![UTC student and reintroduction assistant Seth Little, left, and a pair of UTC alumni—senior aquarist Danny Alexander and curator of fishes Matt Hamilton—pose with Scrappy in front of the Indo-Pacific Reef exhibit at the Tennessee Aquarium. Photo courtesy of Doug Strickland/Tennessee Aquarium.](https://i0.wp.com/blog.utc.edu/news/files/2022/09/20220819-UTC-College-Days-02.jpg?resize=880%2C587&ssl=1)
UTC student and reintroduction assistant Seth Little, left, and a pair of UTC alumni—senior aquarist Danny Alexander and curator of fishes Matt Hamilton—pose with Scrappy in front of the Indo-Pacific Reef exhibit at the Tennessee Aquarium. Photo courtesy of Doug Strickland/Tennessee Aquarium.
Matt Hamilton wasn’t doing the Power C quite correctly.
“It was looking more like a ‘Rock On’ sign. I had to get a tutorial on the correct way to hold my hands and fingers,” he joked.
Hamilton, who graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 1997 with a degree in environmental science, was trying to power up during a photo session at the Tennessee Aquarium.
As part of Homecoming Week’s “Under the C” theme, Hamilton—the Aquarium’s curator of fishes—and fellow UTC alum Danny Alexander recently spent a couple of hours participating in a photo shoot. Current UTC student Seth Little, a general biology major who works at the Aquarium as a reintroduction assistant, also took part.
Photos were shot with Mocs mascot Scrappy in front of exhibits on the Indo-Pacific Reef, Secret Reef and Lemur Forest.
“I was excited and honored to join a few fellow Aquarium staff members in the UTC alumni photo shoot with Scrappy,” said Alexander, who graduated from UTC in 1996 with a degree in environmental science.
In 1998, he was hired full-time at the Aquarium, where he now is senior aquarist.
For him, the photo shoot was a fun voyage back in time.
“It was like being on a quaint Hollywood set, hanging with some friends from the past and getting some photos with our old pal Scrappy,” Alexander said.
“It was hard not to envy Scrappy … still as charming as ever and not aged a bit.”
Little, a graduate of nearly McCallie School, said it was fun to pose with Scrappy.
“Moreover, I think my favorite part of it was that I was representing both my school and my work, both of which I greatly love and enjoy,” he said.
Doug Strickland, the Aquarium’s communications content creator and photographer, also took photos of the UTC football helmet with ring-tailed lemurs, a radiated tortoise and in the Secret Reef—held by volunteer diver Jimmy Lowrey.
Photo gallery courtesy of Doug Strickland/Tennessee Aquarium
![20220831 UTC College Days Secret Reef 09 A University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football helmet in the Secret Reef at the Tennessee Aquarium.](https://i0.wp.com/blog.utc.edu/news/files/2022/09/20220831-UTC-College-Days-Secret-Reef-09-1.jpg?w=371&h=248&ssl=1)
![20220819 UTC College Days 21 University of Tennessee at Chattanooga mascot Scrappy poses in front of the Secdret Reef exhibit at the Tennessee Aquarium.](https://i0.wp.com/blog.utc.edu/news/files/2022/09/20220819-UTC-College-Days-21.jpg?w=259&h=173&ssl=1)