1996 September
May

1995
December
September
May

Alumni Association Honors The Best

What they create is diverse - from banana starch to medicine. Their backgrounds are varied - from degrees in home economics to biochemistry. What the winners of the Distinguished Achievement Citation share is creativity, leadership and service.

They, along with many of Iowa State's most remarkable alumni, faculty and staff, will be honored during the annual Honors and Awards Ceremony on Friday evening, Oct. 24, as part of Homecoming festivities.

This year's Distinguished Achievement Citation winners are profiled below and the list of additional award recipients follows.

Educational equality for all people

When Willie Lee Campbell left her home state of Texas and arrived at Iowa State College in 1932 to begin work on her master's degree in home economics, Iowa was a foreign land. Campbell remembers her first days well.

"I got there and the ground was white, the clouds were white, and the people were all white," she later told the Tyler Courier Times. She wanted to go home at first, she said, but her mother told her to look in the mirror when she wanted to see another black person.

Only 23 years old, she was the youngest person and one of the first African Americans to receive an M.S. in home economics education at Iowa State in 1933. The year she began her teaching career, 1934, was the same year the Supreme Court upheld a law that prevented African Americans from voting in the Texas Democratic primaries.

Willie Lee Campbell, who became Willie Lee Glass when she married the president of Texas College at age 26, would spend the rest of her life working for educational equality for all races.

In the 1960s, she worked with Texas state officials to implement integration in the schools and through the years, served as educational adviser for eight Texas governors. Today she lives in Tyler, Texas, and serves on 18 boards, including the board of directors of Stephen F. Austin State University - a university she could not attend as a youth because of her race.

"Dr. Willie Lee Campbell Glass, alias the Grande Dame, the Ambassador of Love, Lady Glass, Ms. G., the First Lady, has for all of her years exuded the essence of love, servant-hood, service, samaritanism and civic leadership," said Haywood Strickland, president of Texas College.

Controlling cholesterol

High cholesterol. By now most of us know how to partially control this modern day bogeyman through diet. What we are less likely to understand is how a natural process that occurs in our bodies helps regulate cholesterol, regardless of what we eat.

James Gaylor has spent most of his professional life studying the process and creating a new drug that mimics this natural regulation.

Gaylor's career has been a classic illustration of "translational research," the new buzzword for basic research that begins at the lab bench - usually at the university level - and then is applied to a specific need, often in industry.

Gaylor received a B.S. in chemistry and mathematics from ISU in 1956 and M.S. and Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin. He spent the academic half of his career studying and teaching about the basic synthesis of cholesterol at Cornell University and at the University of Missouri. By the time his career took him to the research and development department of DuPont, a drug that lowered cholesterol in the body already had been identified.

But the drug uses a substance that is foreign to the body - an isolated ingredient from fungi. Gaylor's goal was to design a compound that mimics the body's natural ability to regulate cholesterol.

"It's intrinsically safer if you can use the same mechanism that Mother Nature uses to control the process," he said. The drug he designed currently is undergoing clinical studies.

Gaylor is corporate director of science and technology for Johnson & Johnson, Norcross, Ga.

Finding the truth of things

Martin Wilk's students and co-workers speak of his "passion for finding the truth of things." The truths that Wilk sought helped turn around an entire country; his work illustrates how the "truthful" collection, interpretation and communication of data can affect millions of people for decades.

Numbers are the driving force behind policy decisions. For example, if minority or under-privileged populations are under- counted by a country's census, block grants that are based on these flawed numbers will fail to reach millions of people in need.

Sensitive to the conditions of society, Wilk created a system of health and social statistics that guided allocation of resources for Canada and served as a model for the rest of the world.

Wilk, who received an M.S. in statistics from ISU in 1953, joined Statistics Canada, an agency akin to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau, as chief statistician at a time when the public and the media had lost confidence in the bureau.

"Dr. Wilk came to Statistics Canada at a very low point in the history of the bureau," said Stewart Wells, assistant chief statistician at Statistics Canada. "Over the next two years, Dr. Wilk's high intelligence, energy and clearly evident professionalism succeeded not only in reversing attitudes and procedures at Statistics Canada, but restored the bureau to its previous high standing in Canadian society."

Wilk resides in Stittsville, Ontario, Canada.

Cell signals

When Keith Yamamoto declared himself a biochemistry and biophysics major at ISU in 1964, he remembers that it was with some ambivalence.

"I didn't really have a clue about what a professional biologist would do all day," he said, in a quote in the American Society for Cell Biology newsletter. "I was afflicted with a stereotyped image of the solitary scientist hunched over his work in the corner of some laboratory, never encountering another person. This worried me so much that in my sophomore year, I almost changed my major to English, with fantasies of becoming a writer."

But Yamamoto received his B.S. from ISU in biochemistry in 1968, his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1973, and today is recognized as one of the most respected leaders in the field of steroid hormone receptors.

Yamamoto was one of the first scientists to explain how steroid hormones function, and researchers in his laboratory at the University of California, San Francisco, were the first to purify a steroid receptor and to isolate and characterize its gene. His work provides a founda-tion for understanding many cellular signaling processes that occur as part of normal cell function and which go awry during disease.

"The field of gene transcription, filled with brilliant, hard-working and highly competitive scientists, is one of the hottest in all of biology," said his colleague Henry Bourne in the department of cellular and molecular pharmacology, which Yamamoto chairs at the University of California, San Francisco. "In this field, Dr. Yamamoto is one of the two or three most respected leaders, both in the USA and internationally."

Starch from the little bananas

A few years ago, Roy Whistler was visiting a banana plantation in Costa Rico and noted that 25 percent of the bananas - too small or slightly damaged - were thrown away. An economist would have noted the wasted revenue. An environmentalist would have documented the energy it took to dispose of the bananas and its effect on the environment. But Roy Whistler saw starch.

"I said to myself, 'My goodness, we could use the starch from those bananas.' "

Within two years Whistler and his colleagues at Purdue University had developed a process and a patent for banana starch. The new starch has the same thickening qualities as potato or tapioca starch, but is cheaper. A factory in Costa Rico to produce the starch already is operational.

Whistler explains the swiftness of the whole process in three words. "I know starch."

His colleagues use more words. "Dr. Roy Whistler is one of the finest carbohydrate chemists ever produced in the United States," said Darrell Medcalf, president of HealthComm International.

Whistler, who received a Ph.D. from ISU in 1938, has been one of the most respected leaders in carbohydrate research for more than half a century.

Although Whistler applied his research to many areas, from food production to construction materials, his use of plant carbohydrates in the production of medicines currently is receiving attention. For example, Whistler and his co-workers have discovered that simple sugar cane, when caramelized, reduces colic in babies. Heating the sugar produces a new kind of carbohydrate, which changes the acidity of the intestine so that colic-forming organisms can't grow.

Whistler is an adjunct professor, Whistler Center for Carbohydrate Chemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind. He currently is working on ways to produce the substance inexpensively.
Karol Crosbie, Alumni Association

Alumni Medal

In 1948 the Alumni Association commissioned artist-in-residence Christian Petersen to create a medal to recognize honored alumni. Since then, alumni chosen to receive special recognition have been given a bronze replica of the Petersen medal.

Presented by the ISU Alumni Association, to recognize long, loyal and outstanding alumni service to the university:

• Agatha Huepenbecker Burnet, '56 MS, emeritus professor, textiles and clothing, ISU, Ames.

• Keith L. McRoberts, '53, MS '59, PhD '66, retired director, Research and Innovation Center, Iowa Methodist Health System, Woodward.

Outstanding Young Alumnus/Alumna

Presented by the ISU Alumni Association to recognize alumni under 40 years of age whose achievements have honored ISU:

• Philip A. Anfinrud, '87 PhD, associate professor, chemistry and chemical biology, Harvard University, Somerville, Mass.

• Leanne Cowan Barnett, '86, senior vice president; Bank One, Bloomington, Ind.

• Damona G. Doye, '86 PhD, professor, agricultural economics and extension economist, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Okla.

• Dennis H. Goering, '86, president/CEO, dhg Productions Inc., Urbandale.

• Scott H. Hutchins, '87 PhD, global development manager, DowElanco, Carmel, Ind.

• Dennis P. Ryan, '88, actor, graphic designer, Norrell Temporary Services, Brooklyn, N.Y.

Faculty Citation

Presented by the ISU Alumni Association to recognize outstanding and inspiring service on the university faculty (only ISU degrees listed)

• Rosalie J. Amos, '53, associate professor, family and consumer sciences education and studies, Ames.

• Michael F. Berard, '60, '62 MS, '68 PhD, professor, materials science and engineering, Ames.

• Robert S. Boston, '62, '72, retired assistant professor, English, Clive.

• Richard E. Carlson, '69 MS, '71 PhD, professor, agronomy, Ames.

• Michael R. Crum, associate professor, transportation and logistics, Ames.

• Sara J. Kadolph, '72, associate professor, textiles and clothing, Hubbard.

• Lee R. Kolmer, '52 MS, '54 PhD, emeritus professor, economics, Ames.

• Peter J. Reilly, Anson Marston Distinguished Professor in Engineering and professor, chemical engineering, Ames.

Superior Service Award

Presented by the ISU Alumni Association to recognize outstanding service on the university staff (only ISU degrees listed):

• Carol Brophy, secretary, English, Ames.

• Ann Coppernoll Farni, '87 PhD, undergraduate program coordinator, College of Business, Ames.

• Sally Gleason, secretary, chemistry, Ames.

• Anita T. Nimtz, '71, administrative specialist, microbiology, immunology and preventive medicine, Ames.

• Sharon A. Shepard, clerk-typist, statistics, Roland.

• Karsten Smedal, '62, '74 MS, retired director of admissions, enrollment services, Ames.

Alumni Merit Award

Presented by the ISU Club of Chicago to a graduate or former student who has made an outstanding contribution to human welfare:

• Donald E. Latham, '69, co-owner/operations manager, Latham Seed Co., Alexander.

Henry A. Wallace Award

Presented by the College of Agriculture for significant contributions to national or international agriculture:

• Ned S. Raun, '61 PhD, executive director, MidAmerica International Agricultural Consortium, Stillwater, Okla.

Floyd Andre Award

Presented by the College of Agriculture for distinguished service to agriculture production or business in Iowa:

• Alan R. Tubbs, '66, president, Maquoketa State Bank, Ohnward Bancshares Inc., DeWitt.

John D. DeVries Service Award

Presented by the College of Business to recognize outstanding service to the college:

• William Goodwin, '59, president, Goodwin Grain & Land Co., Des Moines.

Citation of Achievement

Awarded by the College of Business to distinguished alumni who have demonstrated outstanding achievements in life beyond the campus:

• Stephen Bergstrom, '79, president, Natural Gas Clearing House, Kingwood, Texas.

• J. Scott Johnson, '79, president/CEO, Norwest Banks, Clive.

• Sheryl K. Sunderman, '76, managing partner, Andersen Consulting, Walnut Creek, Calif.

Marston Medal

Presented by the College of Engineering in recognition of pre- eminent service in the engineering profession:

• Chester W. Diercks Jr., '50, retired president and CEO, Siemens-Allis, and Utility Power Corp., Marietta, Ga.