In the 8 days before Dave Roberts came to work for the UT alumni office in 1966, he resigned his job in Nashville, got married, enjoyed a [brief] honeymoon, and moved to Knoxville. As he recalls the frenetic onset of his 42-year career, he dismisses any prescience that UT would occupy nearly all his working life.
This could possibly be the saddest story you ever read, but it isn’t. Far from it. It’s a story of courage, faith, and friendship that gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “a host of Volunteers.” It begins in 1971. Walter Chadwick, hero of the 1967 Tennessee–Alabama football game who wobbled the game-winning touchdown pass left-handed to tight end Ken DeLong, had just started a promising high-school coaching career in Smyrna, Georgia, near his hometown of Decatur.
Educating students to succeed in the global workplace isn’t just a lofty slogan. Today it’s a necessity. Hundreds of UT Knoxville alumni work in China or travel there frequently. Tennessee Alumnus thanks the many alumni who sent information about their experiences. Unfortunately we couldn’t feature all of them. Here are a few that represent just what a small world our planet has become.
Recently, UT came calling on Ron Turner. Only months earlier, the Ripley, Tennessee, native had retired from the positions of chairman, president, and CEO of Ceridian Corporation, an S&P 500 company formerly known as Control Data Corporation (CDC). Turns out, his alma mater was looking for new ideas and fresh perspectives from top business executives across the country, and Turner signed up for a 3-year term on UT’s Development Council.
A prodigy in many respects, Clarence Leon Brown completed Knoxville High School in 1906 at the age of 15 and received special permission to enter UT. Four years later, he graduated with two degrees in engineering. He learned to fly during World War I and served as an instructor in the U.S. air corps. After he ran his own successful car dealership in the early 1920s, he talked his way into a job in what was then called moving pictures.
Recently my wife Kathy and I, both loyal Tennessee Volunteers since 1966, traveled to China for a vacation and Far East sightseeing. One of the unique features of the two-week excursion involved a scenic cruise down the Yangtze River, which flows from its headwaters in the Kunlun Mountains through the central part of China to the Yellow Sea.
Yosemite. Check. Yellowstone. Check. Rocky Mountain National Park. Eugene O’Neill’s home. Pinnacles National Monument. Check, check, and check. Hunter and Sylvia Wright have set a goal to visit every U.S. national park and monument, and they’ve already made a good dent in the list.
A book about butterflies, solving the mystery of The Big Bopper’s death, a fat camp for pets, and other stories in this issue’s installment of UTopics.
Burwell Bell is the second-highest-ranking four-star general in the U.S. Army. He is the U.S. military leader in Korea, charged with maintaining relations with South Korea and monitoring the hornets’ nest of North Korea. But when Bell came to the University of Tennessee to speak, he was--for a time--just “B.B.,” a friend, relative, and diehard Vols fan.
A life can turn on one good deed, and Eddie Rowe believes he’s living proof. Rowe (Health Science Center ’69), a pharmacist in Kingsport, says he’d be “digging ditches today” if it weren’t for the kindness of former UT pharmacy dean Seldom Feurt. In gratitude for that kindness he speaks of, Rowe has put his money where his mouth is to endow a scholarship fund for pharmacy students.
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