"It makes me feel sick. [These mountains] used to be a really green, lush space, and now, [they] look like a gray desert ... just flat and - gone. That makes me feel very sad."
Quin and his mother are finishing work on a third play about forest preservation, "Robin and the Eco Mystics," which they said they hope to enter in an activist theater festival in Eugene, Ore., next year.
Hacker-Cerulean is a professor of theater and public speaking at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Although she has always made sure environmentally sound practices such as low water use, home composting and recycling have been part of Quin's life, he has always been a self-starter, she said.
That passion for causes has helped him spread his energy to others, whether by gathering signatures petitions or introducing environmentally sound habits to his friends.
"Quin has always had this social ability and is interested in social politics in the way his three older siblings weren't as much," Hacker-Cerulean said. "He's just fascinated by messaging. He sure is good at it."
"All those other kids were drawn into that through knowing Quin. I think it makes a difference."