Alumni Magazine - Spring 2008 - (Page 64) 1981, issue of People. Actor John Travolta was pictured with the starlet. 31, Turner was at Tech to receive the Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Progress and Service. 69 70 71 A central character in the 1982 James Michener novel “Space” is aerospace engineer Stanley Mott, a graduate of Georgia Tech. The Georgia Tech Hong Kong Club received its charter from the Alumni Association in 1982. Institute President Joseph M. Pettit was heading a delegation to China and made a detour to present the charter to club president Phil Weiss, ID 62, and founding member John C. “Jack” Portman III, Arch 71. Ted Turner, then president and chairman of the board of Turner Broadcasting Systems and owner of the Atlanta Braves and Hawks, discussed innovations in communications as the luncheon speaker for Intersect ’82 at the Student Center during Homecoming. “There’s not one program on network television that really shows somebody in a normal, average career that’s an exciting and challenging place to be,” Turner said during his remarks. “Most of it’s ‘Love Boat’ and ‘Fantasy Island,’ and it makes people feel like they’re worthless.” More than 25 years later, on March 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 On tap for Georgia Tech Night at the Fox Theatre for Spring Sting weekend May 1-3, 1987, were performances by Bernadette Peters and Paul Anka. In 1988, Charles Smithgall, GS 33, anonymously gave $3 million toward the establishment of the Ivan Allen College. The gift wasn’t made public until 2007, when the late Smithgall and his widow, Lessie, were awarded the Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Progress and Service. Riccardo Ullio, CE 90, MS EnvE 93, has earned fine marks in Atlanta dining circles for his restaurants Sotto Sotto and Fritti. Now he has opened the Brazilian-inspired Beleza and Cuerno, which earned four stars in March from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for its Spanish cuisine. The music video for Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “The House is a Rockin’” was shot at the Chi Phi house at Georgia Tech in the summer of 1990, shortly before the singer’s death in a helicopter crash. Bollywood filmmaker Nagesh Kukunoor earned a master’s degree in chemical engineering at Tech in 1991. His films include “Hyderabad Blues,” 1998; the sequel, “Rearranged Marriage,” 2004; and the newly released “Bombay to Bangkok.” Kary Mullis, Chem 66, won a 1993 Nobel Prize for his concept of initiating a chain reaction to replicate DNA, called one of the top scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century. Vern Yip, MS Mgt 94, M Arch 95, has his own television show, “Deserving Design,” on HGTV. A recent episode brought Yip back to campus to transform what was described as a “ho-hum media room” at the Alpha Delta Chi sorority house into the “coolest place on campus.” A television veteran, Yip has been a designer on “Trading Spaces” and a judge on “Design Star.” 64 Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Spring 2008
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