VIRES Fall 2010

VIRES

For Members of The Florida State University Alumni Association

Fall 2010 Volume II, Issue 1

Photo Essay: A Day in the Life of FSU Alumnus, President Eric J. Barron Feature: FSU’s High-Flying Blue Angel

The Moment Saturday, September 4, 2010 12:01 p.m.

Dustin Hopkins boots the opening kickoff versus Samford. The Jimbo Fisher era is underway at FSU. Photo by Ross Obley

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VIRES is the first torch in the university seal and represents strength of all kinds: physical, mental and moral.

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Contents

Departments

Features

Catching Up With ...

Around Campus

Research & Science Ten Questions

Association News

All in the Family

From the President’s Desk Parting Shot

7 8 14 54 56 68 79 80

21

Team Players Living the Dream of a Life in Sports

26

Garnet, Gold and Blue An FSU Graduate Earns His Angel Wings

36

United Now, United Then Homecoming 2010

42

Hospitality is Her Business How Philanthropy Made a Difference to Cassandra Rayne

46

Picture Perfect A Day in the Life of FSU President Eric J. Barron

71

Fiction by David Kirby

A Sneak Peek Inside His Latest Book

Cover: President Eric Barron in a meeting to discuss FSU athletics. Spread: The Legacy Fountain on Landis Green, sculpted by Ed Jonas '71, represents the university’s evolution from a women’s liberal arts college to the coeducational research university it is today.

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Stay

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College of Arts and Sciences Joe Travis, Dean College of Business Caryn Beck-Dudley, Dean College of Communication and Information Larry Dennis, Dean College of Criminology and Criminal Justice Tom Blomberg, Dean College of Education Marcy Driscoll, Dean College of Engineering Ching-Jen Chen, Dean College of Film Frank Patterson, Dean College of Human Sciences Billie Collier, Dean College of Law Don Weidner, Dean

College of Medicine John Fogarty, Dean College of Music Don Gibson, Dean College of Nursing Lisa Plowfield, Dean

College of Social Sciences and Public Policy David Rasmussen College of Social Work Nick Mazza, Dean College of Visual Arts, Theatre and Dance Sally McRorie, Dean

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with

Yo u r C o l l e g e

www.fsu.edu

The Florida State University Board of Trustees Wm. Andrew Haggard, Chair Susie Busch-Transou, Vice Chair Derrick Brooks Dustin Daniels Emily Fleming Duda David B. Ford Manny Garcia Mark Hillis James E. Kinsey, Jr. Leslie Pantin, Jr. Margaret A. “Peggy� Rolando Brent W. Sembler Eric C. Walker

The Florida State University Alumni Association National Board of Directors Executive Committee Jeffrey L. Hill Scott F. Atwell Tom Jennings, Ph.D. Laurel R. Moredock Allen D. Durham Gordon J. Sprague Michele M. Adair Donald L. Eddings Leon Carl Adams Ruth Ruggles Akers Candace Rodatz Barnes David Brobst Blythe Carpenter Benjamin Crump Kyle Doney Sandra Dunbar Richard Erickson Diane S. Ervin Don Glisson S. Dale Greene Janie Hoffman Thomas V. Hynes Dr. Joda Lynn Steve Oelrich Katie Patronis Steve Pattison Tamara Pigott Michael J. Raymond, Ph.D. James A. Riscigno Susan Sarna Barry J. Scarr Raymond R. Schroeder Delores O. Spearman Cindy Davis Sullivan Karema Tyms-Harris Tommie Waits

From the Publisher Scott Atwell President & CEO FSU Alumni Association

VIRES For Members of The Florida State University Alumni Association 1030 West Tennessee Street Tallahassee, FL 32304 850.644.2761 | alumni.fsu.edu

Publisher: Scott Atwell

Editor: Tara Stalnaker

Designer: Jessica Rosenthal

Sports fans will no doubt find interest in the “Team Players” feature that unfolds on page 21, profiling FSU alumni whose vocations resemble avocations. It was the famed Chinese philosopher Confucius who observed: “Find a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” It seems that these alumni, and others who are listed in the online version of VIRES, have mastered the art of blending their passion with their careers.

Contributors:

I can attest to the virtue of working in the world of athletics, having spent a good portion of my life involved in television sports reporting and sports publicity. Only looking back can I truly appreciate the privilege that was afforded me, and the myriad of events I got paid to attend.

Emily Nix Lynne Adams Takacs David Kirby Sylvia Earle Frank Stephenson

Alumni Association Staff: Operations Sal Nuzzo, Chief of Staff Kathleen Harvey Helm Jenn Mauck Membership & Marketing Tara Stalnaker, Director Tony Archer Valerie Colvin Steve Rine Jessica Rosenthal Programs & Outreach Mandi Young, Senior Director Ryanne Aviña Megan Barnes Tom Block Sue Fulford Joe Mahshie Whitney Powers

Even beyond the “Team Players” story, as you progress through these pages you will find stories of alumni who are passionate about what they do. The common denominator is that Florida State University provided a foundation for each of them to follow their dreams. And that’s something we can all cheer about.

In Seminole Spirit,

Above: In his younger days, Atwell covering FSU’s Sugar Bowl appearance versus Auburn in 1989.

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Catching Up With

MONTEGO GLOVER Felicia in the Broadway Production of MEMPHIS

By Scott Atwell

So there she was at center stage of Radio City Music Hall, closing down the 2010 Tony Awards with the cast of “Memphis,” freshly minted as the year’s best musical.

Montego Glover, FSU class of 1996 (with Honors), had just stepped into the spotlight of Broadway history, and nothing will ever be the same.

“We had worked so hard and so long on “Memphis,” and our hopes were so high. Suddenly our six-year journey had a beautiful, bright shiny bookend. The Tony Award— amazing.”

When we met Montego last fall she was about to begin rehearsals in the Shubert Theatre, New York’s most storied theatrical venue and former home to “A Chorus Line,” the longest running musical in Broadway history. As a wideeyed nine-year old from Chattanooga, Tenn., Glover came to New York on a family trip and the Shubert was the first theatre in which she stepped foot. Today, her larger than life sized image wraps the facade of the building, and to her credit, she now has a Tony Award nomination for best performance by a leading actress in a musical. “ ‘Memphis’ was meant to be,” says Glover, who was part of the show’s west coast tune up in California and Seattle in early 2009. “Every single person involved in the show (cast, creative, producers, crew) is the exact person we needed on the show at the time. No one came to “Memphis” too early or too late, but at just the right time. That hardly ever happens. But when it does, you have what we get to experience every night at the Shubert Theatre. Magic.”

Glover, however, is more than a one-trick magician. While belting out eight shows each week, she is constantly pushing the envelope with time for other projects and disciplines close to her heart.

“More ‘Memphis’ is on my radar,” says Glover, who just signed contracts for another year, “as is more television and film work.

I’ve just completed the season premiere of 'The Good Wife', and I’ll do more concert work, like playing Jazz at Lincoln Center in the spring. And there will more commercials as I continue to work with my amazing commercial clients on their projects.”

Shubert Theatre | New York memphisthemusical.com

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Performing in the Gem Following a two-year, $33 million renovation, it would be misleading to characterize Ruby Diamond Auditorium as venerable. Or even, an auditorium. The grand old dame—venue to thousands of performances and freshman biology lectures—has been lovingly and completely transformed into a state of the art, acoustically superior, premier performance hall. It is a crown jewel for FSU’s nationally ranked College of Music.

For the eyes, Ruby’s new look includes parterre seating, enhanced lighting, rich fabrics and wood textures, along with owl motifs and murals—a nod to the institution’s original mascot. For the ears, acoustics have been calibrated with an enlarged proscenium and tapered walls, plus an orchestra pit that accommodates 80 musicians. While the sights and sounds are larger, seating has been reduced to a cozy 1,280, which is 200 fewer than before.

The construction project included the addition of a rehearsal hall and a new 11,000 square foot reception lobby, the latter of which was made possible by a $1 million gift from the James L. Knight Foundation.

Above: FSU’s Master Craftsman program was commissioned to create the lifesized owl, which flies out of view at the start of each performance.

Inset: Parterre seating has been added to the upper and lower sides.

Photos by Bill Lax

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Ruby’s new curtain was officially raised on October 8, 2010 with university ensembles performing several newly commissioned works, including alumnus and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s, “Fanfare.”

Ruby Pearl Diamond, lifelong citizen of Tallahassee, was one of thirteen members of the 1905 graduating class of the Florida State College. She later received her Master’s Degree from Florida State College for Women.

In 1970 the auditorium was named in her honor.

AROUND CAMPUS

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“I am exhibiting an ongoing series of hand sketches of FSU campus buildings at Montana State University,” he said. “I anticipate documenting the majority of the university’s buildings via hand sketching in the next few years.”

FSU PROFESSOR’S NAPKIN SKETCH EARNS KUDOS IN NATIONAL CONTEST On a small cocktail napkin strategically stained with coffee, an award-winning architect who teaches in The Florida State University interior design program produced a pen-and-ink drawing of a simple country church framed by a sepia-tinted sky.

A faculty member at Florida State since 2009, Dawkins teaches hand-drawing graphic techniques and a studio course in interior design.

To learn more about Florida State University’s distinguished interior design program, featuring an emphasis on sustainable design principles, visit the website at interiordesign.fsu.edu.

-Libby Fairhurst

Below: Dawkins’ award-winning church sketch was a keeper (bottom right).

AROUND CAMPUS

Meanwhile, Dawkins is busy sketching the buildings that grace the Florida State University campus.

Although the project isn’t yet complete, already it has attracted attention in faraway places.

Photos by Paige Southard

For his artistic skill and resourcefulness, FSU Assistant Professor Jim Dawkins has earned an Entry of Merit nod in the 2010 Cocktail Napkin Sketch Contest, sponsored by the venerable industry magazine Architectural Record.

The first-ever national competition of its kind was open to practicing U.S. architects and architecture students and “drew” a total of 1,322 pen-andink entries on the requisite 5” by 5” paper napkins. Only 16 entries earned accolades from Architectural Record’s jury of editors.

“While this competition may seem a bit bizarre— cocktail napkins?—it is based on the architecture and design habit of talking business over lunch or drinks and brainstorming ideas on napkins,” said Eric Wiedegreen, chairman of the interior design program in the FSU College of Visual Arts, Theatre and Dance.

“And from a student’s viewpoint, if your professor can draw that well on a napkin, think of what he could do on a whole piece of paper.”

Dawkins notes with a smile that the Entry of Merit designation from Architectural Record represents his very first honor for a building rendered on a coffeestained cocktail napkin. He will add the quirky but prestigious honor to his formidable collection of top awards in architectural design, bestowed by the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) and other organizations.

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FSU WINS RANGER CHALLENGE

AROUND CAMPUS

FSU’s Army ROTC program has long been considered one of the best in America. After capturing the top prize at the annual Ranger Challenge in Fort Benning, Ga. there’s no doubt they are number one in the Southeast. In mid October, FSU’s eleven-member squad bested 44 other teams (representing 38 universities) during a 30-hour competition that included physical fitness, marksmanship, water rafts and ropes.

“It was one of the most physical and strenuous competitions anybody could do in a 30-hour period,” said Lt. Colonel Gregory Allen, a professor of military science with FSU ROTC, who noted that almost every major university in the Southeast was represented in the competition. “Our cadets were hand-selected.

They were the best of the best of FSU cadets.”

FSU’s Army ROTC program is one of only three in the nation allowed to carry a battle streamer, which is in recognition of the West Florida Seminary cadets who engaged in battle during the Civil War.

The Doctor Will Take Your History Now When Robin Sellers was gathering research for her Ph.D. dissertation on the history of the Florida State College for Women (FSCW), she found most of the important interview subjects unavailable. They had long ago died and little, if any, written history could be found.

“The university made no attempt to save documents and records from those years and, in fact, had made an intentional decision to bury and lose them,” says Sellers, who turned her dissertation into a book called “Femina Perfecta.” “An awful lot of the important papers belonging to President Conradi ended up in the attic of a home formerly owned by his daughter.”

Sellers’ sleuthing not only produced a book, her taped interviews with hundreds of FSCW students laid the foundation of an oral history program that is now housed in FSU’s Department of History, where Sellers is on the faculty.

Right: FSU’s winning Ranger team. Below: The West Florida Seminary cadets who earned the program’s battle streamer at the Battle of Natural Bridge.

Today Sellers is interested in hearing from students who were on campus during the 1940s, 50s and 60s, the pivotal years when FSU transitioned from a women’s college to a major university in the middle of the era of civil unrest on the college campus.

“It’s not that I don’t want to hear from students from the 70s and 80s,” says Sellers. “But I want them to have some distance so they can look back and see how it changed them and allowed them to grow.”

The oral histories take about 45 minutes and are later transcribed and sent to the interview subjects for approval. Once a release is signed, the histories are posted on the FSU website for reference.

If you are interested in providing an oral history of your FSU experience, contact Dr. Robin Sellers via email at rohp@fsu.edu. The archive is available online at ohp.fsu.edu.

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NOW WE Long before the Library of Congress proclaimed her a living legend—and before she recorded the deepest solo dive in the history of mankind— Sylvia Earle cut her teeth on marine biology as a Florida State University student in the 1950s. More than four decades later, she is recognized as one of the most trusted voices in science, a tireless advocate for the world's oceans and the creatures that live in them. In this photo, Earle returned to campus last spring as part of the Origins ’10 program, sponsored by the Florida State University Office of Research, where she narrated a slide show based on her newest book, "The World is Blue," an excerpt of which appears on the next page.

Photo © 2010, Mark Wallheiser 14 Vires

By Sylvia Earle ’55, Explorer-inResidence, National Geographic Society I could hear it coming, a sizzling, bubbling rush of green water more than twice my height, a rogue wave that swept me tumbling into a froth of sand and salt water. All I could think of was air! I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t stand as the undertow pulled me down. I felt deep, numbing fear, when suddenly, the water flowed away, my toes found firm ground, and I stood, sputter­ing but exhilarated. My mother, up to her knees in surf, started to pull me to the shore, but seeing the look in my eyes, paused and—mother of all mothers—did not stop me when I leaped into the next wave. On a New Jersey beach in 1938, the ocean won my heart. I was three years old.

A wave got my attention, but what held it then and set me on a lifetime course connected to the sea and the creatures that live there were the thousands of craggy, brown horseshoe crabs that clambered

ashore every summer. As big as a dishpan, glossy brown with a rounded body, lots of legs, and a long, spiky tail, a horseshoe crab was unlike any other land creature I had ever known. I worried that the crabs would die as I watched them crawling high on the beach, away from the ocean. I spent hours picking them up and putting them back into the water—not knowing that they wanted to go ashore to

Astronauts return from space transformed by seeing Earth, glowing blue against the infinity of the universe. Similarly, I have been transformed through years of seeing the world from the inside out, first by diving in the rivers and inshore waters of the Gulf of Mexico; later, by leading global expeditions and experienc­ing thousands of dives into previously unexplored waters. When I first dived in 1952, I was blissfully unaware that in the same year the very last Caribbean monk seal was sighted, an animal once common in the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, and Bahamas. I certainly was unaware that the ocean globally was on the verge of cataclysmic decline, that the pristine seas I had known as a child were in danger of becoming Paradise Lost. I was not alone in not knowing. Rachel Carson, famous for her 1962 classic Silent Spring, 11 years earlier wrote in The Sea Around Us: “Eventually man ... found his way back to the sea ....

And yet he has returned to his mother sea only on her own terms. He cannot control or change the ocean as, in his brief tenancy of earth, he has subdued and plundered the continents.”

and birds and the serious decline of cod, her­ring, anchovies, oysters, clams and many other forms of ocean wildlife, brought about by aggressive fishing and the use of mas­sively destructive gear. But the vision of a limitless ocean mesmer­ized policymakers, encouraging practices that have accelerated the depletion of marine wildlife and minerals; destroyed irreplaceable ocean species and ecosystems; and simultaneously caused the ocean to be regarded as the ultimate Dumpster.

Now, half a century later, we know how wrong we were.

Ninety percent of many fish common when I was a child are now gone, consumed by eager diners unaware that in their life­time they might witness the disappearance of some of their favorite wild-caught fare, from tuna and swordfish to lobsters and crabs. Low-oxygen dead zones have formed in many coastal areas, largely as a consequence of excess fertilizers and toxic chemicals flowing from upstream fields, farms, and backyards. Plastic debris now clogs beaches, reefs, and even the open sea.

Research and Science

lay and fertilize eggs in the wet sand, then return to the depths. It is a procedure that has worked for these animals for several hundred million years; but, I now know, the horseshoe crab and thousands of other ancient, resilient creatures may not survive the impact my species has had on the living world, largely in a single century. More worrisome, humankind may not survive for long, either, unless we use our remarkable capacity to learn from the past, anticipate the conse­quences, and take actions that will ensure an enduring future. As it turns out, the future of the ocean, the creatures who live there, and our own future are inextricably linked.

Now we know.

Most worrisome of all is the double whammy of excess carbon dioxide from human activities as the principal driver underlying accelerated global warming and climate change, coupled with the transformation of excess carbon dioxide in the ocean to carbonic acid, now causing acidification of the sea on a grand scale.

Perversely, the natural living systems that over billions of years have generated and shaped planetary chemistry in ways that make Earth hospitable for humankind are being destroyed at breathtaking speed.

This, too, we now know.

The idea that the sea would hold steady, no matter what we took out of it—or put into it—dominated attitudes and policies globally in the middle of the 20th century.

There was already evi­dence that there were limits to what could be extracted, based on the near extinction of many of the great whales and other marine mammals, turtles,

Now that I know, I hope to convey a sense of urgency to oth­ers, to inspire use of the special powers that humans possess to take actions to protect what remains and restore whatever we can of the natural living systems that give us life, and provide the underpin­nings of all we hold near and dear.

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Super New System for Science

molecules found in nature can trigger major advances in fields ranging from cell biology to pharmacology. Marshall said the new 21-Tesla system will be capable of studying whole protein molecules at once, as opposed to breaking them apart, as researchers currently are obliged to do.

Research and Science

If all goes well, sometime in 2014 researchers at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, headquartered in Tallahassee’s Innovation Park, will switch on what could be the world’s most powerful analytical machine. The heart of the device will be a brawny superconducting magnet that scientists say will push their abilities to analyze the molecular structure of biological materials to record heights.

Funded by a $17.5 million grant awarded the lab by the National Science Foundation, the project combines the power of a rare class of ultra-high-field magnets with a mass spectrometer, a standard tool scientists use to study and analyze molecules. Invented in the mid-1930s, spectrometers bombard gaseous forms of compounds trapped in a magnetic field with radio signals that serve as electronic probes to identify the compounds’ molecular make-up. The more powerful the magnet, the better the resolution of spectrometry readings, thereby giving analysts a sharper picture of what they’re looking at.

Building the new system is projected to take about four years, says Alan Marshall, director of the mag lab’s Ion Cyclotron Resonance (ICR) program. Marshall is an internationally recognized pioneer in the field of ICR chemistry, acclaimed for coinventing a technique that revolutionized ICR spectrometry worldwide in the 1970s.

“This grant will give us the opportunity to see the chemical and molecular world in unprecedented detail—sort of like HDTV compared to ordinary TV,” he said.

Powering the system will be a superconducting magnet designed to reach 21-Tesla, the standard unit of measurement for magnetic fields. Today, the most powerful commercial-grade magnets used in ICR spectrometry are 18 Tesla, but even these are rare. The highest field now used

by Marshall’s team is 14.5 T, so the new system will boost his ability to identify the basic ingredients of compounds by up to 90 percent, he said.

Applications for such a powerful analytical tool are essentially endless throughout science and industry. Learning the precise chemical structure of exceedingly complex

Alan Marshall

As cancer patients know all too well, cancer cells possess the ability to destroy healthy tissue and spread into a lethal assault on the entire body. Scientists have never fully understood how cancer cells do this, and what is equally puzzling is why some cancerous cells stay put and don’t seem to harm their healthy neighbors.

Articles by Frank Stephenson

Link to Cell Death— and Life—Found

Research by collaborators at Florida State and in Britain recently published findings that shed intriguing new light on the mysterious competition between cancer cells and normal cells. This new evidence reveals, for the first time, the crucial role that an extraordinary gene plays in the lifeand-death struggle among healthy cells forced to battle cancer. (continued on next page)

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Wu-Min Deng

Yoichiro Tamori

The discovery, by FSU cellular biologists Yoichiro Tamori and Wu-Min Deng, along with colleagues at University College London, presents fascinating insight that could prove invaluable to gene therapists and other researchers who fight what the World Health Organization now predicts will soon surpass heart disease as the number one killer in the world.

The team’s primary find is a gene that they named after the ancient Chinese game of mahjong, which involves strategy and luck.

As cancer cells invade healthy tissue, this “mahjong” gene apparently determines which cells live and which cells die. The research showed that the gene binds with a well-known cancer-fighting gene known as Lgl and in doing so, gives Lgl its tumorsuppressing power. In fact, the researchers discovered that mahjong is the only gene that partners with Lgl, a surprising finding

considering the immense variety of genes available in cells.

The biologists used the cells of fruit flies in the initial stages of their work, but soon discovered that the mahjong/Lgl relationship also works in kidney cells extracted from dogs. They confirmed that both genes work in tandem both in the flies and in mammals to regulate competition among cells. The results were always the same. “In competition with their normal neighbors, cells without mahjong were the losers,” Tamori said.

The findings suggest new clues on how cancerous growths advance and may lead to innovative cancer-fighting therapies, he said. Research is continuing thanks to a five-year grant to Deng from the National Institutes of Health.

Women & Testosterone

Mohammed Kabbaj, an associate professor of biomedical science, and neuroscience, has found compelling evidence in tests with lab rats that anxiety disorder in females is linked to testosterone. Commonly thought of as “the male hormone,” testosterone has been linked to an assortment of maladies in women, including the eating disorder anorexia nervosa, depression and poor libido. Male humans are typically born with as much as 10 times as much testosterone as females.

For decades, psychologists have puzzled over a phenomenon that clearly separates the sexes, and not in a good way. Women suffer twice as much from anxiety than men—a disparity that women are obliged to deal with throughout their adult lives.

Exactly what causes anxiety’s seeming preference for women is still unknown, but a team of researchers within FSU’s College of Medicine have a hunch that the phenomenon may be linked to a glaring, well-known disparity in the hormonal systems of men and women.

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Kabbaj’s research focuses on the role of a particular gene that is proven to play

an important role in learning, memory and drug addiction. Tagged as “zif268,” the gene is prevalent in areas of the brain responsible for generating and controlling emotions, an area known as the prefrontal cortex. Males typically have far more “zif” genes operating in their prefrontal cortexes than females. Kabbaj believes the high level of testosterone in males keeps zif expression in the prefrontal cortex high, and therefore may be responsible for these sex differences in emotional responses. His hunch is that this disparity in testosterone keeps a disparity in the “zif” gene that plays a major role in sex differences in anxiety.

A Tunnel to Research & Training

Ground broke this summer at FSU’s southwest campus in Tallahassee’s Innovation Park on a testing and research facility that backers see as a welcomed investment in Florida’s ailing aerospace industry.

The facility is tangible proof that a collaboration created by the Florida Legislature in 2008 between four Florida universities is taking root and on its way to meeting its No. 1 objective—generating a steady supply of highly trained young people who represent the future of Florida’s $100 billion aerospace industry.

Florida State leads the partnership that links aerospace researchers at the University of Florida, the University of Central Florida and Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach.

Called the Florida Center for Advanced Aero Propulsion, the effort was founded by a $14.6 million appropriation from the

“Preliminary data show that testosterone may be protecting male rats from developing anxiety,” Kabbaj said. “The fact that females do not have a lot of testosterone may put them at risk of developing anxiety disorders.”

Though still not proof that testosterone— actually the lack thereof—is indeed the culprit behind higher anxiety levels in women, the evidence is sufficiently compelling to the National Institute of Mental Health for the agency to back Kabbaj’s research. This summer, the agency awarded Kabbaj’s team with a five-year, $1.8 million grant to pursue the theory.

If researchers ever prove the role that the “zif” gene—aided by testosterone—plays in anxiety, Kabbaj said it could open a door for development of a drug to counter womens’ natural, and unequal, predilection for one of the most debilitating psychological disorders known.

One of the main research objectives will be to enhance the efficiency of commercial and military aircraft, Alvi said. Such aircraft are still too noisy and have too much drag— two factors that plague progress in building more fuel-efficient aircraft and quieter and safer airports. Practical applications aside, the facility will serve as a test-bed for advanced training for students in a wide array of aerospace technologies, Alvi said.

The facility and its parent center come at a time when Florida’s aerospace industry is in turmoil. This fall’s closing of NASA’s space shuttle program prompted the layoff and early retirement of roughly 1,000 workers, while a general economic malaise continued to hurt an entire industry that once employed 87,000 people statewide.

Despite these setbacks, hopes for a brighter future were buoyed in September by Congress’s approval of a $58 billion-dollar bill that will keep NASA alive through 2013.

Articles by Frank Stephenson

To test the idea, Kabbaj conducted a series of experiments designed to reduce the expression—essentially disable—“zif” genes in male rats. He found that these male rats became just as anxious as their female counterparts.

Alvi said the wind tunnel will be large enough to attract users from industry but small and versatile enough for university researchers to experiment with. The tunnel will be capable of generating winds of up to 1,500 miles per hour, he said.

Research and Science

The $23 million-dollar, 60,000-sq. ft. building will house a state-of-the-art wind tunnel where scientists, engineers and their students will test new designs in aircraft and rocketry along with new materials that will go into them. Funded in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation, the facility is officially known as the Aerospace Propulsion, Mechatronics and Energy Building. Completion is expected by late 2011.

Legislature’s Center of Excellence Program.

Farrukh Alvi, professor of mechanical engineering within the FAMU/FSU College of Engineering, directs the multi-university center.

Mohammed Kabbaj Vires 19

Team Players

By Scott Atwell

They are not professional athletes but they are professionals in athletics—FSU graduates who have carved meaningful sports careers outside the lines. From front office executives to PR pros, FSU grads are well represented in the world of sports. Here’s the scorecard of a Lucky Seven who come to play, every day.

JEFF PURINTON ’97, ’06

Associate Athletic Director for Football Communications University of Alabama It was the summer of 2007 and Jeff Purinton was golfing in Scotland with FSU friends when his voice mail began to fill up back home. Nick Saban, the newly-named head football coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide, was looking for a media relations pro and several colleagues had recommended Purinton, then Communications Director for the Orange Bowl Committee.

“I got back and had all these voice mails from Nick Saban,” says Purinton, who had been in Miami just one season after 13 years of working with his alma mater’s sports information office.

“I missed being at a university, being around coaches and players. Next thing you know we’re in Tuscaloosa.”

It was just another episode in the charmed story line of Purinton’s life in sports. He started his sports information career as an

FSU undergraduate and started a full-time job before finishing his graduate degree in sports management. Purinton covered baseball in the spring and was on the job the day FSU’s Marshall McDougal blasted his way into baseball folklore with six home runs in a single game. Working with the football team, Purinton followed FSU to a dozen bowl games, including the 1999 National Championship. He was also a college roommate of Heisman Trophy winner, Chris Weinke.

Above: Jeff Purinton leaves the Georgia Dome field with his boss, Alabama football coach, Nick Saban.

Below: Purinton posing with his second Heisman Trophy protégé, Mark Ingram.

As the day-to-day contact and spokesperson for Alabama football he has been no less productive, adding a second National Championship and Heisman Trophy winner to his resume in 2009.

Purinton also led the PR campaign for Alabama’s six first-team All-Americans, an NCAA record for a single year.

“This career has turned out better than I could have envisioned it,” says Purinton, whose parents preceded him with graduate degrees from Florida State. “I got a good taste of this at FSU and it’s very similar to how it is at Alabama.”

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RICK NAFE ’75 Vice President Operations/Facilities Tampa Bay Rays In 1979, at the ripe age of 26, Rick Nafe beat out 250 applicants to land a job as Director of Tampa Stadium, becoming the youngest manager of an NFL facility. He didn’t know a thing about running a stadium, but he was smart, hardworking and insulated himself with a self-deprecating sense of humor, which was vital during that time period in Bay-area sports.

“In the 17 years I was landlord to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers they had the worst winning percentage in the history of all professional sports, according to ESPN,” Nafe says in typical fashion. “Only the Romans against the lions in the Colosseum had a worse record.”

Nafe and his ballpark, Tropicana Field.

The Bucs may not have been good on the field, but as a venue the famed “Big Sombrero” hummed like a well-oiled machine. In time Nafe was promoted to Executive Director of the Tampa Sports Authority, which owned and operated the area’s sports venues.

When Major League Baseball expanded with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1997, Nafe was hired as Vice President of Operations and Facilities.

“I was sort of unique in our industry by giving up ten NFL games a year to work 81 baseball games,” Nafe says. After the Rays made it to the World Series two years ago, Nafe became just the second stadium manager in history to have hosted a pair of Super Bowls, baseball’s World Series and the NCAA Final Four Tournament. After his 30th season as a facility manager he was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Stadium Managers Association.

Throughout all of it, FSU has never been far from his heart. Nafe met his wife on campus and each of their three children attended FSU. He even served six years on the FSU Alumni Association National Board of Directors and remains a season ticket holder for FSU football and baseball.

“I fell in love with FSU completely,” Nafe says.

“It’s where my luck began.”

DONNA TURNER ’85 Associate Athletic Director Northern Illinois University As a high school student, Donna Turner got the chance to intern in a college athletics department and liked what she saw in the world of sports information. It played to her strengths of writing and organization and certainly to her interest in sports. What she didn’t realize then was the satisfaction that would come from looking back at the friendships that have been forged over a 20+year career.

“I love seeing the players grow up—they come in as young 18-year old freshman and leave as adults,” says Turner. “No two days are the same, no two years, no two teams are alike.”

After earning her communications degree at FSU, Turner added a Masters in sports administration from Ohio University. She then returned to Tallahassee for a full-time job with the Seminole Sports Information Office. She has also worked for the Women’s Tennis Association and logged time in press rooms for the Centennial Olympics in Atlanta and several NCAA Final Fours.

Although her career has taken her to the University of Houston, Tulane and now Northern Illinois, she still acknowledges an early memory from FSU that underscores what she does and why she does it.

“It was about three weeks after the baseball season ended and our best player that year was Eduardo Perez. He had completed a great junior year and was named All-American, been drafted and had already started his professional career.

My phone rang one day and it was Eduardo. I thought he wanted me to send him his stats or some photos or something but he said, ‘No, I’m just calling to say thank you for everything you did for me during the season. I really appreciate it.’ That’s why I do this job and to this day I have a picture of Eduardo Perez on my wall.”

KEVIN CARR ’90, ’93 Vice President of Community and Player Programs National Basketball Association With all due respect to Coach James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, the game of hoops is still a work in progress. Just ask the National Basketball Association (NBA), which has a research and development league experimenting with an assortment of potential tweaks and new ideas, like playoff formatting and rules changes.

The “D-League” is also in the business of developing future players, and Kevin Carr’s job is to make sure these athletes are just as polished off the court.

“It takes an understanding of the need to have a balanced approach to life,” says Carr, who schools D-League players in financial management, healthy relationships, career development, continuing education and media training, while also helping them get involved in community outreach. “As a result of this programming our athletes are better performers for their teams and in the community.”

Carr began his career as an athletics academic advisor at FSU, working with stars like Charlie Ward, Derrick Brooks and Warrick Dunn.

He eventually reprised himself in this role at Michigan State University. Nine years ago the NBA brought him to their corporate headquarters in New York, a move that landed Carr on the Top “40-Under Forty” list for “Black Business Magazine.”

Taking his own advice, Carr mapped out his career with the help of a mentor, executive coach and a written business plan that included actionable goals. This past summer, his duties were expanded to the parent league, where Carr is the NBA’s director of player programs for six NBA teams, including the Orlando Magic. “I believe you should have a plan, set standards for yourself and be ready to make sacrifices. Stay mentally tough, work hard and never settle for average in the pursuit of a career you love.”

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GLENN GREENSPAN ’79 Vice President of Communications ETW Corporation That’s ETW as in “Tiger” Woods, which is to say that Glenn Greenspan manages communications for the world’s most recognized athlete.

Greenspan’s career in public relations began while pursuing an FSU degree in speech communication and working as a student and then full-time assistant in the Seminole Sports Information office.

Photo by Getty Images

“I was privileged to work for a sports publicist named Mark Carlson who taught me a lot,” says Greenspan. “After college I stayed on and later the Seminole connection got me my first job outside of Tallahassee, when an FSU graduate named Bucky Wagner, who was the athletic director at Georgia Southern, hired me as his Sports Information Director.”

In the mid-80s Greenspan took a chance on the upstart United States Football League and a job with the Jacksonville Bulls.

Although the league ended, Greenspan made friends in the golf-rich town that is home to the PGA Tour. A public relations job with the PGA Tour was the beginning of a career in golf that has taken him to the pinnacle of the profession. Greenspan spent three years as the communications manager for golfing legend Gary Player before landing a job at the shrine of golf, as the director of communications for the Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters Tournament.

“Everywhere I have worked I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by smart, hardworking people who are willing to sacrifice to get the job done. And it all began at Florida State.”

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BRIAN XANDERS ’93, ’94 MBA General Manager Denver Broncos Football Club After graduating from FSU (where he played on four bowl-winning teams with Bobby Bowden), Brian Xanders begged every NFL team for a job.

He was rejected three times over. Undaunted, Xanders finally landed a gig assisting the Atlanta Falcons with their fitness center, which also catered to the public. “I was changing light bulbs, scrubbing toilets and cleaning racquetball courts,” Xanders remembers. It wasn’t exactly a glamorous lifestyle, but the fitness club would eventually punch his ticket to the big club. Xanders joined the Falcons football staff in a variety of coaching and player personnel positions, as part of a 14-year stint that included a Super Bowl appearance.

In 2009, at the age of 37, the Tallahassee native was appointed general manager of the Denver Broncos, the NFL’s youngest GM at the time.

Xanders’ responsibilities include all player personnel issues, college scouting and labor relations, which puts to good use his two FSU business degrees, including an MBA. Xanders has never been afraid of hard work.

While playing as a walk-on at FSU, he earned extra money by working the night shift at McDonalds, until Bowden granted him a scholarship his final season.

“I’ve worked hard all my life,” Xanders says. “I found a career that I love and because of that I never have to motivate myself to go to work. It’s what I love to do.”

On this day, Rothberg’s production truck was on familiar ground in Tallahassee.

CRAIG ROTHBERG ’90, ’92 Freelance Producer ESPN, ABC and NBC Sports Craig Rothberg’s television career began as an undergraduate, when he was hired as a runner for telecasts of FSU home football games. Rothberg was responsible for the “grunt work,” (as he calls it)— making copies, pouring coffee and picking up the announcers at the hotel. After earning his graduate degree from FSU in 1992 he spent the summer chasing network production trucks from town to town, traveling at his own expense for the right to earn $50 a day. “They had one hotel room for the runners,” Rothberg recalls. “Whether there was four of us that week or 20, we piled into one room.”

Later that fall, Rothberg landed a full-fledged freelance assignment that has taken him on a near 20-year journey to the major sporting events of our time: a half dozen Super Bowls, four Olympics and too many National Championship football games to count. It would be easier to name the events he has NOT worked, which would only be the World Series and Final Four Championship.

Just about everything else has been covered, which explains the 1.9 million miles he’s logged with Delta Airlines.

Rothberg’s assignments have varied inside of the production truck, but mostly he’s been in charge of the electronic graphics and statistics that appear on screen. “When I’m doing college basketball I challenge myself to work an FSU stat into every game—even if it’s not FSU we’re featuring.”

While he used to work as many as three football games a week, Rothberg has cut back on the traveling now that he’s a father, with another child on the way. This fall, he was able to commute from his Orlando home for college football on ESPN and then Sunday Night Football for NBC. But when football season merges with basketball, all bets are off.

“I like to joke that I haven’t worked a day in my whole life,” says Rothberg. “It’s a sports person’s dream. I get paid to go to sporting events.” His favorite, though, was the Olympic Games in Athens, which landed him one of the four Emmy Awards he’s earned as part of the team coverage.

For a listing of other FSU grads who enjoy careers in the sports world, visit VIRES online at alumni.fsu.edu Vires 25

Garnet, Gold and Blue

B l u e A n g e l J i m To m a s z e s k i f l i e s w i t h FSU p r i d e o n h i s t o u r o f A m e r i c a

By Lynne Adams Takacs

On a cloudy, humid morning in Pensacola, a crowd gathers in anticipation. Strangers, baking in the sun, they have little in common. Hailing from different locations, generations and backgrounds, they share one label in common—spectator—and today they are here to watch angels take flight.

Standing at the edge of the crowd, a child spots a line of uniformed men approaching. Conversations, started to pass the time, are quickly abandoned for applause. As children wave and service men beam, a veteran in the back begins his narration loud enough for all to hear. Sitting on metal bleachers, the heat is magnified. But no one seems to notice. The presence of the Blue Angels brings with it a cool silence.

In unison, six men cross the runway wearing their signature navy and gold flight suits. With perfect precision they march forward, fanning out as they reach their F/A-18 Hornet aircraft. Each pilot climbs into his respective cockpit, straps himself in and trades his Navy cap for a golden helmet. Their canopies now lowered, a ballet of sorts begins outside as the ground crew relays a series of perfectly timed maneuvers. Falling into line like dominos, they sprint away before the first plane taxis out and then swings to the left.

The pilot in the first plane waves to the crowd as he pulls away. The next pilot slowly moves forward, following the first. But before he turns, he signals a familiar greeting to those in the stands. With his arm outstretched, he does the Tomahawk Chop, paying homage to his alma mater before he takes flight.

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As

a member

of this elite squadron, you could say

To m a s z e s k i ’ s assignment is one to be envied.

But

along with

courage and skill, humility is one of the traits the

Blue Angels

l i ke to s h ow when they are on the ground.

In

t h e s k i e s , i t ’s a d i ff e r e n t s t o r y .

Only the second from Florida State to hold the coveted title of Blue Angels Demonstration Pilot, Lt. James Tomaszeski (‘00) is an accomplished alumnus and American. Positioned as the number two pilot, he flies at the right wing of the diamond formation and he embodies the Navy’s core values of Honor, Courage and Commitment. As a member of this elite squadron, you could say Tomaszeski’s assignment is one to be envied. But along with courage and skill, humility is one of the traits the Blue Angels like to show when they are on the ground. In the skies, it’s a different story.

Created in 1946, the Blue Angels are the oldest and most renowned flight demonstration squadron in the world. They perform more than 65 shows per year, attracting a collective audience of 15 million who assemble to see the pilots and aircraft defy gravity with vertical thrusts, precision maneuvers and tight formations. At times, flying only 18 inches apart at a speed equivalent to 400 mph, the Blue Angels push their nearly 25,000 pound F/A18 Hornet fighter jets to the limit, forcing high G turns and gut wrenching rolls. To fellow pilots they represent the best, but to many in the audience, they represent the men and women who have dedicated their lives and service to our country in the military—a responsibility that keeps them grounded.

“As a Blue Angel, we represent the 540,000 active duty sailors and Marines. But for those who don’t know the difference between the branches of service, we represent the entire U.S. Military and it is so important that we look and perform at our best,” says Lt. Tomaszeski.

The Fork in the Road Lt. Tomaszeski was not always sure he would join the military. A son of a Naval officer, Tomaszeski grew up near naval bases and saw what military service entailed first hand. Born in Orange Park, Fla., Tomaszeski moved along with his mother and brother frequently as they followed his father on assignments. After graduating from high school in California, Tomaszeski was faced with making a decision on how to spend his future. While he admired his father’s sacrifice and service, he decided to enroll in college rather than signing up.

“I had been exposed to the military all my life and was considering joining,” says Tomaszeski. “But I wasn’t sure if I wanted to join because that was what I had always been exposed to. So I decided to go explore.” And explore he did. Tomaszeski returned to his Florida roots and, like his brother, began attending Florida State University in 1997. “I took advantage of every study abroad opportunity I could,” he recalls. “I studied one summer in Paris and a fall semester in Florence.”

But then something happened.

“While I was overseas, I remember reading a story about an aircraft carrier off the coast of South Africa and it clicked,” say Tomaszeski. “I thought the idea of serving my country on an aircraft carrier half a world away was phenomenal, especially when I considered landing a plane on a carrier at night. The challenge got me excited.”

After he returned, he wasted no time in choosing a major that would lead to an accelerated graduation based on the classes he had already taken. In 2000, Tomaszeski graduated with a degree in Creative Writing and reported for Officer Candidate School at NAS Pensacola.

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Yo u

have to hit the books to know ever y bolt of

that airplane.

I t ’s

j u st l i ke co l l e ge

–

you can either

p a s s , f a i l o r b e t h e b e s t .”

Hitting the Books Like all great achievements, the road to becoming a Blue Angel does not come easy. “When I chose to become a Navy fighter pilot, I had no reason to believe I would be good at it,” Tomaszeski confides. “I had never flown a plane in my life.”

Fortunately, he was a good student, a skill that would be necessary to excel in flight school.

less than the number of United States astronauts.

Belonging to this elite group is an opportunity fewer than 265 pilots have enjoyed.

“So many people think arriving at flight training school is like a scene from Top Gun. You know the scene where Tom Cruise walks up to guys playing volleyball on the beach in their dog tags?” he laughs. “It’s not like that at all. You have to hit the books to know every bolt of that airplane. It’s just like college—you can either pass, fail or be the best.”

As Fate Would Have It Tomaszeski is not the only Florida State graduate to see his name in golden calligraphy on a blue jet.

Wayne Molnar (’76) was the first. Like Tomaszeski, Molnar attended Florida State before joining the Navy. Unlike him, he did not grow up exposed to the military or even consider joining until after he graduated from FSU with a degree in physical education. “I returned home to Mt. Dora and began teaching middle school P.E. and science,” says Molnar. “Before long, I decided it really wasn’t really for me.”

For Tomaszeski, being the best meant being a Blue Angel. To be eligible to apply for a position on the six-person flight demonstration team, a Navy or Marine pilot is required to have a minimum of 1,250 tactical jet flight hours and aircraft carrier qualifications. Of the hundreds of applications received, only a few are handpicked each year to fly, making it no surprise that the number of Blue Angel demonstration pilots is

“When I found out I made the cut, it was like lightning striking. Seeing my name on the plane later was an incredible moment,” Tomaszeski says.

“I love my truck, but I really love my plane.”

Below: Wayne Molnar ’76 flew with the Blues in the 1980s and now captains international flights for American Airlines.

Looking for a different path, Molnar chose to join the Navy in 1978. “I stumbled into the Navy by accident. It was no grand plan of mine,” he recalls. “I wish I would have known at age 10 that I wanted to be a pilot. A lot of the guys I flew with Vires 29

knew early on and started working towards their goal as teenagers. I, on the other hand, had a lot of crummy jobs along the way and could have saved myself a lot of time and effort.”

When Molnar applied for the Blue Angels, he did not expect to be chosen. “I was one of the lucky few,” he says. Molnar was selected to join the Blue Angels team in 1986 and spent his first year narrating the show. In 1987 and 1988, Molnar flew in two positions. First as the opposing solo pilot and then as the lead solo pilot. “Back then we were flying A4’s that were designed in the 1950’s. Then the Navy decided that we needed new planes— the F/A-18s,” he remembered. “They weren’t going to give us the most modern planes because those go out to the fleet, so they found us some Hanger Queens—the oldest planes that were basically retired. That first year was very challenging to keep them up mechanically.”

After taking a few weeks off to train with the F/A-18’s the Blue Angels took to the skies, practicing their new routines. “Some of our old maneuvers worked and sometimes the planes just wouldn’t bend the same way,” he says. “As we practiced, we discovered we needed to fly at a faster speed or a slower speed or change our roll rate. In some cases we even invented maneuvers. It was a challenging but incredible time.”

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Sharing the Dream Flying high is not the only way the Blue Angels leave their mark. Each Friday before they perform in air shows, Blue Angels visit schools and hospitals. “We spend a lot of time with children encouraging them to stay in school, away from drugs and trying to inspire them to be a part of something bigger than themselves,” says Tomaszeski.

As ambassadors of goodwill, they also receive requests from the Make-A-Wish Foundation and other causes from children with terminal illnesses who want to be a Blue Angel. “Visiting with them is such an honor,” says Tomaszeski. “Our tailors outfit them with small blue flight suits, we take them on tours of the hanger, they put on the headsets and sit in the planes. I am not sure who is left with a bigger impression—us or them. ”

For both Tomaszeski and Molnar, the Blue Angels represent more than just flying. “Each time we go to an air show, we know there are going to be veterans in the crowd,” says Tomaszeski. “It is important to us that when they look at their family member standing next to them and say ‘I was once a part of this,’ that they feel proud.”

Early in the season, Tomaszeski’s #2 jet performs a breakaway above Naval Air Station Key West.

Photo by Rob O'Neal, "Key West Citizen"

“We make a lot of first impressions every week.

For those who have never served, we are their window into the military. It’s important that we demonstrate the excellence and professionalism that is carried out on a daily basis from our service members. That’s why we show up with the tight haircuts, the polished uniforms and the freshly shined boots.” he goes on. “Being a Blue Angel is not just about flying. It’s about representing our men and women deployed overseas who have volunteered to be put in harm’s way. It’s a big responsibility.”

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“Each

time we go

t o a n a i r s h o w, we know there are going to veterans i n t h e c r o w d ,” says

“It

To m a s z e s k i .

is important

to us that when they look at their family member st a n d i n g n ex t to them and say

'I

was once a part of this,' that they f e e l p r o u d .”

Opposite page: The Tomaszeskis at last fall’s Maryland game. From left, Jim, his brother Mike and sister-in-law Emery, who are also FSU graduates.

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d l i W e h t o t n I r e d n o Y e u l B New Horizons Next year, Tomaszeski will end his time with the Blue Angels and will return to life at sea. “I will always be proud of my time as a Blue Angel, but I am looking forward to returning to a carrier squadron,” he says. “The average sailor on board is just 20, which means most of them joined after the attacks of September 11 when the country was fighting a war. They just want to do their part for our country, and I am honored to serve alongside them.”

Molnar also returned for another tour at sea after hanging up his blue flight suit. In 1998, he ended his military career with 20 years of service, but he didn’t give up his golden wings. Instead, he signed on with American Airlines as a pilot. Captain Molnar now lives in New York, piloting flights to London, Japan and South America.

He still keeps in touch with some of his teammates, participating in charity events they have organized and support. He also keeps an eye to sky when he flies just in case he spots a Blue Angel on its way to perform.

“The best three years of my life were spent as a Blue Angel. When I tell people this they respond, “Oh, how sad,” Molnar laughs. “Then I tell them, don’t be sad. You don’t realize how good they were! I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

t i n g Pa st ives Her Pilo l e R d a r G W 1938 FSC

By Lynne Adams Takacs The year was 1942 and a war was raging. After surviving the Great Depression and waiting for loved ones who would never return home, America had begun her difficult march forward.

Like so much, the landscape had changed and soon the skies would, too. For the men were becoming scarce and the women were finding their wings.

Among those taking flight was a pilot named “Tex” Amanda Brown Meacham, who had graduated four years earlier from the Florida State College for Women. Standing at a mere 5’4, she barely reached the height requirement needed to join the group of women aviators assembled to assist with the war effort. As a member of this exclusive organization of Women Airforce Service Pilots or WASP, Meacham was to become one of the first women to fly an American military aircraft. At the time though, this fact never crossed her mind. “We had no plans to be heroes,” she says. “We just wanted to do our part.”

(continued on next page) Vires 33

In her quest to earn her wings, Meacham joined the Civil Air Patrol. “If you paid your dues of $25 annually, you could rent planes at half the cost,” she says. “To save even more money, I would tie down the planes instead of putting them in a hanger.”

Meacham’s affiliation with the Civil Air Patrol grew when she decided to take a job with the organization in Sarasota as their bookkeeper. “I had graduated with an economics degree and a minor in accounting. I told them I would be delighted to keep their books, but only on one condition: they had to let me fly.

Climbing High While working for the Civil Air Patrol, Meacham soon learned about another opportunity to serve her country—the WASP program. “It was very hush-hush at first because it was strictly an experiment,” says Meacham.

The “experiment” was to allow women pilots to fly military planes stateside, while the men were sent to fly abroad. “It was decided that if they trained the girls the same as the boys, we could take over the domestic chores,” she says. “I joined the seventh class and we trained exactly as the boys did, except we were not required to do chin ups and only very minor push ups.”

Into the Wild Blue Yonder If you ask Meacham if she always wanted to fly, chances are she would laugh and say no. “Unlike so many other pilots, I was never one to look to the skies and say, ‘I want to fly,’” she confides. That is until it became practical. “I just wanted to find a quicker way to get to the beach,” says Meacham.

“Driving from Gainesville to Daytona took three hours. Flying there took just 30 minutes.” Little did she know this decision would lead to her receiving a Congressional Gold Medal nearly more than 60 years later.

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According to Meacham, her class was told they when they signed on that they would become part of the service. “But at the time we were considered civilians and paid our own way out there,” she recalls. “When someone died, and they eventually did, we did not receive a military escort. Instead, we took up a collection to buy a flag and one of us took time off to present it to the family.”

Here They Come After a long battle in Congress to commission the WASP into military service failed, the program was terminated on December 10, 1944. “We didn’t know why at the time. We were too busy doing our jobs to know what had happened,” says Meacham.

“We were pilots, not legislators.”

With her feet firmly planted on the ground, she went forward with her life, marrying John Meacham, a navigation instructor she had met at an airbase in Hondo. The two had three children together. “Once the youngest was old enough to go to school, I decided to get out of the house and get my master’s degree from Syracuse University in Library Sciences,” says Meacham. “I took a summer class in government and we were going over the history of the military so I decided to do a project about the WASP. That’s when I learned we were never considered enlisted and that our records were sealed. After discovering that, I was in orbit for most of that summer.”

Zooming to Meet the Thunder Since they were disbanded, the WASP members had remained largely silent.

However in the mid 1970s, the hive began to buzz. “The Air Force came out with a big campaign announcing they were going to let women enlist and for the first time ever, a woman could fly a military plane,” says Meacham. “Boy did we come out of the woodwork on that.” In what was later called the “Battle of Congress,” the WASP fought to obtain recognition as veterans of WWII. “We raised merry Cain and President Carter decided to give us a certificate of honorable discharge and two awards: the American Theater Ribbon and a WWII Victory Medal,” says Meacham. “There was no fanfare or ceremony. It arrived in the mail in a brown envelope.”

At ‘Em Boys, Give ‘Er What’s Due On July 1, 2009 President Obama and Congress awarded the WASP the Congressional Gold Medal—more than 60 years after their service. During the ceremony, President Obama said, “The Women Airforce Service Pilots courageously answered their country’s call in a time of need while blazing a trail for the brave women who have given and continue to give so much in service to this nation since.

Every American should be grateful for their service, and I am honored to sign this bill to finally give them some of the hard-earned recognition they deserve.”

In March 2010, the WASP members were presented the Congressional Gold Medal from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “The process for creating the medal takes a long time because each medal is designed to fit the recipient. On our medal one side shows three female pilots with planes in the back ground and the other side says we were the first women to fly military planes,” she says.

“On July 1, 2009 we had nine people left in our class. In March three had died before receiving the medal. Fortunately, they knew it was coming. They would have been so proud.”

Still Soaring Three quarters of a century after her first flight, at age 93, Meacham fulfilled a wish to take another flight in her beloved AT-6 Texan. On a spring morning at Ft. Lauderdale Executive Airport, not far from where she lives in a Pompano Beach retirement village, Meacham strapped herself into a refurbished, two-seater version of the aircraft and took a ride down memory lane. The City Mayor, a men’s choir and a team of friends from Meacham’s chapter of the Red Hat Society were on hand to cheer.

“Receiving the medal has made me famous on campus and everyone knows me now,” she says with wonder. “People know my name and I don’t remember meeting them.

It’s been a good time.”

Opposite page: Tex Brown as she appeared in the 1938 FSCW yearbook and later as a flyer with the Women Airforce Service Pilots. Above: Meacham proudly displays her long-awaited Congressional Gold Medal. Below: Just prior to reprising her role as an AT-6 pilot at age 93.

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2

1 3

4

1. 2009 Homecoming Princess Shannon Brockman and Chief Tyson Brock chat with Grad Made Good Lt. General Franklin Hagenbeck. 2. Ashley Jantschek and Bobby Seifter were crowned at 2010 Pow Wow, recipients of the reprised Chief and Princess trophies. 3. Gator bait trailed the parade car of Alumni Board Chairman Jeff Hill. 4. Chief Osceola and Renegade. 5. FSU’s first cheerleader, Maggie Allesee.

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5

ALL COLLEGE ALUMNI TAILGATE Nearly 600 alumni and friends gathered inside the white picket fence on the lawn adjacent to Dick Howser Stadium, renewing a second year tradition hosted by each of FSU’s academic colleges.

Participants enjoyed a BBQ pregame meal and entertainment provided by All-Night Yahtzee, the FSU Circus and cheerleaders.

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1

2

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3

4

5

HOMECOMING AWARDS BREAKFAST 1. Retiring provost and alumnus Lawrence G. Abele was the recipient of Garnet & Gold Key's Ross Oglesby Award, in addition to the Bernard F. Sliger Award for Service, the FSU Alumni Association’s highest honor. 2. Grad Made Good Lt. Gen. Franklin “Buster” Hagenbeck (’78), United States Army (ret.).

3. Tommie Wright put the crowd in game-day mode by closing out the ceremony with his performance of the FSU Fight Song. 4. Dr. Charlotte Maguire interacts with a young, honored member of the Seminole Tribe. Maguire, known as the “Mother of the Med School,” presided over the homecoming parade as grand marshal and was also surprised with the Alumni Association’s Circle of Gold Award.

5. SAA President Janie Hoffman and Alumni Board Chair Jeff Hill applaud the remarks of President Eric J. Barron.

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HOSPITALITY

By Emily Nix

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Is Her Business

As the oldest of eight children, Cassandra Rayne learned at an early age to associate food with taking care of others. This realization grew into a passion for Rayne—to show how cooking can be an expression of love and caring.

Rayne pursued her passion by enrolling in the prestigious Culinary Institute of America. During her time at the institute, she was awarded two of two available awards for scholastic achievement and technical performance from faculty members. After graduating with honors with a degree in Baking and Pastry Arts, Rayne set her sights on a new dream— owning her own bakery.

“It was clear I would need further education in order to become a successful business owner,” Rayne said. “Little did I know where that spirit would take me!” Rayne researched her options and considered many programs, including Cornell University’s hotel school.

“There was no program that appealed to me as much as The Florida State University’s Dedman School of Hospitality,” she said. “I loved the low faculty-to-student ratio and had heard how its familial atmosphere made for a great education. Dedman seemed to be very well respected throughout the industry and had a business-oriented focus, so I knew the training on the basics of business would be solid.”

When Rayne began her studies at Florida State in January 2009, she found her experience even sweeter than she expected when she was named a recipient of the Jane Zuknick Morgan Scholarship in the Dedman School of Hospitality.

In May 2009, Rayne was able to meet Morgan, a 1982 alumna of the Hotel and Restaurant Administration program in the College of Business (now the Dedman School), when Morgan was in Tallahassee to support the Dedman School, which faced the threat of elimination due to budget cuts.

Because of generous support from

College of Business alumni and friends, like Jane Morgan and her husband George Morgan, and the resolve of faculty, staff and students, it was announced that the Dedman School would become a stand-alone program under the administration of the College of Business, ushering in a new era for the program.

"This change to being a stand-alone program allows us to provide a worldclass hospitality education to more students and continue to nurture our relationships with industry leaders,” said Dr. Jane Ohlin, director of the Dedman School of Hospitality and Robert H. Dedman Professor of Hospitality

"I

as a student.” The department gradually gave Rayne more and more responsibility, culminating in her current full-time position as a research assistant in the Food and Beverage Lab. Before she graduated, Rayne was already improving and simplifying lab delivery for her students. She wrote a 150-page course guide, implemented in fall 2009; taught five two-hour labs; developed, designed and distributed lesson plans for other sections of laboratories; created budgets and conducted research into how to turn her class into a profit-maker; and supervised and trained lab assistants and adjuncts, all while maintaining a perfect 4.0 in her undergraduate classes.

loved the low faculty-to-student ratio

and had heard how its familial atmosphere m a d e f o r a g r e a t e d u c a t i o n ."

Management. “This will further benefit our students in the classroom and after graduation."

Ohlin added that the establishment of the Dedman School as a stand-alone program meant that it was imperative to attract new students by developing innovative classes taught by the school’s world-class faculty and industry professionals. Fortunately, with Rayne’s admission to the Dedman School, the university would be able to meet both criteria.

Rayne graduated Summa Cum Laude in May 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in Hospitality Management. From the time she began her classes, Rayne was noted as an exceptional student and teacher.

“The need to develop and create new concepts hit earlier than I expected,” Rayne said. “I was invited to teach as full-time staff directing introductory food laboratories. Under the guidance of my wonderful mentor, Dr. Kimberley Harris, I developed new curriculum for our food labs while I was in the course Vires 43

The pleasure of sharing the knowledge of her colleagues and the work they do together compels Rayne to continue to collaborate and create new ways to teach.

“As a student, I quickly noticed how the Dedman School is like a family, and this sense has continued in my experience as a staff member.” Rayne said. “The faculty really care about each other and their students, and the students stick together and are encouraging and kind to each other.”

“I think it is an exciting time to be a part of the school as we add enrollment and develop our curriculum,” said Rayne.

“It will be great to see where the future leads.”

If where she has been is any indication of where she is going, Rayne has much to look forward to. She notes that she has just as much to be thankful for.

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Rayne’s praise of Morgan is echoed throughout the Dedman School, College of Business and entire university.

“Jane has continually asked us about particular needs that would directly benefit our students and has immediately provided support in monetary gifts and also with the gift of her time,” Ohlin said. “She doesn’t wait to be asked for help; she proactively contacts us and requests to know the needs of students.

“B e i n g

awarded

a scholarship in s o m e o n e ’s n a m e i s a l w a y s a n h o n o r, and it was even more

“Thanks to Jane Morgan’s generosity, as well as those who provided for the five other scholarships I received, I had the time to focus on my education and work on projects that contributed to the department’s success, to increase my own skills and responsibilities, all leading to the position I currently hold and love,” Rayne said.

wonderful to have

“Being awarded a scholarship in someone’s name is always an honor, and it was even more wonderful to have the opportunity to meet Mrs. Morgan in person,” Rayne said. “She is very kind and carries herself with a quiet strength that I admire.”

kind and carries

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Mrs. Morgan

i n p e r s o n ,” said.

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Rayne is ver y

herself with a quiet strength that a d m i r e .”

I

Ohlin goes on, describing how Morgan knew the Dedman School was in need of financial support for graduating seniors to be honored with a luncheon—a luncheon prepared by the junior classmen, who happened to be Rayne’s students—and so she took action. “Jane made a special gift for this particular purpose based on her memories of the same tradition taking place when she was a student,” Ohlin said. “Jane recognizes the value of honoring tradition, and she has a tremendous vision and insight into how she can help students who have great potential to achieve their goals.

She is well-known here in the Dedman School of Hospitality and considered a valued member of our alumni and a very dear friend.”

Honoring tradition is one of the many reasons Morgan says she has started a legacy at Florida State.

“Of my many fond memories of Florida State, I remember always feeling validated by my professors that I mattered to campus leadership, even at a large university,” Morgan said.

“My first memory of what is now the Dedman School was attending a welcome barbeque at then-department chairman Richard Almarode’s home for all incoming students. I remembered getting that this was a special program with a strong family-like spirit.

“To this day, anytime I meet a fellow Dedman graduate, it is amazing how quickly we connect by sharing our stories,” Morgan continued. “The blessings I received from Florida State are too numerous to mention, but my time on campus provided me with the tools necessary to build a successful career and many lasting friendships. I endured many financial struggles in the process of earning my degree, and that drives my giving focus at the university.

It is important to me to give back to the university in a way that provides scholarships to deserving students, and to see successes like Cassandra’s makes our decision to give easy. “ Jane and George Morgan’s gift has allowed Rayne to succeed in the present and planted a seed of continuing the cycle of philanthropy into the future. “It is one of my goals to contribute to the same funds that have made my education and professional development possible,” Rayne said.

“Mrs. Morgan sets an example of giving back to the community in a way that has had real, tangible impact on my own life.

I’m now pursuing my MBA at Florida State in part because people like Jane Morgan have shown this as a possibility for me. I have straight A’s so far and hope to keep moving in that direction. I am thankful to her for helping me get on a career path I hope to continue on for years to come!

Thanks to a gift from one accomplished Dedman graduate to another just beginning her successes, Rayne’s future looks sweet, indeed.

DONOR PROFILE

JANE MORGAN Even before she enrolled in her first class, Dedman School of Hospitality alumna Jane Morgan (’82) was smitten with The Florida State University.

In high school, she was appointed as a Florida Senate page and to save on expenses during her trips to Tallahassee, Morgan bunked with her high school principal’s daughter, an FSU student. During these trips, Florida State left a permanent impression on Morgan.

As the eldest of five children, Morgan knew it would fall on her shoulders to pay for her education. She worked part time jobs and attended a junior college, saving up as much as she could. The owners of the restaurant she worked at began encouraging Morgan to consider the hospitality program at Florida State’s College of Business. A conversation with then-department chair, Richard Almarode, sealed Morgan’s fate—she knew she was going to be a ‘Nole.

But her time as a student was only the beginning of Morgan’s relationship with Florida State.

“One week after I graduated, I was sitting at a desk in Tampa, working as a hospitality industry consultant,” Morgan said. Soon after, she met her husband of 26 years, George Morgan, a University of South Florida graduate.

“Both George and I credit the education we received from our respective universities for much of our success in life,” Morgan said. “Donating to, and volunteering on behalf of, our alma maters are our ways of trying to help others achieve the same wonderful life we’ve gained from our education and network of college friends. “We have a strong belief in the ‘pay it forward’ concept that dictates a good turn be repaid by helping others—not only with the giving of financial resources—the gift of time matters as well.”

At Florida State, the Morgan’s generosity extends across the university, Alumni Association, Foundation and throughout the state in gifts of service, scholarships, annual fund donations, endowments and an estate gift.

The Morgans are involved with many of Florida State’s programs in their hometown of Sarasota, Fla., where they enjoy promoting the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, the FSU/Asolo Conservatory, the Sarasota campus of the College of Medicine and area programs of the College of Nursing.

“Jane and George Morgan’s dedication to giving back is steadfast,” said College of Business Dean Caryn Beck-Dudley, “as is their commitment to inspiring others to follow their example.”

“There are amazing things happening on campus and in our affiliated programs beyond campus boundaries,” Morgan said. “Take the time to learn about them and find something that clicks with your experiences and interests. I want to do everything in my power to ensure FSU’s continued growth as one university, and I hope other alumni choose the same path.”

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October 7, 2010 Coffee Hour/President’s House

“I like to start the day with a latte. It’s a time when I can sit and be a little reflective or read the paper. It’s just a pleasant time to have that cup of coffee and get energized.”

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Photos by Michele Edmunds

When you’re the leader of 40,255 students, 2,268 faculty, 1,721 staff and 285,000 alumni, no two days are the same. From pre-dawn to dark, Dr. Eric J. Barron balances a calendar chock full of policy and public relations; academics and athletics. No two days are the same, but the following is a snap shot of one day in the life of Florida State’s 14th President.

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“I’m probably out of town one or two days of every week, but if I am in town on Tuesdays and Thursdays I try to be there for the 6:15 opening of Leach so that I can play racquetball and work out a little. I’ve been playing racquetball for about 15 years. I used to be really good.”

“We have 285,000 alumni and our giving rate is relatively modest compared to our potential. In this day and age we just can’t survive if we don’t have the philanthropic dollar in addition to the state dollar.

It has not been an area of emphasis but we’re not going to be great if we don’t turn it in to one.”

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Public Appearance/Civic Center Keynote speaker at monthly meeting of the Tallahassee Economic Club.

“Tallahassee is a great community for a university so it’s very important our home town understands what constrains us, what we aspire to do and what we’re working to accomplish. We want to be a good partner and we also want the folks in this city to be an advocate for the university.”

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Visiting Lecturer/President’s Suite Paul Hirchson, Consulate General of Israel for Florida & Puerto Rico, with College of Social Sciences Communications Director, Joan Kallestad, before Hirchson provides a guest lecture on The Path to Peace and Prosperity in the Middle East.

Research Foundation Meeting/Westcott Building

“One of the signs of a strong research faculty is the ability to bring in significant grants and contracts and the Research Foundation works to energize those activities. Right now we’re at about $215 million per year and some day we’re going to be at $400 million.”

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“This just plain makes a university fun. When you realize that you have so many different disciplines, so many bright people, so many different walks of life—it becomes an education in itself beyond the classroom just to understand people and their perspectives. To have a university that’s not diverse would be a tragedy.”

Athletics Update/President's Suite Seminole Boosters President Andy Miller, Executive Director Charlie Barnes and Athletics Director Randy Spetman.

“We want students to excel in as many ways as they can and athletics is another way of showing what they’re capable of doing physically and as a team.

Athletics is also part of the sense of community that we have and a sense of pride about being part of an institution. And it’s the number one thing that brings alumni back to campus.”

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College of Music Reception/President's House In recognition of a $5.6 million gift from Sarasota classical music critic Albert H. Cohen, benefitting FSU’s Baroque music program. First Lady Molly Barron joins her husband in welcoming guests.

“Molly and I have been together for 30 years and we’ve always been partners. Our faculty's achievements aren’t just a contribution of one person, they’re from the contributions and commitments of a family. Most of our alumni are coming to events as couples. From our point of view we should be meeting people the way we live and so you’ll always see Molly and me together at most activities.”

“Al Cohen is not alumnus, but he heard FSU students play and realized ours is a serious music program with a high level of enthusiasm among our students, as well as talent. He decided that if his hard-earned money was going to help with his dream of supporting music, then FSU was the place to make that gift. So we were celebrating that fact.”

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“The day ends in all sorts of different ways. It could be that ten or eleven o’clock comes along and we’ve just finished an event and I'm ready to collapse. Or it could be that a dinner has ended and there’s a chance for me and Molly to sit down together, have a glass of wine, chat a little while and relax before we get ready for the next day.”

Day's End Vires 53

TEN QUESTIONS W

ith

So how do you characterize Myron Rolle? Athlete? Scholar?

Philanthropist? How about multi-faceted? This time last year he was knee-deep in studies for a masters degree in medical anthropology from Oxford University, after famously earning a Rhodes Scholarship in 2008 (practically on National TV as he raced from the Rhodes event to an FSU football game in Maryland).

After forgoing the NFL Draft in his first year of eligibility, the former FSU All-American (and Academic All-American who earned his undergraduate degree in two and a half years) is now on the practice squad of the Tennessee Titans, while finalizing plans for medical school, life as a neurosurgeon and a wellness education foundation that will impact countless lives.



How would you describe your Oxford experience in a single word?

Edifying



What do you miss most about your Rhodes experience?

I miss the small group ideological bouts at the Turf Tavern or Teddy Hall Formal Dinners. You are intellectually challenged there and must elucidate and defend your position or you will sink.



What do you miss least?

I do not miss the distance placed between me and my sport—football.



What will be the most important, lasting result of your Oxford experience?

I went forth with a plan to acquire knowledge, skills and experiences onto my body that, Lord willing, will prove beneficial in the future. There was an athletic career sacrifice tied to money and a NFL Draft position, but I feel confident that we made the right decision.



What surprised you most about your first NFL camp?

The men who play in the NFL are grown. Conversations are no longer about fraternity parties and girlfriends; they are about home mortgages and wives.

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Rh o d es Sc h o l a r My ro n Ro l l e 

You keep a journal of goals. How have they changed in the last year?

The goal of having immediate success in the NFL is the only one that has changed.

It has not come, yet my timeline for success is insignificant in comparison to God’s.



Are there any funny stories related to your selection as the second most intelligent player in pro sports?

That selection just gave my Titan teammates more reason to approach me on any matter non-football related. Most of which, I am not qualified to answer!



What is something you learned at FSU that helped you today?

I learned, through relationships and opportunities, to expand my lens to see global issues as a human being.

Understanding my role as a citizen of the world will be key to making an indelible impact on lives and/or social injustices



You have said one of the most difficult aspects of being Myron Rolle is managing other people's expectations of you.

How have you fared?

It was difficult, at first, to tell younger children of my hometown—Galloway, N.J.—that I have not propelled to absolute stardom in the NFL. They look up to me and expect gold on my endeavours. I must use this rookie year as a teaching experience to show that dreams may be slowed, but a consistent move forward, onward and upward will carry you far.



What do you want us to know?

Proverbs 22:1 says, “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold.”

I believe the best have been good people first and wealthy a distant second.

Myron Rolle is the Chairman of the Myron L. Rolle Foundation, and will be holding the first ever Elite Student Athlete Academy in Nashville, Tenn. in July 2011. For more information on Myron visit his website at MyronRolle.com.

Myron Rolle poses in the original 15th century library of his Oxford College, St Edmund Hall.

Photo by Chris Floyd Vires 55

ASSOCIATION News

Welcome New Board Members Seven new members were welcomed to the FSU Alumni Association National Board of Directors this fall. Our National Board is comprised of 36 Members who serve as ambassadors to the FSU alumni community and provide top-level direction to the Alumni Association.

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Mr. Carl Adams B.S. Criminology, 1970 President, Florida Association of Professional Lobbyists (FAPL)

Ms. Blythe Carpenter

Dr. Richard Erickson

Mr. Donald Glisson

B.A. Theatre, 1996 Senior Account Manager, Riverside Publishing

B.A. International Relations and Speech, 1964 and M.A. Government, 1965

B.S. Finance, 1982 Chief Executive Officer, Triad Financial Services

Mr. Tom Jennings, Ph.D.

Mr. Steve Pattison

Ms. Tamara Wells Pigott

Vice President of University Advancement, The Florida State University

B.S. Finance and Accounting, 1979 Chief Financial Officer, Restaurant Services, Inc.

B.S. Economics, Political Science, 1988 and M.S. Political Science, 1990 Executive Director, Lee County Visitor & Convention Bureau

Association News FSU Alumni Association Legacy Scholarship The FSU Alumni Association Legacy Scholarship Program was established in 2010 to encourage the children of Florida State alumni to attend their parent’s alma mater and perpetuate the Seminole legacy within their family. For the inaugural year of the scholarship program, six recipients were chosen out of the hundreds of impressive applications that flooded the FSU Alumni Association headquarters.

Alyssa Lokie | Round Hill, VA Major: Exploratory "This scholarship means the world to me because it brought me to the college that means so much to my family and allowed me to spend my first year studying abroad with the FSU Florence program. I have been privileged to see more beautiful, historic sites than most people get to see in a lifetime."

Hannah Eaker | Tallahassee, FL Major: Special Education "FSU was the only school I applied to because I knew that being raised as a Seminole, nowhere else would feel like home to me."

Christie Nowels | Tampa, FL Major: Communication "Being raised in a home of garnet and gold is something I take pride in and I have always known in my heart that FSU would be my number one choice for college. This award means more to me than words can express because I have been a Seminole since the day I was born."

Kelsey Portugal | Mattoon, IL Major: Communication, Media Production "I look forward to many of the new experiences that FSU may bring—from football games and intramural sports to clubs and interesting classes, I want to experience it all."

Meghan Berger | Sudbury, MA Major: Psychology "Even in the first few months of my freshman year, I am extremely proud of my decision to be a Seminole. I feel overwhelmed yet excited about all of the possibilities, and I can’t wait to take advantage of all the opportunities FSU has to offer."

Lauren Alagna | Spring Hill, FL Major: Theatre "While at Florida State, I plan to accomplish many things that will shape my entire life. I want to learn everything my professors have to offer so I will not only be a well-rounded performer but a well-rounded person as well. "

If you would like to make a gift to the Alumni Association Legacy Scholarship Endowment Fund, call 850.644.2766 or visit alumni.fsu.edu.

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Fall 2010 Circle of Gold induction Five distinguished alumni were honored as recipients of the FSU Alumni Association’s Circle of Gold Award on Sept. 17, 2010. Recognized at the ceremony for helping the university in unique and remarkable ways were Eric J. Barron, Gordon Gaster, Wayne Hogan, Laurel Moredock and William Proctor.

The Circle of Gold award recognizes individuals who, through their service and achievements, personify the university’s tradition of excellence. A maximum of 12 awards may be presented each year. The following recipients are noted in alphabetical order.

Eric J. Barron (B.S. ’73, Geology) From being an honors student to becoming the 14th president of Florida State, Eric J. Barron, has come full circle and his induction into the Circle of Gold makes it official.

As a student at Florida State, Barron earned his undergraduate degree in geology and went on to become a professor, dean and highly respected climatologist.

“It is a rare opportunity, when an institution of higher education can name one of its own to the highest office on campus,” said Scott Atwell, president of the FSU Alumni Association. “It says a lot about the individual, and much about the role the institution has played in the life of that person.”

Gordon Gaster (B.S. ’56, Economics) As a student in the College of Business, Gordon Gaster, took his academic commitments seriously, yet he still found time to serve as student body vice president and play in the Marching Chiefs. Today, Gaster is a first vice president and senior financial advisor with Merrill Lynch and Company in Palm Springs, Fla., and has served as director of the Economic Council for Palm Beach Gardens.

He is an active community leader and is a supporter of several charitable causes.

Since graduating from FSU, Gaster has continued to be involved with helping Florida State in numerous capacities. For the Alumni Association, he has served on the National Board as treasurer and chairman. He also chaired the FSU Foundation’s finance committee for two separate terms.

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Association News Laurel Moredock (B.S. ’78, Accounting) Her decision to attend Florida State was not a surprise with Laurel's family history. Her grandmother graduated from the Florida State College for Women and her parents, also alumni, met at the Sweet Shop, an iconic campus cafe. Her brother, sister and daughter all are Florida State alumni as well.

The owner of Laurel Richardson Accounting in Jacksonville, Fla., Moredock serves on the National Board of Directors of the FSU Alumni Association, sits on the executive committee and is chair elect for 2011.

Wayne Hogan (B.A. ’69, J.D. ’72) A double graduate of Florida State University, Hogan said he continues to value the education he received while at FSU and considers it a distinction. His involvement and support for Florida State has been notable for decades.

Hogan has served as a past trustee on the FSU Foundation board; a life member of the FSU Alumni Association; a Seminole Booster Golden Chief; and a past president of the FSU College of Law Alumni Association.

Hogan, president and attorney with Terrell Hogan Ellis Yegelwel law firm in Jacksonville, Fla., has been recognized as “Trial Lawyer of the Year” and served as president of the Academy of Trial Lawyers.

Bill Proctor (B.S. ’56, M.S. ’64, Ph.D. ’68, Educational Leadership) A three-time graduate of Florida State University, Proctor said that FSU prepared him well for his diverse career that has included coaching football, being an educator and a politician.

In 1971, Proctor became President of Flagler College in St. Augustine, a position he held for 30 years. Today, the library at Flagler bears his name and he continues to serve the institution as chancellor. In 2004, Proctor was elected to the Florida House of Representatives and currently serves on the Education Appropriations Committee.

Proctor has been the recipient of the Commissioner of Education’s Lifetime Leadership Award and in 1989, he was honored with the FSU College of Education’s Distinguished Educator’s Award. In 2007, Proctor agreed to help FSU administrators by serving as interim director of athletics.

Below (left to right): COG recipients Eric Barron, Gordon Gaster, Wayne Hogan, Laurel Moredock and William Proctor along with presenter, FSU Alumni Association Chairman of the Board, Jeff Hill.

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Keep FSU in the Family ALUMNI ASSOCIATION LEGACY SCHOLARSHIP

A Seminole Family: Bridget Chandler (’48), Bert Chandler (’79) and Jill Chandler (’09)

The Legacy Scholarship Program was established in 2010 to encourage the children, grandchildren and siblings of alumni to attend FSU and keep the Seminole tradition in their family.

Support this FSU tradition by making a 100% tax-deductible donation today

850.644.2761 | alumni.fsu.edu/community/legacy 2011 Application is Available Online

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Association News

Open Houses

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Held the Friday evening before each home game, the FSU Alumni Association Open Houses provided alumni, friends and fans a chance to reconnect with campus and each other. Each Open House featured a unique theme and covered everything from carnival faire to a low country boil to a burger bash for Homecoming. Everyone’s favorite part of each evening was when former music professor Tommie Wright graced the piano and played his most famous composition, the FSU Fight Song.

1. Future Noles made the most of the Kids Zone by having a hula hoop contest in the court yard. 2. Legendary Professor of Music Tommie Wright performs the FSU Fight Song for attendees of the Open House Preview Party. 3. Alumni Association President Scott Atwell shares a laugh with his predecessor, Jim Melton. 4. Board Member, David Brobst, with his wife, Melody, and son, Parker at the Southern Hospitality Open House. 5. (Left to right) South Carolina's Doug Ervin, Billy Murray and National Board Member Diane Ervin chat with Student Alumni Association President Janie Hoffman.

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2 SAN FRANCISCO SHOWS ITS HEART FOR BUSTER POSEY Meet & Greet Event with Giants Catcher and FSU alumnus

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For FSU alumni whose hearts are in San Francisco, the 2010 baseball season has been a magical joyride, as the hometown Giants won the World Series on the strength of rookie catcher and FSU alumnus Buster Posey. The Seminole Club of San Francisco, under the direction of President Levi Johnson, hosted more than 150 alumni and friends for a spirited July reception that officially welcomed Posey to his new baseball home.

A finance major, Posey was not only lauded as college baseball’s player of the year, but also the nation’s top Academic All-American. The chairman of FSU’s finance department, Bank of America Professor Bill Christiansen, was on hand to renew acquaintances with his 4 5 protégé and meet other College of Business alumni.

Association News

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The evening featured a lively interview hosted by former FSU and San Francisco 49er football star Mike Shumann, who covers Bay Area sports for the local ABC television affiliate.

Posey was presented with a permanent reminder of the night, a segment of original cable from the Golden Gate Bridge, emblazoned with the Seminole logo.

1. Mike Shumann, Alumni President Scott Atwell, Buster Posey and Club President Levi Johnson 2. Jessica

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Leischer and Levi Johnson (first and second from left) with members of the San Francisco Seminole Club. 3. Posey’s season ended on the cover of "Sports Illustrated." 4. Posey’s trophy case now includes an original piece of bay history.

5. Jimbo Fisher gives his first State of the Seminoles Address at the 59th Annual Kickoff Luncheon. 6. More than 1,600 look on in a packed Civic Center.

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1 SEMINOLE CLUBS

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Helping to Connect FSU Alumni, Friends and Fans

The FSU Alumni Association supports over 70 Seminole Clubs around the world and all of them have been busy this fall hosting everything from game-watching parties to scholarship presentations to tailgates for FSU’s away games. More than 4,000 alumni and friends participated in football season kickoff events at more than 40 club sites nationwide. Being involved in your local Seminole Club is a great way to meet fellow alumni and support The Florida State University. For a complete listing of club locations and local contacts, visit the Alumni Association website at alumni.fsu.edu.

1. Former Seminole football players Everette Brown (left) and Danny Green (right) joined the Charlotte Seminole Club and its vice president Tyler Key for the Club’s kickoff party.

2. President Barron and Tommie Wright headlined an Orlando event staged at the Women's Club of Winter Park. 3. Seminole faithful travelled to Norman for the football game at Oklahoma, hosted in conjunction with the Seminole Club of North Texas.

4. (Left to right) Vicki Jones, Peter Jones, Todd Bradley, Hege Ferguson, Mike Ferguson, Marc Dinkel and David Bonenfant enjoyed the tailgate before the FSU vs. Virginia game, hosted by the Charlottesville and Richmond Seminole Clubs. 5. Hundreds turned out for the pre-game tailgate at Oklahoma. 6. Kyle Doney (left) and his dad Ken (right) joined David and Cathy Mobley for our Alumni Association tailgate festivities before the FSU vs.

Oklahoma football game. 7. The Tallahassee Seminole Club recently hosted several FSU coaches’ wives for a function, including Tara Trickett (wife of Offensive Line Coach Rick Trickett), Litzie Martin (wife of FSU Assistant Baseball Coach Mike Martin, Jr.) and Kelly Hudson (wife of FSU Linebackers Coach Greg Hudson). 8. Members of the Baltimore Seminole Club bring the FSU gnome all the way to Oklahoma.

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Association News

Over 400 Seminoles set sail for the second annual Seminoles at Sea FSU Alumni Cruise.

Passengers watched the Seminoles play NC State poolside as the game was broadcast on the big screen of the upper deck of the Disney Wonder. President Barron and his wife, Molly, hosted a welcome reception for all Noles aboard and a scavenger hunt helped all get to know each other during this three-day adventure.

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1. Aimee Wirth walks her daughter, Ansley, to the giant water slide on Castaway Cay. 2. Seminoles took over the top pool deck to watch FSU take on the NC State Wolfpack.

Even though it was a disappointing loss, everyone had a great time watching the game on their way to the Bahamas. 3. Megan Barnes and Melissa Peters flash their holographic Seminoles at Sea name badges. 4. Watching Chief Osceola plant his spear mid-field is always a favorite tradition but it’s that much better on the big screen with the waters of the Caribbean in the background. 5. President of the Alumni Association Scott Atwell speaks with FSU President Eric J. Barron about upcoming plans for the University. 6. A lil’ Nole is ready to cruise in her garnet and gold bathing suit. 7. Bailey, Rob and Cindy Busher on Castaway Cay for the second straight year. 8. Seminoles stop to take a quick pic with Mickey Mouse before boarding the Disney Wonder.

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SAA The Student Alumni Association Students Today | Alumni Tomorrow | Seminoles Forever

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5 that the president of Florida 1. &. 2. It’s not4every day

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State University invites you to his backyard for a barbecue—but that’s exactly what Eric J. Barron and his wife, Molly, did for this fall’s incoming class of freshmen. The first annual “President’s Backyard BBQ” was held on August 22, 2010 and over 4,000 freshmen, faculty and staff were in attendance. Different colored t-shirts for each college were given to the students the week before classes to help them identify fellow classmates in their majors. This event was an opportunity for students to meet the president and the deans of their respective college, as well as learn more about how to get involved with campus and SAA. SAA has been busy these past few months with more than the BBQ—they staged 3. an Involvement Fair and 4. Summer Splash event to kickoff the school year, both of which were open to the general membership base of 2,000 students. It is the mission of SAA to provide opportunities for current students to interact with alumni and become engaged with campus life during their years at FSU.

Student Spotlight: 6 Janie Hoffman, ’12

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President, Student Alumni Association As a senior in high school in Tarpon Springs, Fla. Janie Hoffman wasn’t sure where she wanted to go to school. She was accepted to FSU and decided to spend her first semester abroad in Valencia through FSU’s International Programs. Afterward, she traveled to Peru where she studied Amazonian life in Iquitos and shadowed with the city’s only 66 Vires

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During her time on campus, Hoffman has been very involved by serving as president of the Student Alumni Association and as an Ex-Officio member of the National Board of Directors. She is majoring in Communication with minors in Spanish and Family and Child Sciences; she is also working toward a certificate in Global Pathways Leadership Studies. In addition to serving as the current president of SAA, Hoffman is involved with the Student United Way, FSU’s Honors Program and her sorority, Alpha Delta Pi.

Association News

neonatologist by assisting him and the head nurse with the care and nourishment of the newborns. Janie didn’t have aspirations of a career in the medical field but this opportunity, as well as others that she’s had during her time at FSU, solidified her ambition to find a vocation that allows her to work with and help people less fortunate than she is.

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Hoffman credits FSU and SAA for giving her the opportunity to learn and develop her networking and leadership skills. Whether it’s making a presentation to University administration or telling a hesitant freshman about the benefits of SAA, Hoffman is an exceptional example of the caliber of students we have on campus and we look forward to claiming her as a Florida State alumna one day.

1. Hoffman addresses freshmen at the President's Backyard BBQ. 2. Hoffman (front row, second from right) with the SAA Executive Board. 3. Volunteering in Haiti 4. Caring for a newborn in Peru. 5. SAA Associate Director of Membership Mallory Hager and Hoffman attend the carnival-themed Open House.

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All in the family

All in the Family Billionaire Buffett Taps FSU Grad as Likely Successor

After graduating from FSU in 1993, Combs worked for the Florida comptroller and then Progressive Insurance before joining investment firm Castle Point in 2005, where he grew a modest $35 million portfolio into $400 million. Combs also established a reputation as a gifted writer of thoughtful shareholder letters, much like his famous new boss.

Patricia “Jane” Curry and Andrew Colee met on the sailing team at FSU and were married just after their graduation in 1967. Jane, who graduated with a degree in mathematics, was a casual runner. “She ran for fun and finally got me interested,” says Colee. “In 1985, I started running. At first running around the block was hard. After I made it to four miles, I finally enjoyed it.”

"At Castle Point we like to think of ourselves as owners of businesses," Combs said in a seven-page July letter to shareholders— sounding a bit like the Oracle of Omaha himself— and then goes on to evoke the philosophies of Charles Darwin.

In 1988, Colee ran his first marathon. “It was terrible,” he confides. “I was sure it would be my first and last.” Two years later, Colee was asked to run in a marathon by friends.

“Since it had been so long, I forgot how terrible it had felt and said yes.” Needless to say, it was a success.

"We may begin with the acknowledgment of the pervasive reality of failure— that, for instance, 99.9 percent of biological species that have ever existed are now extinct," he wrote. "Or, a little close to home, that only one original member of the Dow Jones industrial index continues to be a member today."

Combs, who grew up in Sarasota, is said to be an ardent follower of FSU football.

His wife April is also an FSU alumnus, graduating from the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice in 1994. -Scott Atwell Todd Combs (’93), who graduated from the FSU College of Business with a degree in finance, has been tapped as the likely heir apparent to America’s most renowned investor, Warren Buffett. Combs earned the job the old fashioned way, by submitting a formal application and then following up when he failed to hear back from Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway company, which manages a portfolio roughly valued at $100 billion.

"For three years Charlie Munger and I have been looking for someone of Todd's caliber to handle a significant portion of Berkshire's investment portfolio," Buffett said in a statement, referencing his long-time vice chairman. "We are delighted that Todd is joining us."

By all accounts the hiring is the start of a succession plan that Buffett, now 80, has outlined for his company.

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He Keeps Running and Running ...

This year Valparaiso resident, Andrew Colee ('67) reached a milestone and then, like most things, he ran right past it. An FSU engineering science graduate, Colee is a 500-time marathon runner who estimates he has run more than 35,000 (training and competitive) miles in the last 25 years. With such an incredible track record, you would never know his hardest run was his first four-mile trek.

You may wonder what started Colee down a road that would span more than 18,000 marathon miles. A better question may be who. “The credit belongs to my wife,” reveals Colee. “Without Jane, I would have never made it this far.”

Since then, Colee has participated in traditional marathons that are 26.2 miles and competed in ultra-marathons, which range from 31-100 miles and are often on trails. “I have run three 100-mile marathons, but they are not my favorite.”

Running has also helped Colee grieve. In 1998, Colee lost the love of his life, Jane.

“Running was a lifesaver for me,” says Colee. “When Jane was ill, I gave up running distances. Just over a year after she died, I

ran 45 marathons in a year. Some weekends I would run in one on Saturday and one on Sunday. It was a very difficult time. I just had to run.” Today, Colee averages 20 marathons a year.

On May 22, Colee lined up at the Scenic City Trail Marathon outside Chattanooga and began his 500th race. It was a beautiful day, and once again he thought of Jane while putting one foot in front of the other. And he ran. -Lynne Adams Takacs

COMMUNICATIONS PRO When it came to choosing a university, Alia Faraj-Johnson (’88), had a tough decision to make. Accepted into numerous schools in Florida meant she had her pick, but choosing one while living overseas was a challenge. She knew that she wanted to eventually get into politics so decided on Florida State University in the capital city.

Only time would tell what a wise decision she had made.

Although, graduating with a double major in Political Science and Psychology, Faraj-

and was offered a job as a news producer/ reporter for Capitol News Service (CNS) in Tallahassee.” She went on to work there for 13 years, rising through the ranks to achieve the title of vice president for news operations.

their daughter Peyton. “Come game day she wears Seminole colors and will not wear anything else,” she says laughing. “Florida State shaped my life and I am proud to introduce her to the tradition.”

-Lynne Adams Takacs

In 2003, Faraj-Johnson made a career change and accepted a position as public affairs director at the Florida Department of Community Affairs under then Governor Jeb Bush. In 2004 she was named Gov. Bush’s Communications Director and continued serving the Governor as his primary spokesperon until the end of his term in 2007. Although always prepared to respond to media inquiries, Faraj-Johnson was totally unprepared in 2006 when Gov. Bush decided to hold an impromptu news conference to announce that his communications director had finally slowed down enough to start dating.

Social Media Strategist, Google Fellow

Shaking her head, Faraj-Johnson said, “He called me later that day to warn me that he had just made an announcement in Tampa that would embarrass me—he was right !”

She ended up marrying that man who was then cabinet aide to Governor Bush and a fellow Florida State graduate, Rob Johnson.

They married in 2007, the same year she was offered a position with Ron Sachs Communications. Among her favorite projects since joining the firm is Governor Crist’s Explore Adoption campaign. In 2009, the firm received an Emmy for their work, which encourages families to open their homes and hearts to children in foster care.

In 2009, Faraj-Johnson was also appointed to the Florida Elections Commission, a distinguished body of nine charged with the task of enforcing Florida’s campaign finance laws. With so much success, it is not difficult to see why Faraj-Johnson was promoted to partner this year. As a communications veteran of almost 20 years, it is a title she is proud to have achieved. However, there is one title she loves even more: mother.

Johnson chose a career path in broadcast news. “After graduating I chose to use my political science degree to cover politics

What does the world’s largest search engine and Florida State University have in common? The answer is Jordan Raynor (’08). Raynor, a public relations graduate, caught Google’s eye this year and was named a Google Fellow. But that’s not all he achieved in 2010. He also launched an online, communications consulting firm— Direct Media Strategies.

Last year, Alia and Rob Johnson welcomed a new addition to their Seminole family,

“Receiving a Google fellowship was not only incredible,” says Raynor, “It was humbling.”

Google Fellows are a select group of professionals who work at the intersection of politics and technology that Google sponsors to attend the Personal Democracy Forum and share their ideas.

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all in the family

Of course, Raynor would not have been chosen if he didn’t have some ideas of his own. As someone who uses Twitter as a business tool and Facebook as a boardroom, Raynor has made harnessing the power of social media his business— personally, professionally and politically.

One of Raynor’s greatest passions is helping people make their voices heard. This passion has fueled a mission to create an “I Voted” badge for users of Foursquare, a location-based social media website. “Just picture it. You head into work after going to the polls and your friends see your “I voted” badge on Facebook before they see your sticker. It could be a powerful tool to help get out the vote.”

However, social media and politics are not the only interests Raynor is passionate about. He also loves Florida State and fellow FSU graduate Kara Goskie Raynor (’08). Married in 2009, the two met while watching a football game together their freshman year. This year, they bought a house and put down roots in their hometown of Tampa.

“Florida State has a special place in our heart and house,” he says laughing. “We have a garnet and gold room with black and white photos of campus. That’s commitment!” Well said in 140 characters or less. -Lynne Adams Takacs

To submit a class note for All in the Family, visit alumni.fsu.edu or email news@alumni.fsu.edu.

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Fo r b y L e o n a r d S k i n n e r ’ 57 193 3 -2010

Len Skinner was just doing his job, but sending a bunch of kids to the principal’s office penciled his name into rock ‘n roll history, as namesake to the legendary band Lynyrd Skynyrd.

It was the late 1960’s when Coach Leonard Skinner, a flat-topped, no-nonsense physical education teacher at Jacksonville’s Robert E. Lee high school, dispatched a handful of students to the front office because their hair was too long. One of the longhairs was Gary Rossington, who played guitar in a local band.

“It was against school rules,” Skinner later said. “I don’t particularly like long hair on men, but again, it wasn’t my rule.”

The non-descript event passed into obscurity until 1973, when Rossington and his mates appeared on the national music scene as a Southern rock band mocking the name of their former gym teacher. Skinner was thrust into instant celebrity and his life would never be the same, often having to show official ID to people who did not believe it was his real name.

“He made a lot of new friends,” daughter Susie Moore told the Jacksonville Times Union.

“That in itself really brought a lot of wonderful people into our family’s lives, simply because they were Lynyrd Skynyrd fans, and they wanted to meet Dad. They loved him.

They’re part of our extended family now.”

Skinner eventually became friends with the band and even allowed them to use a photo of his Leonard Skinner Realty sign for the inside of an album. Three members of the band died in a 1977 plane crash but the historical strength of southern anthems like “Sweet Home Alabama” paved the way for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.

Forby Leonard Skinner was 77 when he died in his sleep in Jacksonville, Fla. on September 20, 2010. He graduated from FSU in 1957 and remained a dedicated fan of Seminole athletics for the rest of his life, rarely missing a football game.

Photo by Lou Egner/Courtesy Jacksonville Times Union

Just one of 20 in the world to receive this honor, Raynor remembers the shock of learning he was chosen, followed by the awe he felt when meeting the other Fellows. “I listened to a Kenyan woman share how she wanted to shape democracy in her country and felt so small,” he says. “Each Fellow is doing such amazing work and I am proud to have been given the opportunity to learn from them.”

In

a nod to

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p r o l ifi c c r e a t i v e w r i t i n g p r o g r a m ,

R o b e r t O. L a w t o n D is t i n g uis h e d P r o f e ss o r

of

E n g l is h

David Kirby o ff e r s a s n e a k p e e k i n si d e h is l a t e s t b o o k ,

Little Richard : The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll t r a c i n g t h e l if e o f a m usi c p i o n e e r w h o c h a n g e d t h e w o r l d .

“What are you doing in my cousin’s apartment?” says Little Richard, and the answer is that I’ve come to Macon to write a travel piece for The Washington Post and also do research for a book on the Georgia Peach himself. Willie Ruth Howard is two years older than her celebrated relative, which makes her 77, and even though it’s a hot day, I’ve put on a sports coat and brought flowers, too, because I want her to think I’m a gentleman and not just a fan trying to hop aboard the singer’s coattails.

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I could write a song about it: “I have the 88 dollar blues / I’ve been plundered. / I say I have the 88 dollar blues / yes, I’m plundered. / Little Richard fired a round into my travel expenses / but at least it wasn’t five hunnerd.”

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When the phone rings, she talks for a minute and says, “It’s him,” and “He wants to talk to you,” but before I can start telling Little Richard how the world changed for me when I turned on my little green plastic Westinghouse radio in 1955 and heard a voice say, “A-wopbop-a-loo-mop, a-lop-bam-boom!” he says, “What are you doing in my cousin’s apartment?” and then “Uh-huh. Well, look around you. You can see that my cousin is very poor, can’t you?” and I’m thinking, well, she looks as though she’s doing okay to me, but who am I to disagree with Little Richard, so I say, “Sure—yeah!” and he says, “Well, then, what I want you to do is get out your checkbook and write her a check for five hundred dollahs!” and I’m thinking, Jeez, I brought her these flowers. . . .

But then I say, “Mr. Richard, I mean, Mr. Penniman, I don’t have my checkbook with me,” which is true, and I also want to say, Wait, who’s the wealthy rock star here, you or me?

But mainly I don’t want him to hang up, and I’d been to the ATM the night before, so I say, “I do have $100 in my wallet,” and he says, “Okay, get your wallet out,” and I say, “It’s out,” and he says, “Now take the money out,” and I do, which is when I realize that I’d gone to a club last night after I’d hit the ATM, so now I only have $88, and I tell him that, and he says, “Okay, put it on the coffee table,” so I put my bills on the coffee table, and he says, “Where’s the money now?” and I say, “On the coffee table!” and he says, “Now tell Willie Ruth to get her purse,” so I say, “Willie Ruth, Little Richard wants you to get your purse,” so she says, “Okay!”

So Willie Ruth disappears into the other room and comes back with the purse, and I say, “She’s back,” and he says, “Now give her the phone,” and I do, and from where I’m sitting— this is Little Richard, after all—I hear him say, “Put the money in your purse!”and she says “Okay!” and he says “Where is the money now?” and she says, “In the purse!” and he says, “Okay, now take the purse back into the other room,” and she does, and when she comes back, he says, “Now give the phone back to him,” so Willie Ruth passes me the phone, and he says, “Where’s the money?” and I say, “It’s in Willie Ruth’s purse, which is in the other room,” and he says, “Thank you!”

And I say, “You’re welcome, Mr. Penniman! But I’d really like to talk to you as well, so how do you feel about giving me your phone number?” and he says, “I’m not at home right now!

I’m in Baltimore!” and I say, “That’s good, but can I call you when you’re back in Tennessee, maybe fly up and see you some time?” and he says, “I’m not in Tennessee! I told you—I’m in Baltimore!”and I say, “I know, but when you are in Tennessee,” but he says, “Give her the phone again!” and while Willie Ruth is ending the call, I’m looking around and thinking, did Little Richard just get me to take $88 out of my wallet and give them to a cousin I’ve barely met?

I feel like a jerk. I think, 88 is the number of keys on a piano, like the instrument referred to by the Capitols in their 1961 R ‘n’ B chart topper “Cool Jerk” when they say, “Now give me a

little bit of bass with those 88s.” At the moment, though, I have the 88 dollar blues. I could write a song about it: “I have the 88 dollar blues / I’ve been plundered. / I say I have the 88 dollar blues / yes, I’m plundered. / Little Richard fired a round into my travel expenses / but at least it wasn’t five hunnerd.”

On the other hand, I’ve probably spent more than that on a single phone call to some woman I was breaking up with, and a fairly horrible woman, too, or else she’d be with me today and I with her. My goodness! How’d that be, to be chained to a shrew who despised me and treated me like her servant, an attitude hardly calculated to improve my disposition, so that I, in turn, would become more and more truculent and pettish and in that way increase her disdain for me. . . . When I look up, the call’s over, and Willie Ruth is sitting quietly on the couch with the phone in her hand, and she says, “Was he rude?” and I say, “Uh . . . businesslike!”

“My mama had 12 children, and we were pretty but we were poor,” as Little Richard said at a recent concert in New York.

“All that beauty, and wasn’t nobody on duty. All that honey and no money.”

Which is true, because while he was forceful and direct, he wasn’t discourteous. And I didn’t have to part with a cent, but I did, and now I’m talking to Willie Ruth Howard, and she’s saying, “Well, you know, he did get cheated a lot back when he was first starting out, when those record company people took all the money and didn’t leave the singers with anything.

Besides, he was so poor growing up. So poor. . . .” ***** “My mama had 12 children, and we were pretty but we were poor,” as Little Richard said at a recent concert in New York. “All that beauty, and wasn’t nobody on duty. All that honey and no money.” He was born December 5, 1932, one of the 12 children of Charles “Bud” Penniman, a Seventh Day Adventist preacher who owned a bar called the Tip In Inn and sold moonshine on the side, and Leva Mae Penniman, just fourteen when she married.

And already, at the very moment he enters the world, the Little Richard story takes a turn toward the unreliable. For the name on his birth certificate reads Richard Wayne Penniman, but Leva Mae says he was named Ricardo Wayne; nobody ever bothered to straighten out the mix-up. His right leg was also shorter than his left, and there were other abnormalities, at least from his perspective: “I had this great big head and little body,” he recalls in Charles White’s biography, “and I had one big eye and one little eye.”

He had size, too, at least at the beginning. “He was the biggest baby I ever had,” Leva Mae remembers, “ten pounds at birth.” In person, the adult Little Richard doesn’t look as though he started life in double digits. His personality has always been king-sized, though, and no doubt some who knew him as a child in Macon may have wished it smaller.

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On my first visit to Macon, I was appalled by how run-down Little Richard’s neighborhood was, and this after seventy years of “improvement”—at least today the streets are paved.

But the house his family lived in is on the verge of dilapidation; there’s no question of it being preserved as a historical site. There’s a satellite dish on a side wall and an air conditioning unit hanging out of one window, but the screen on the front porch is torn and hanging; all it needs is a latter-day Little Richard to pull it away and crawl in, maybe do his no-manners on the door step and leave it for a hapless renter to find.

Locals tell me that the house is slated to be pulled down soon to make way for an off-ramp on I-75, which runs nearly overhead. The only reason why the house hasn’t been vandalized is the presence of Gary, a house painter who was the historic spot’s temporary resident.

Tired and spattered after a long day’s work, Gary welcomed a nosy writer in and let him poke around.

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“You know who lived here, don’t you?” I ask, and Gary says, “Sure, I do.” Going for a little of the Old, Weird America feel, I say, “I don’t suppose you feel any, you know . . . vibrations?”

The hair stands up on the back of my arms when Gary says, “Oh, all the time.” “You do?” I gasp. “For real,” says Gary as he sighs and jerks his thumb toward the interstate. “Dump trucks, semis, even the little cars: I feel ‘em all.”

Since those aren’t exactly the kind of vibrations I mean, I reload and try again. “Well, is there anything in the house that you found that you could connect with Little Richard?” I ask. “Oh, there was a pitcher, but I throwed it away?” “A picture?” I say. “Yeah, it was one of them arty-graphs.”

Inside, the more permanent fixtures looked worn and original, like the chipped bathtub in which Gary was soaking his work clothes and where Leva Mae bathed little Richard and his 11 boisterous and no doubt equally grimy siblings on all those sweaty Macon evenings when air conditioning was something only rich folks had.

It was a house in a neighborhood, in other words, where misbehavior might could be a form of wealth, where a poor boy could lay up considerable emotional capital through the exercise of his imagination. Forget skin color for a minute and think The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its celebrated sequel; in these books, the humorless Huck Finn is the good boy with a nascent sense of morality, and Tom is the one the other rascals admire, the magician who turns a Sunday School picnic into Arab caravans and even stage-manages his own funeral. Yet Tom gets away with it, just as young Richard wasn’t simply scandalizing the neighborhood ladies but, like Mark Twain’s hero, beguiling them and avoiding punishment.

To a boy with nothing, the ability to outrage and charm is as good as money.

And a boy like Little Richard needed all the resources he could muster. For one thing, he was a cripple; one leg was noticeably shorter than the other. When I saw him at his October 20, 2007 concert in St. Augustine, Little Richard said he went hip, hop, hip, hop when he walked: “I invented hip hop!” he cried. But high spirits are easy to come by late in life; in the kid-dominated world of boyhood Macon, he was teased without mercy, and he felt the sting.

Too, his limp connected to a side of life that the young Richard wasn’t aware of yet. As his walk looked feminine, “the kids would call me faggot, sissy, freak, punk. They called me everything,” he recalled. If his own witness is to be believed, Richard was soon having sex with women and men, and by his teen years, he had found a place in Macon’s gay underworld.

This meant a break with two parts of his life that were really one, family and church. As a child, Richard performed with two gospel groups, the Tiny Tots and the family’s Penniman Singers and appeared on stage at the Macon City Auditorium with the dynamic gospel pioneer Sister Rosetta Tharpe, from whom he learned more than one show-biz trick that he’d use later. He even thought about becoming a preacher himself.

After all, a four year-old boy is not going to hang a guitar around his neck and buy mikes and amps and recruit a drummer and a piano player and a horn section and schedule rehearsals and book gigs. But with some innate ability and a little bit of coaching, a child still in short pants can perform a solo on any Sunday morning.

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Hormones and the lure of Macon’s wild side took care of that impulse, at least for the moment, but it’s impossible to underestimate the importance of the church on rock ‘n’ roll. When Maconites aren’t telling you it’s the water that’s responsible for all the musical artistry in their town, they’ll tell you the real source is the church. After all, a four year-old boy is not going to hang a guitar around his neck and buy mikes and amps and recruit a drummer and a piano player and a horn section and schedule rehearsals and book gigs. But with some innate ability and a little bit of coaching, a child still in short pants can perform a solo on any Sunday morning. He can step up and sing and have the grownups beam down at him and pat his head, and when the service is over, he’ll have somebody bring him a plate of chicken and greens and cornbread and a glass of sweet tea and tell him how handsome he is and how well he sang.

And that kind of reinforcement and nurturing can go on for years, at least until that boy decides that he’s going to have more fun hanging around the Greyhound station at night and running with other young men who are discovering that they like a kind of sex that’s not talked about in church. But by then, he knows the basics: how to form a group, for starters. How to blend the various sections of the choir into a harmony as well as when and how to introduce discord. How solos fit in, what audiences like, the way voice combines with instrument: all of these are things the choirboy sees and feels in every practice session, and then he sees how they all come together on Sunday morning.

You got to serve somebody, as Dylan says, and whether it’s the Devil or the Lord, the prayers are the same.

Mainly, that boy learns how to put on a show: how a performance is set up, how it’s sustained and then reaches a crescendo, and the many ways it can end, the best of which is when the whole choir stops at once and sits as though the members share a single behind, leaving the audience crying out for more, more, more. Charles White recalls a concert that ends when Little Richard jumps on top of his piano, tears his clothes off, throws them into the crowd, and disappears, saying it was like having your throat cut in the middle of an orgasm. Anybody who’s ever been to a full-tilt evangelical church service where the walls are shaking and everybody’s high on Jesus knows where that moment comes from. You got to serve somebody, as Dylan says, and whether it’s the Devil or the Lord, the prayers are the same.

DAVID KIRBY (Ph.D., Johns Hopkins, 1969), specializes in nineteenthcentury U.S. literature and creative writing (poetry). The author of more than 20 book, his many honors include the Brittingham Prize in Poetry and a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship.

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From the President's Desk rida

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PARTING SHOT HEA DS OF STATE The FSU faculty has boasted six Nobel Laureates, each of whom is immortalized in bronze along a walkway adjacent to the College of Medicine. Sir Harold Kroto (foreground), a co-recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, currently serves in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry as a Francis Eppes Professor. The light pole banner features the image of our most famous Laureate, Paul Dirac, for whom the science library is named.

Dirac’s importance to the world of science was summarized by the late FSU physics professor Joe Lannutti, who once once proclaimed, “Dirac isn’t a person, he’s an equation.”

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