Tech Topics - Spring 2008 - (Page 22)

LivingHistory TECH TALES COME TO LIFE By John Dunn ‘Treasure trove’ of stories shared in Centennial Series A collection of alumni anecdotes “filled with humor, derring-do, accomplishments and every human emotion” are being made available as podcasts as part of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association’s centennial celebration. The Centennial Series began Feb. 1 with four stories. A new story will be added each week throughout the Alumni Association’s centennial observance. The clips are available in audio and video formats and vary between three and a half and five minutes in length at www.gtalumni. org/100. Modeled after the successful feature on National Public Radio’s StoryCorps, the series allows visitors to the Alumni Association’s Web site to view and listen to clips and download them. Each added clip will be available on the site for the duration of the series. Since its start in 1994, the Living History Program has conducted nearly 700 interviews with alumni, faculty and friends, compiling thousands of personal remembrances. “It is a treasure trove of history that is filled with humor, derring-do, accomplishments and every human emotion one can imagine,” said Marilyn Somers, founding director of the Living History Program. The initial interviews are with Anne Marie Eaton, who enrolled in the industrial engineering program in 1942 and is Tech’s oldest living alumna at 100; G.B. Espy, ME 57; Robert Broward, BS 51, Arch 52; and John Endicott, retired International Affairs faculty member and former director of the Center for International Strategy, Technology and Policy. Eaton, a native of Manheim, Germany, recalls a family vacation when she was 7 years old to Switzerland that was dramatically interrupted by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. “She tells of the impact that the ensuing World War I had on her family and indeed middle-class women in her country,” Somers said. Espy, an obstetrician/ gynecologist, tells the story of how a senior class presentation on careers by an FBI agent in his small Alabama The stories are entirely different, as are the tellers, yet each brings the listener into what is taking place as only oral history can. Hearing about what happened in the voice of the person it happened to is really just like being there. “ ” hometown inadvertently led him to attend Georgia Tech. “Espy is a fine storyteller in the true Southern tradition,” Somers said. Broward, who is an architect in Jacksonville, Fla., recounts his plan to meet the great architect Frank Lloyd Wright and how he carefully carried that plan out on his winter break from Tech in 1948 by traveling to Taliesin West in Arizona. Endicott remembers the year he spent with his father in London when he was 15 years old. “He describes seeing Winston Churchill in action at a session of Parliament that is so descriptive you can easily imagine the experience,” Somers said. “The stories are entirely different, as are the tellers, yet each brings the listener into what is taking place as only oral history can. Hearing about what happened in the voice of the person it happened to is really just like being there,” Somers said. Somers works with videographer Scott Dinerman, STC 03, a member of the Living History staff. The podcasts add a new dimension to sharing alumni, faculty and friends’ stories, Somers said. Articles about alumni and faculty who have appeared in Living History interviews also are featured in TECH TOPICS, as well as Living History’s “Telling It Like It Was” Web page on the Alumni Association site. “This gives us a grand way to let others enjoy what we all have come to treasure so much,” Somers said. Among the additions to the Web site in February were clips from interviews with Patrise PerkinsHooker, IM 80, speaking on the African-American student experience in the mid-1970s, and Tom Edwards, EE 28, relating experiences in the machine and woodworking shops that defined the challenges faced by all students attending classes at Georgia Tech in the 1920s. GT 22 TECHTOPICS | SPRING 2008

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Tech Topics - Spring 2008 Contents Mail Call Gold & White Honors Alumni House Sweet Spring Centennial Buzz Supreme Court Victory The Hill ‘Treasure Trove’ of Stories Living History Forget-me-not Fashion Student Life Investing in Graduates Giving Back Training the Next Generation Burdell & Friends Ingredients for Success Yellow Jackets Hockey Club Ices Georgia Tech Job Hunters Fare Well Real World

Tech Topics - Spring 2008

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