Alfred Knobler (ceramic engineering '38) exhibited cameo glass vases and other art pieces from his Pilgrim Glass Corp. in Virginia Tech's Perspectives Gallery in September.
For more than a decade, the company -- of which Knobler is founder and CEO -- has been experimenting with multilayered, multicolored glasses called cameo glass. Very little cameo glass has been made in the United States because of the delicacy of the creation process.
Cameo glass is made by casing one layer of hot molten glass upon another, and carving down into the different layers when it cools. The layers of glass must have the same rate of expansion or the glass will shatter. In fact, 95 percent of Pilgrim's earliest attempts were broken. "The breakage rate during those years would have disheartened any but the totally, foolishly dedicated," Knobler says.
Tours of the manufacturing facility, located in Ceredo, W.Va., are available to the public. Knobler donated all profits from sales during the show to Virginia Tech's Material Science and Engineering Department and Squires Student Center.
No more winter walks across the Drillfield clutching a parka hood for Paul Kennedy (English '76). As sports director for the Sunshine Network, a Fox Sports Net regional channel based in Orlando, Fla., Kennedy enjoys a balmy climate all year round -- when he's home.
A typical month's schedule keeps sportscaster Kennedy on the road at least half the time. Last August, for example, Kennedy broadcast 12 events from various parts of the country, including sailing, water skiing, major-league baseball, martial arts, and NFL and college football pre-season events.
In spring 1997, Kennedy broadcast World League football from London. He says that Europe is quickly warming up to the peculiarly American game, with 155 nations televising it currently. "You can walk down the streets of Berlin and you'll see a Chicago Cubs hat and a Virginia Tech sweatshirt," he says.
The Sunshine Network holds contracts to many Florida teams, including the Miami Heat and Florida State Seminoles. Kennedy broadcasts these games for the 4.5 million Sunshine Network subscribers in Florida and the 45 million Fox Sports Net subscribers across the nation.
Kennedy's student experience producing and hosting programs for WUVT and calling Tech football was a vital springboard to his current career.
Blacksburg may be history to you, but the history of Blacksburg, Virginia Tech, and the surrounding environs still makes a fascinating read. The Smithfield Review, a journal edited by Virginia Tech Professor Emeritus of Mathematics Hugh Campbell, focuses on the history of the area west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, particularly the area around the Smithfield Plantation. (You may remember the 1774 Smithfield Plantation that borders Virginia Tech near the Duck Pond.)
Two articles by Virginia Tech alumni are featured in the first issue: "Newport, Virginia -- a Crossroads Village" by Douglas Martin (public administration '64; educational administration M.S., Ph.D.) and his son Perry (communication studies '98), and "Our Native Stone: Architecture and Identity at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 1872-1922" by J. Daniel Pezzoni (architecture '84).
History professor Peter Wallenstein (whose article on Virginia Tech's desegregation appeared in the fall '97 Virginia Tech) has written about the changing attitude toward slavery of an owner of the Smithfield Plantation. Other articles include a history of mining in the New River Valley and recollections of 18th-century frontier life at the Smithfield Plantation.
The Smithfield Review is published by the Montgomery County branch of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. Copies are $12, including tax and postage, and can be obtained by writing to: Smithfield Review, 555 Edgewood Lane, Blacksburg, VA 24060.
Douglas Wayne Hosier (history M.S. '85) was fatally shot while aiding a robbery victim in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on July 2.
Hosier and three traveling companions were approached on the street by two would-be robbers on a motorbike. When one of the assailants held a gun to the closest traveler, Hosier stepped to the victim's aid. The robber shot Hosier in the chest and fled. No arrests have been made.
Hosier was an instructor at the Language Education and Research Institute at the Kyung Hee University in Seoul, South Korea, and was on summer break when the fatal shooting occurred. His career as an overseas teacher also included assignments in Japan. Fluent in Japanese and Kanji, Hosier once hosted a Japanese television show called "Post, Let's Communicate in English."
Those who were close to Hosier remember him as a free spirit who loved to learn, teach, and travel. In 1986, Hosier and a friend bicycled from Blacksburg to California in a fund-raising project for Substance Abuse Services of the New River Valley.
David Calhoun (accounting '79) has assumed leadership of GE Lighting, the division of General Electric Co. that designs, manufactures, and markets lamps and lamp component parts. Calhoun was previously head of GE Transportation Systems; he has also held top positions in GE Capital, GE Plastics, and GE corporate staff.
Business analysts have seen Calhoun's latest move as a "seasoning" experience that will prepare him to contend for GE's top position when Chairman Jack Welch retires in 2000. Says Calhoun, "That's a fair comment. [However,] I'd never speculate on how that would play out over the next few years."
GE's lamp business is the oldest enterprise of GE, which was formed in 1892 as a manufacturer of Thomas Edison's incandescent light bulb. The company now manufactures 20,000 distinct products worldwide, with major plants in Hungary, China, India, and Indonesia. Globalization is a major initiative, says Calhoun, who estimates that 50 percent of his division's profits will come from abroad by 2000.
Service, he says, is vital to GE's growth strategy. His division's commitment to service includes not only the standard toll-free help lines and an interactive web site, but also the GE Lighting Institute, informally dubbed the "University of Light," a unique learning facility located at GE Lighting's headquarters in Nela Park, Ohio.
J. Daniel Herring (theater arts '84), associate director for Louisville, Ky.'s nationally acclaimed Stage One children's theater, will take The Great Gilly Hopkins to Broadway's New Victory Theatre in April.
The New Victory Theater is New York's premier theater for children. It selected Gilly, along with nearly 20 other shows, out of 100 considered worldwide to bring to its 500-seat theateron 42nd Street.
Gilly is about a clever but hard-to-manage teen girl whose life is a bitter journey from one foster home to another. Herring envisions Gilly as a "contemporary tragic hero who makes us laugh and cry as she struggles with the decisions and the consequences she faces."
Stage One's philosophy of developmental theater accommodates children's levels of aesthetic development. Gilly's themes of non-traditional families, race relations, choices, and identity appeal to the play's intended audience of 4th to 12th grade students. Herring is adamant in his belief that children deserve theater of the same caliber as their parents have come to expect. "They want good writing. They want dimension to the characters," he says.
In spring 1997, Herring also directed Something Upstairs, starring Darrell Gibson (theater arts '94).
So You Want to be President ... How to Get Elected on Your Campus, features a chapter by alumnus Ronnie Stephenson (political science '95), 1993-94 Virginia Tech Student Government Association president. Stephenson, who was the first sophomore and the first African American to serve as Tech's S.G.A. president, tells how he won the election against opponents with large organizational support.
Stephenson's campaign theme, Students FIRST (Forever Interested in Restoring Student Trust), and his willingness to meet with any group appealed to many students, he says in the book. The opposition had the support of several large fraternities, sororities, and the corps of cadets, so Stephenson felt he should speak to as many groups as possible. "The schedule was horrendous," he says. He spoke between his classes and met with up to five organizations at night.
The book tells leaders how to recruit volunteers, motivate voters, and raise money without breaking rules. It is available from Oxendine Publishing at (352) 373-6907.
Stephenson, who lives in Hampton, is now president of the Peninsula chapter of the Virginia Tech Alumni Association. He has been working at NASA-Langley in legislative affairs.
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