Features
Kat Braz
The Purdue Herbaria

An insider’s look at a university collection so valuable, the professor who built it once stole it back.

The earliest herbarium—a collection of plant samples preserved for scientific study—dates to 16th-century Italy, when the Bologna physician and botanist Luca Ghini (1490–1556) sought to make plant material available to his students in winter when the plants were dead or dormant.

The specimens were flattened between two pieces of paper to remove moisture. Once dried, they were mounted on paper sheets with notations on the plant’s name, where the plant was gathered, and any distinctive features. The pages were bound into volumes to enable transport from one location to another, thus making plant material from faraway places available indefinitely.

The Purdue Herbaria
Features
Kat Braz
A Window into Westwood Manor

The Stewarts at Westwood

Robert Bruce Stewart (HDR M’68), known as R.B., joined the Purdue University staff as controller in 1925. At that time, Purdue enrolled 3,000 students, the physical plant was worth $3 million, and the endowment totaled $340,000.

Stewart, who went on to become the university’s first vice president and treasurer, is credited by many with influencing the character and growth of Purdue University. He spent 36 years building the university both fiscally and physically.

A Window into Westwood Manor
Profiles
Kat Braz
A Story in Stones

Geochemist Marissa Tremblay ’12 analyzes Antarctic rocks to unravel Earth’s climate chronology and predict the planet’s future environment

A geologic field excursion to Death Valley during spring break her first year at Barnard set Marissa Tremblay ’12 on course to becoming a scientist. She entered college intending to pursue a law degree, but stepping foot on that vast, desolate desert landscape marked with sand dunes ignited a curiosity to uncover the stories in stones.

A Story in Stones
Features
Kat Braz
Call of the Wild

50 Years of Wolf Park

Founded by Purdue ethologist Erich Klinghammer in 1972, Wolf Park began as an experiment to study wolf behavior. The pioneering research conducted there over the past 50 years contributed to a better understanding of the apex predator and facilitated its reintroduction into the wild.

Call of the Wild
Profiles
Kat Braz
Come From Away

Twenty Years After 9/11 Longhorn Reflects on the Unexpected Detour—and the Subsequent Broadway Show—that Altered His Life’s Trajectory

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Kevin Tuerff and his then-partner, also named Kevin, were on an Air France flight bound for New York City. The couple had just wrapped up a European vacation and they were eager to get home. A sudden drop in elevation over the Atlantic Ocean was the first sign that something was amiss. Then came an announcement from the cockpit.

Come From Away

Going for the Kill

Going for the Kill

Redshirt senior Sherridan Atkinson found a home at Holloway

After two seasons at Long Beach State, outside hitter Sherridan Atkinson was looking for a new collegiate home. She blanketed Division I coaches with the same generic email, ending each one with a school-specific shoutout — “Fight on Trojans!” or “Go Boilers!” Dave Shondell, Purdue’s head volleyball coach, was one of the first to respond.

“I had no idea where Indiana was on the map,” Atkinson says. “I didn’t know anything about Purdue. I was a very sheltered Californian.”

Play Unified

Play Unified

Walk-on guard keeps rising to her ambitions, lifting others along the way

Abby Abel has always chased big dreams. After participating in a Purdue youth basketball camp at age 9, she decided she was going to play for the Boilermakers one day. She continued attending camps each summer; by her junior year of high school, she was a pretty good player, though not good enough to catch the eye of recruiters.

Exploding the Board Game Industry

Exploding the Board Game Industry

Meet the Boilermakers behind some of tabletop gaming’s hottest titles

Sir Ragnar had been found. He was alive but badly hurt. The wizard only needed to escort the injured knight back to the staircase where the rest of the rescue party was waiting. Suddenly, an alarm sounded throughout the dungeon. Ulag, the Orc Warlord, and his minions began attacking. Ragnar was killed in the melee. The heroes had failed.

It was all a bit too much for then-9-year-old Brady Sadler (LA’09), who vividly remembers breaking down and crying after the defeat.

Fields of Green

Fields of Green

Meet the sports turf managers who maintain America’s ballparks

You’ve heard of the seventh inning stretch? Joey Stevenson is a big fan of the fourth inning nap.

The head groundskeeper for the Indianapolis Indians keeps a pillow under his desk. Following the third inning drag, he checks the radar, and if skies are clear, he can grab a quick 35 minutes of shut-eye before he needs to prep for changing bases and dragging again in the sixth.

Shattering Expectations

Shattering Expectations

Relentless drive for perfection fuels linebacker Markus Bailey

Markus Bailey was 6 years old when his world came crashing down. The eldest of two sons has nothing but fond memories of those prior early years. His parents, Demarko and Amy Bailey, were still in high school when Markus was born. He recalls a loving home anchored by hardworking parents who were putting themselves through community college while raising him and his younger brother, Isaac.

Summer Party Rages On

Summer Party Rages On

Cary A unit friends celebrate 45th annual reunion

Ask any Cary Quad resident circa 1974, “Who was the biggest jerk who walked the halls?” and you were likely to hear the same answer: Chuck Harville (P’76, DP’89). It was a mantle he didn’t mind. It can be fun to be the instigator. In those days, orientation programs were less structured, and as leader of A unit orientation, it fell to Harville to assimilate the frosh.

An Arm for Yaretzi

An Arm for Yaretzi

Telescoping prosthesis enables 10-year-old girl to bow violin

It’s atypical to see a piano as part of a grade school orchestra ensemble, but that’s exactly what Zayra Vincent encountered when she visited the Burgin Elementary School music room this spring. There, in the back of the Arlignton, Texas, classroom, a smiling 10-year-old girl plucked out notes on the keyboard with one finger.

The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden

Alumnus renovates his sophomore landscape design 20 years later

The hidden light court encased within the walls of Duncan Hall in downtown Lafayette, Indiana, was neglected and overgrown when Aura Lee Emsweller was hired as the hall’s first executive director in 1996.

The Georgian, colonial-style building opened in 1931 as a meeting place for social, patriotic, charitable, educational, and cultural events. A 1958 addition created the inner courtyard, designed to allow light to pass through the stately ballroom windows. It was in this narrow, unkempt space with a mucky, untended pond and ivy climbing the brick walls that Emsweller’s 6-year-old son, Schuyler, discovered a wonderland for the imagination.