News from Inside Campus Drive and Beyond

Ageless Wonder

Courtesy Robert Simon

He just can't help it. Breaking into verse is the way Bob Simon instinctively reacts to everyday life, from milestones to minutiae. Now Simon, '53, MBA '59, has published Fleeting Rhyme (Poets Cornered, 2000), and it includes the poem he wrote for the University's Centennial in 1991. It seems Simon can't get Stanford out of his system, either. The former development officer and varsity track co-captain pledges that profits from the book--and from a poster featuring the Stanford poem--will fund athletic scholarships. Both are available at the Bookstore.

Centennial, the Poem

So now my alma mater Confronts her jubilee. How does she, like all grande dames, Grow old so gracefully?

I was so young at Stanford. When I went there to learn, How could I know that Stanford Kept something in return?

How could I see that Stanford Traded me for truth?
Took just a pinch of callow
And a sliver of my youth?

It balanced the equation,
That Stanford swap sublime.
I badly needed growing,
And all I had was time.

Today I am more seasoned
(Perhaps I am more sage.)
She, too, is growing older,
Yet Stanford does not age.

Renewed by each new student
By whom her song is sung,
She stays forever Stanford--
She stays forever young.

"We're all various varieties of dorks"

-- First year student Alex Robbins of Los Angleles, on the egalitarian, collegial ethos at Stanford.

A Little Harmony Shines Through

CLOSING THE CIRCLE: Singers offered a praise worthy tribute.

Courtesy Kimberly McClelland

When the student a cappella group Talisman traveled to South Africa last summer, it wasn't simply a tour, it was a pilgrimage--the fulfillment of a promise made seven years ago.

In 1993, the group performed at the Memorial Church service for Amy Biehl, '89, who was murdered in South Africa while finishing a year there as a Fulbright scholar. Talisman's founder, Joseph Pigato, '92, promised Biehl's parents, Peter and Linda, that the group would someday sing in the townships where their daughter had registered voters for the first post-apartheid elections. In June, to celebrate Talisman's 10th anniversary, 21 students and alumni, including Pigato, finally made the journey.

Talisman's repertoire includes songs of black South Africans, sung in Zulu. Everywhere the group performed--in restaurants, at schools and on street corners--people stopped and stared and then joined in, clapping along to the familiar rhythms. It is almost unheard of for a white South African to speak Zulu, says Talisman director Kimberly McClelland, '02, so black citizens were stunned to hear a racially mixed group of students singing in their language.

The journey included a trip to Gugulethu, the township where Biehl died, and a performance at the home there where her parents now live part of the year. The Biehls operate a foundation to benefit local residents, continuing the work of their daughter.

A Misty, Golden Moment

GOLD DIGGER: Hymans' shocking victory was a highlight of the games.

Reuters

On September 20, four months after she nearly gave up competitive swimming, Stanford senior Misty Hyman stood at the end of Lane 6 in the Olympics pool in Sydney, staring at the scoreboard trying to take in what she had just accomplished. Given little chance in a 200-meter butterfly field that included Australian superstar Susie O'Neill, Hyman led from start to finish, shaved four seconds off her previous best time and touched the wall in an Olympic record 2 minutes, 5.88 seconds, to win the gold medal. Afterward, Hyman seemed as incredulous as everybody else, shouting, over and over, "Oh, my God!" as television commentators scrambled to find hyperbole large enough to accommodate her victory. Said one: "This is the biggest upset in Olympic history."

Below is a rundown of all Stanford alumni and students who won medals in Sydney.

Hey, At Least It's Not a Chicken

Courtesy Chris Hutson

Georgia has its paunchy, slobbering Bulldog; Southern Cal has a Trojan horseman in full battle regalia; Stanford has a guy with branches sticking out of his head.

The Tree, the sideline emblem of--what, exactly?--turns 25 this fall.

Pining (sorry) for a mascot after four years without one&emdash;Prince Lightfoot disappeared when "Indians" became the "Cardinal" in 1971&emdash;students in the fall of 1975 clamored for something distinctive. A student referendum was held to consider several options. "Robber Barons" was among the early favorites, but the Stanford Band had other ideas. Bizarre, ridiculous ideas. Eric Strandberg, '76 and Bob Tiffany, '76 get credit--if that's the right word--for the Tree notion, conceived during their middle-of-the-night drive to Los Angeles in the Band's equipment van prior to the usc game. "It was supposed to be a spoof on mascots, not the real thing," says Strandberg of their tree theme, which the Band a week later adopted for its Big Game program. A "tree queen" was carried in on a wooden platform, surrounded by flower-tossing "wood nymphs" and the Tree itself, Chris Hutson, '76, ms '77. She and her friend, Jan Kraus Wolfe, '76, MS '77, had stayed up all night preparing Hutson's outfit, which consisted of a large chunk of wood wedged into a scuba backpack, upon which was impaled a two-foot Styrofoam cone, with construction paper "leaves" covering the entire thing. "It was pretty heavy, and it was hot, and I couldn't see," Hutson recalls. "And I got tackled by the Berkeley Bear." What?

"Yeah, the Berkeley Bear ran over and knocked me down, and the Band broke formation to come and save me," Hutson says.

It was not the kind of debut one would associate with an enduring symbol, and nobody expected Hutson's invention to survive beyond that week, let alone 24 more seasons. But Hutson returned the following year, while studying toward a master's in biology, and reprised her role as the Tree. The roots were established.

All these years later, the Tree still usually looks like a parade entrant who signed up at the last minute. But what it lacks in polish or ferocity, the Tree makes up for with roguish charm. What can we say? It grows on you.

An Honorable Thing to Do

HOME AT LAST: A heroic effort righted an old wrong.

News Service

Nearly 50 years after he was killed in action in Korea, Army Lt. Richard West, '51, finally has joined his fellow Stanford veterans on the Memorial Auditorium plaque honoring the University's war dead.

Why West's name was left off the plaque in the first place has never been determined, according to University spokeswoman Kate Chesley, but the reunion can be credited to the persistence of several Stanford staffers and one particularly motivated classmate of West's, Fred Brosio, '51, JD '57.

Brosio barely knew West at Stanford, but the two--both second lieutenants--became close friends after their assignment to the same artillery unit shortly after graduation. They shared a tent during their first duty with the 3rd Corps Artillery, the original Army detachment that administered the Nevada atomic bomb test site in the summer of 1951. After shipping out to Fort Sill, Okla., later that year, Brosio and West went to separate units, and West, in May of 1952, was ordered to Korea. On July 19, a few days before Brosio arrived in Korea with his unit, West was killed by an incoming mortar shell while giving artillery batteries coordinate information from his forward observation post. The Army deemed West's performance under fire "heroic action" and awarded him, posthumously, the Bronze Star for Valor.

Brosio reconnected with his old friend when, early in 1999, he began collaborating with Chesley and Stanford development officer Kathy Veit, MA '88, to confirm West's killed-in-action status as a prelude to having his name placed on the Mem Aud Roll of Honor. They hit several dead ends before Brosio happened upon a letter West had written to him. West's military serial number was printed on the envelope, and with that, Chesley was able to verify West's service in Korea. University archivist Maggie Kimball, '80, eventually located an obituary that provided the date of death.

On September 15, local stoneworker Ken Kramer engraved "Richard Donaldson West" onto the Mem Aud plaque, bringing full circle a friendship that Brosio says continues to influence him. "I grew to admire Rick very much during the time I knew him; we did a lot of driving together back and forth to L.A. during holiday breaks, and we talked a lot. He was a very thoughtful person. He had all of the virtues anybody would want in a son. His loss for me really brings home the waste of war."

West's sister, Lenore West Chillingworth, '50, planned to attend her 50th reunion on campus in October and commemorate her late brother's overdue recognition on the Farm.

FOLLOW-UP

High Court Will Take a Swing

IRON WILL: Martin's battle isn't over yet.

Reuters

Professional golfer Casey Martin, '94 ("The Drive to Win," May/June 1998), may not be out of the woods yet in his fight to challenge the pga's rule prohibiting the use of carts in tournaments. The U.S. Supreme Court in September agreed to hear the pga's appeal of a decision last spring by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld an earlier district court ruling in Martin's favor.

Martin, who suffers from a chronic degenerative circulatory problem in his right leg that makes walking painful, has maintained that the PGA's no-carts policy unfairly limits his opportunity for participation and violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. The PGA has countered that walking while playing is an essential part of the game and that riding a cart could give Martin a competitive advantage.

In affirming the district court's ruling, the 9th Circuit held that "the provision of a golf cart to Martin was a reasonable accommodation to his disability, and that use of the cart by Martin did not fundamentally alter the nature of the PGA …"