FEBRUARY MARCH 1999
CONTENTS
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Glendening
FSU LAUNCHED AN EDUCATION GOVERNOR
Parris Glendening has spent most of his 56 years defying the odds against success, and he credits Florida State University.
As a toddler in the 1940s, Glendening wasn't just poor; he was dirt poor. There was no indoor plumbing or electricity in his South Florida home; his father was often absent; his mother was distracted; and he and his five brothers and sisters were hungry.
But those days are relegated to memory now - a starting point for a tale of accomplishment.
Glendening made his way from poverty to become a history-making student, a professor, a proud father and husband and a twice-elected governor of Maryland.
Bradley
GRAD PLAYS ROBIN HOOD
An FSU honors grad knows about the daily grind. Yet his grind doesn't come from irate bosses or nosy co-workers. His comes from steel against rock as swords are sharpened. He has dramatic fights, rides galloping horses, shoots arrows at an array of targets and deals with damsels who may, or may not, be in distress. It's John Bradley.
Bradley plays Robin Hood in the television series "The New Adventures of Robin Hood." The half-hour action show is syndicated nationally and is in its second season.
A serious high school student and athlete from Orlando, Bradley chose FSU and started at the age of 16 via the early admission program and a scholarship from the Southern Scholarship Foundation.
Kemper, left, and Tabor
FSU PHYSICISTS MONITOR THE AIR
Cuba's first nuclear reactor is scheduled to go online in December 2000, and Florida State nuclear physicists will be ready to detect any radiation leaks that might come from the plant so close to Florida.
In 1986, when the Chernobyl reactor disaster occurred in the Ukraine, FSU researchers found small amounts of the nuclear pollution in Tallahassee.
Much closer to home, the nuclear plans in Cuba have inspired a reaction in Florida: The Caribbean Radiation Early Warning System.
Means
TRIPLE ALUM KNOWS THE SECRETS OF SNAKES
Ever seen life through "snake eyes?" Heat is light. Dinner is a rat-shaped flare gliding through a thick gray fog. Foes are gigantic glowing forms that might step on you - or even eat you - if you're not careful.
Welcome to the weird world of the eastern diamondback rattler, as seen through the infrared pits located just below its eyes. While many - with good reason - shun the deadly reptiles, they're an essential part of the local ecology, and important research subjects for biologist D. Bruce Means.
"It's an entirely different perspective," Means said. "Their heat-sensing pits are extremely sensitive. Their food items stand out like beacons."
Hunt
Peterson
GRADS TEAMED UP TO START A THRIVING BUSINESS
Bill Peterson Jr., son of the former FSU football coach, remembers well the first time he met Marshall Hunt.
Growing up in Tallahassee, both boys were ardent Little Leaguers on opposing teams.
"I really wanted a chance to go to the Little League World Series up in Pennsylvania," Peterson remembers. "But that day Marshall hit two home runs, knocking us out of the competition."
"I didn't forget about that for a long time," he says, laughing.
Both boys went to Florida State. Both graduated. And now they're on the same team, hitting entrepreneurial home runs.
For complete stories of each donor:
LANGFORD
HENDERSONS
SPRAGUES
REINHARDS
FOUR GIVE $1 MILLION EACH TO FSU ATHLETICS
George Langford, a hard-to-beat friend of FSU, recently explained why his latest gift to the university was $1 million for athletics.
"If you build the athletic program up, academics will benefit," Langford said. "Unfortunately it's hard to sell the department of classics to the masses. But academics can ride on the coattails of athletics as far as publicity is concerned."
Langford has given the classics department a million-dollar eminent scholar chair, but this time his gift went to the Boosters, for athletics.
He was not the only one to do it last year. Three other $1-million gifts came to the Boosters from FSU alumni: Gordon and Bette Sprague, Don and Sarah Reinhard, and J. Sherman "Sherm" Henderson III.
They agreed with Langford - the only one who is not an FSU graduate - that the entire university will benefit from their gifts.
The Boosters are planning to use the $4 million for scholarships in all the sports and for buildings and equipment to train the athletes.
The ultimate goal, said Charlie Barnes, executive director of the Seminole Boosters, is to "build all the facilities that are needed to be put into place to have a first-class winning athletic program and to give the kids everything they need to win. "An athletic program run ethically, honestly, with enthusiasm, well funded and with victories is a tremendous public face for the university."
And the Boosters have a plan that sounds good to Langford, although he says it wasn't his idea: a "Langford Green" on the south side of the University Center, with a 20-foot bronze statue of a Seminole Indian on horseback with a flaming spear. The green will also have an outdoor stage for performances by the Marching Chiefs.