Farm Report

NEWS FROM INSIDE CAMPUS DRIVE AND BEYOND

Quote "He needs the forethought of Prometheus, the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules and the patience of Job. Good luck in your search." -- Carl M. Franklin, MA '35, vice president emeritus of USC, in a letter to James Ukropina, '59, MBA '61, chair of Stanford's presidential search committee

Long-Distance Fans UP THE RIVER: With a big screen Courtesy Peter Voll Associates They were scattered across the globe for the ultimate New Year's celebration, but that didn't stop Stanford Travel/Study participants from following the Cardinal's fate in the January 1 Rose Bowl. Highlights: Dijon, France The game starts at 11 p.m. Diehard fans gather around a speaker-phone in the hotel bar and listen for three hours as the game is transmitted over a phone line from a radio in Palo Alto. Mississippi River More than 150 alums assemble aboard the Mississippi Queen (somewhere between Natchez, Miss., and Baton Rouge, La.) to watch a live satellite feed on a big-screen TV. Jaisalmer, India Alumni on the Northern India Seminar spend January 1 aboard the Palace on Wheels train. They get news of the game two days later by phoning California from an Indian "cyber café" -- located in a 14th-century fortress. Fakarava, French Polynesia Moored offshore aboard the Paul Gauguin, 48 alums wait two days for a videotape to arrive -- shipped via FedEx, an island transport plane and a small boat. They finally watch the game in the ship's grand salon.

Picking Up Where Dad Left Off MISSISSIPPI LEARNING: Roscoe Sr. made history. His son is uncovering it. Peter Stember As a youth leader in the 1964 Freedom Summer civil rights project, Roscoe Jones Sr. told three fellow activists he would travel with them to Philadelphia, Miss. Then he remembered that he'd also agreed to speak the same night to a youth group in Meridian, Miss. Jones went to the youth meeting. The activists -- Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman -- never arrived at their destination. Forty-four days later, they were found murdered by Klansmen. Fueled by the memory of his fallen friends, Jones became one of the first black students to attend a white high school in Meridian that fall and the local junior college a year later. "I knew what commitment we had," he says. While Jones made history, his son is uncovering it. Roscoe Jones Jr., a Stanford senior, is writing an honors thesis on the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, a state-funded group that spied on civil rights workers from 1956 to 1973. He has tracked down FBI files and previously sealed records in Mississippi, Louisiana and Washington, D.C. He could write a book about the commission, he says, but instead plans to attend law school and pursue a career in national politics. Roscoe Sr. is encouraged by his son's work. "It's going to take young people to realize where we've come from and where we're going," he says. "He's the future."

SIT, STAY, HEAL: Hospital patient Rebecca Lindenberg gets a visit from Kodiak, an English mastiff. Mark Estes

Doogie Bowser's Rounds Every dog has its day. For Roz, a golden retriever, it comes every other Thursday at Stanford Hospital. That's when the 8-year-old (and her owner, Carol Porter) make the rounds in a program designed to bring a healthy dose of puppy love to patients. Launched in March 1997, Pet-Assisted Wellness at Stanford -- PAWS -- has sent nine dogs into the hospital. They've visited more then 600 patients. "Some folks are really sick, and some are terminally ill," says Vivian Vestal, the program's coordinator. "Dogs sense things and reach these patients in totally different ways than we do, ways that no medicine or doctor will." The dogs must pass an obedience course and be certified to work in hospitals. But their bedside manner goes beyond basics. Roz, for example, can stand on her hind legs against a hospital bed, making it easier for patients to reach her. That trick charmed patient Lorraine Haag on a recent Thursday. "You are so special," she cooed as she patted Roz's head. "Dogs have a tendency to make people forget they're sick." From the Locker Room to the Boardroom HEAD GAMES: Wildfogel coaches CEOs. Rod Searcey As one of California's first sports psychologists, Jeffrey Wildfogel built up a solid practice in the mid-1980s working with both professional athletes and weekend sports enthusiasts. But it wasn't long before he began to notice that the advice designed to improve the forehands and chip shots of his white-collar clients was having an effect on their management and sales skills. "I realized that I knew a lot more about business than I thought I did," says Wildfogel, PhD '79. He shifted his focus from athletes to executives, changed the name of his Mountain View consulting practice from "Great Transformations" to "The Mental Edge" and has been thriving among the Silicon Valley start-ups ever since. He still draws on research he did on performance psychology at Stanford. One exercise: to help clients tap into their most competent personae, he asks them to imagine that they have a "black belt" in whatever task -- a sales call, a design challenge -- is at hand. This summer, Wildfogel will go from coaching executives to being one. He and a group of online entrepreneurs are launching a website, HealthyCorp.com, designed to be a one-stop mall for businesses in need of consultants. "It's a chance to be in partnership and really make a difference," he says. "And this time I have stock options."

When It Comes to Brownies, Mother Knows Best RECIPE FOR SUCCESS: Kravetz and Spitalny Courtesy David Kravetz Like most sons, David Kravetz likes to boast that his mom's brownies are the best. But Kravetz, '88, put his money where his mouth was. In 1992, he teamed up with a childhood friend, Eileen Spitalny, to launch Fairytale Brownies, a venture built around a 42-year-old family recipe. The pair sold their rich treats out of a tiny bakery in Phoenix that quickly turned into a magnet for tourists eager to bring a local specialty home to family and friends. The partners used only the finest ingredients -- fresh eggs, butter and real Belgian chocolate (the single "improvement" to mom's original concoction). Kravetz and Spitalny were amazed at how much people were willing to pay for their creations: $2 for a 3-ounce brownie. The major breakthrough came in 1994, when the company began a mail-order business (with an online store, brownies.com, of course). Last year, Fairytale moved to a 10,000-square-foot production facility and shipped more than 1 million of its 12 flavors of brownies (top seller: original recipe). The secret of its success may be that Kravetz and Spitalny know how to get customers hooked. "We got where we are now by handing out lots and lots of free brownies," Kravetz jokes. "That tends to keep people happy and coming back for more."

STORIED PAST: Samples from the new collection Glenn Matsumura

Now Online: Whodunits, Wild West Yarns and Romances It was a sorry day for silverfish when the late P.J. Moran's family cleaned out his attic. The Oakland postal inspector had stashed away more than 7,000 dime novels, boys' magazines and weekly "story papers" dating back 100 years and more. In 1995 the Stanford Libraries acquired his collection, which dwarfed its previous holdings in this genre. Why would a university want bales of crumbling newsprint -- mostly whodunits, Wild West yarns, swashbuckling adventures and romances? The answer lies not so much in the literary merit of works like California Joe, The Mysterious Plainsman or Dime Ladies Letters as in what they reveal about American cultural history. Advances in printing technology, distribution and literacy rates allowed dime novels and weekly story newspapers to reach an unprecedented mass audience -- 400,000 in the case of some tabloids. By studying the old story lines and illustrations, scholars can gain insight into the tastes, values and stereotypes of ordinary people from Civil War days into the early 20th century. Curators faced a double challenge with the collection: preserve its brittle pages yet make them widely accessible. Each item had to be slipped into a plastic sleeve and kept in an acid-free box. "It's a space-intensive collection," says librarian John Mustain. But thanks to scanning technology and the Internet, visitors to Stanford's dime novel website (www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/dp/pennies) can read nine different stories in their entirety, view more than 2,300 images and recover a fascinating chapter in publishing history -- without disturbing a page.