THE • PI • KAPPA • PHI • FRATERNITY
Omegalite MARCH 2010
PURDUE UNIVERSITY
Fraternity brothers share passion for weather There must have been something in the air some 14 years go at Pi Kappa Phi – literally. Two Omega undergraduates of that era have found their way to being TV weathermen. Steve Templeton (Omega 1444) was a spring 1996 pledge who majored in meteorology. He recruited someone he had met in a Purdue class to pledge that fall, Rob Woods (Omega 1469). Both were intrigued, and even infactuated about weather – passions not universally shared by their peers. Templeton, a Northbrook, IL native always wanted to be a weatherman. In fact he would tell anyone who would listen back home one of his dreams was to chase tornadoes. As a youngster, it was the legacy of his late grandfather, a geology professor, who inadvertently exposed him to the intrigue of
weather. In high school, Templeton took a geology class. “It turns out that I really didn’t like geology,” Templeton said, “but I loved the atmospheric science portion of the class. I found it fascinating to look up in the sky and understand the science of why a cloud forms or why it rains.” Templeton was one of the first meteorologists in the county to receive the Certified Broadcast Meteorology Seal from the American Meteorological Society. He now broadcasts weather for News 4, KMOV, in St. Louis on weekday evenings. Though Woods was interested in weather as an undegraduate, he wasn’t quite yet a zealot. Initially Woods majored in meteorology, but switched to communication with a desire to act. “I loved acting,” he said. “I loved
Steve Templeton stands before the blank weatherboard while broadcasting the weather in St. Louis.
the entertainment business and moved from acting and became a talent manager with well-known clients in the motion picture, commercial and soap opera genre.” That career took the Evansville, IN, native from Purdue to Los Angeles, to Atlanta and New York and then back to the West coast. He was a model and actor from 2000 to 2007 and a talent agent from 2007 to 2009. During his agent stint, Woods attended several Emmy Awards. It was a chance meeting with a world renown actor that helped him move from working with actors to television. “One person told me, ‘You will make it in whatever you do – just do it with passion,’ ” Woods said. “That person was Robin Williams.” Shortly thereafter, Woods changed career paths to be more in line with what he wanted to be while growing up in Evansville. “It was in December 2008 when it really hit me,” he said. “My father had just died and I realized that your life could end at any time. I was not stimulated in my career as a talent manager.” He knew then that what he did in his living room while growing up, what he did as a weather intern in Atlanta while pursuing an acting career, was indeed his calling. “Honestly, I should have been doing the weather from the get-go,” he said. “Ever since I have been a kid, I have loved the weather – especially severe weather. I used to watch The Weather Channel and perform mock weathercasts for my family the living room.” Alongside his modeling, acting and agent careers, he earned an Continued on Page 2