COMPRESSION
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EL NINO AGAIN
North Florida's wildfires and the heavy rains that finally followed have brought fame and time-consuming attention to James J. O'Brien, the Florida State climatologist who predicted them.
Between calls from the press, he's managed to look at the year coming up, the 1998-99 winter, which he expects to be dry, maybe too dry.
O'Brien and other researchers on FSU's team - the Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies - published long range climate predictions in March 1997, noting the effects of El Niño on weather patterns.
They predicted the very dry summer that allowed the widespread fires this year. The rains that followed in late July, O'Brien told the Miami Herald a few weeks before, were "probably not going to be enough to make everything hunky-dory, not what we're hoping for.
"Everybody would enjoy having a nice big sloppy tropical depression come across Florida and give everybody rain. . . . Can you remember the last time people prayed for a tropical storm to come and hit them?'' - Margaret Leonard
ALUMNI OFFICERS
The FSU Alumni Association board has elected new officers.
The new chairman, Hugo de Beaubien, graduated from FSU in 1970 with a degree in business.
De Beaubien, from Orlando, is a trial lawyer, president of the law firm Drage, de Beaubien, Knight, Simmons, Romano & Neal, and a former assistant state attorney in Orange County.
Other officers:
· Dr. Raymond Cottrell, also from Orlando, and a 1969 graduate of the FSU Chemistry Department, is chair-elect.
· Tom C. Haney M.D., of Tallahassee, a 1964 graduate in biology, was elected executive vice president.
· Cheryl Beckert of Winter Haven, a 1972 College of Human Sciences graduate, will be secretary.
· Tom Goldsworthy of Edmond, Okla., reelected as treasurer, is a 1967 College of Education graduate.
· James H. Melton of Tallahassee will return as president. He is a 1975 M.S. graduate of the Reubin Askew School of Public Administration and has been at Florida State since 1969. - Amy Welch
FLORIDA HIGH MOVING?
Florida State's research school, popularly known in Tallahassee as Florida High, is likely to move off campus, where it has been since the 1950s, to a southside location in Southwood, a planned development.
Though it's called Florida High, the school has grades kindergarten through 12. The students are chosen to represent a demographic balance, not any part of town.
The developer of Southwood, St. Joe/Arvida, plans to build 4,200 homes and has offered 40 acres to Florida State for the lab school.
That gift frees up space on campus for other uses and gives the lab school a chance to rebuild with modern technology.
FSU President Sandy D'Alemberte, who supports the move, said he intends to beef up the lab school's purpose of providing research opportunities to the College of Education.
The move must be approved by the Board of Regents. Though the land would be donated, the cost of construction would probably require a special appropriation by the Legislature. - Margaret Leonard
FSU PROFESSOR TO CONDUCT UNESCO CHOIR
There will be singers from all over the world, but the one who will lead them is from FSU.
Andre Thomas, FSU's director of choral activities and professor of music education, will conduct the 1998 World Youth Choir.
The World Youth Choir, a good will effort of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, is made up of singers from every continent. Members go through a rigorous audition process. Those selected range from children to young adults and young college students.
The United States is represented by 12 vocalists, including Michael Shortal, an FSU student majoring in music. - Amy Welch