RPI PostScript   January 2007

SECTION 2

90th Anniversary,
Gifts for Alumni Homecoming & the GI Bill.

SECTION 3
Heads Up
Carlyon Scholar 

SECTION 4
The Play's the Thing
 

Dear RPI Alumni of VCU,            

Happy New Year, and welcome to PostScript, an e-letter planned and written by and for you. We have stories and photos about Adams Barber Shop—still on Broad Street —RPI Theatre, and the post-WWII years at RPI. Special thanks to Jane Chandler ’66BSDist Ed’71MED, RPI alumni editor, and to Ray Bonis ’88BS/MC at Cabell Library Special Collections. 

We hope you'll enjoy it and respond with your own RPI memories, which we’ll publish in later issues, leading up to RPI Reunion April 27-29. 

Please forward to friends and urge them to let us know their email addresses and current contact information at www.vcu-mcvalumni.org  

Send your memories and requests to memercer@vcu.edu or call  804-828-1672 or 804-359-4901; PO Box 843044; Richmond, VA  232843044

Check the latest on RPI Reunion 2007 at http://www.alumni.vcu.edu/RPI2007/RPIREUNION.htm

 RPI alumni, please post any memories, comments, suggestions, or notes in the Share Memories link below: 

Share Memories

Virtual Visit to Campus
You started it all with RPI so many years ago. Check out VCU RAMCAM and take a virtual look around campus. Several cameras are located on both campuses, so you can watch the new engineering building going up and preview the changes you’ll see at Reunion.    

 The 50-year “Class of 1957” will be celebrated and recognized this spring—but at RPI everyone parties!  So come and meet your classmates and mix with the whole span of RPI graduates. The committee has a great reunion in the works—whether it’s been 20 years, or only a week since you saw your friends. The kickoff reception Friday at the Jefferson Hotel’s splendid rotunda features Tommy Whitten on piano, playing classics from the ’50s and ’60 s.

On Saturday, alumni will dedicate the RPI Commemorative Sculpture in Shafer Court . There will be plenty of tours of VCU’s campuses, old and new. The School of Social Work is planning special events to recognize their 90^th anniversary. At the elegant dinner Saturday evening, speaker and VCU President, Dr. Eugene Trani will be a hard act to follow, but VCU Theatre’s scenes from “Smokey Joe’s Café,” will add drama to the marble hall at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Bring your RPI memories and memorabilia. There will be plenty of opportunities to share both.

Sue Baldwin ’56BS/E (far left) and Doug Burford ’65BS/MC (far right).

RPI alumni who returned last spring loved “seeing old friends…not seen for 50 years!” “seeing the huge change in the campus” “old friends, great locales for festivities, good speakers” and “seeing my two old friends and old classmates and dorm mates I didn’t expect to be there.”  

So, surprise somebody, and come back to RPI/VCU. You’ll find a tentative schedule and registration at www.alumni.vcu.edu/RPI2007/RPIREUNION.htm. Or contact Diane Stout Brown at dstout@vcu.edu or 804-828-2586.

The DC-Metro VCU Alumni Chapter presents a plaque recognizing RPI ’s 50-Year Class of 1956. DC-Metro Vice President Scott Gibbs ’91BS/E, RPI Reunion Chair Bob Lindholm ‘50BS/H&S, and DC-Metro President Jackie Bynum ’82BS/H&S.

RPI Commemorative Sculpture—What Do You Think?  

Take a look and let us know what you think.-View Finalists-send   comments

 No one knows better than you do that RPI was a special place. Its values of access for working students, professional training by professionals in the field, and community service made a rock-solid foundation for Virginia Commonwealth University. To recognize that contribution, RPI alumni have held an open competition to design a commemorative sculpture to be placed at "the wall" near Ginter House (the Ad Building) in Shafer Court.

Since we announced the planned sculpture last winter, RPI alumni have donated well over $12,000 toward a fundraising goal of $35,000. This covers $1,000 prizes and model costs for the top two entries and materials, construction and installation. 

To comment on the designs or to join your RPI classmates in funding the memorial, contact Diane Stout-Brown at 804-828-2586; or dstout@vcu.edu; or at VCU Alumni Activities; PO Box 843044 ; Richmond , VA   23284-3044.

Jo Lynne DeMary '72 MED, Peggy Fowler '55 BS, William O'Connell '55 BME

Jo Lynne DeMary '72 MED

Recognize someone? Yourself? We identified everyone we could. Please send us missing names and we’ll add them.  memercer@vcu.edu