Archive for August, 2009
An Interview with PJ Maierhofer
Neil Rudel ’78 of the Altoona Mirror has a nice interview today with PJ Maierhofer, who recently was named the top collegiate majorette in the country—and who will begin her senior season as the Blue Band’s “Blue Sapphire” this coming Saturday at Beaver Stadium.
Just as I was thinking, “Man, it seems like PJ has been here for years,” the story mentions that this indeed will be her fifth year with the Blue Band/majorettes corps. In the interview she explains how that’s possible—a little bit of trivia about eligibility that I didn’t know before.
Penn State opens the football season by hosting Akron at noon Saturday; the Big Ten Network will carry the game.
Tina Hay, editor
New Solar House in the Works
I stopped out to Innovation Park (actually to a big field just behind Innovation Park) this afternoon to see how construction is coming along on Penn State’s entry in this year’s Solar Decathlon.
The decathlon, held every other year, is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. It pits student teams from various schools against each other to see who can build the best solar house, with the houses displayed on the national mall in Washington, D.C., in October. Penn State finished fourth in 2007 with an entry called MorningStar—which you can still see; it now sits next to the Centre County Visitors Center across from Beaver Stadium.
This year’s entry is called Natural Fusion. It’s small, as you can see in the photo above—the competition requirements stipulate that its “footprint” be no more than 800 sq. ft.—and it will be entirely powered by solar energy.
Here are a couple of photos from this afternoon’s visit. The first is of Dan Sutton (an architecture major from Evans City, Pa.) and Kyle Macht ’09 Eng (a recent grad who is the team leader) installing a window on the rear of the house:
And here is a stack of solar panels waiting to be installed. They’re made of a kind of solar cell called CIGS (short for copper indium gallium selenide).
Much of the material for the house has either been donated or sold to the students at a discount; the team has worked with Penn State’s fundraising staff to identify corporate entities who can support the effort.
In this next shot, Brian Goodykoontz ’09, ’09g explains the solar-energy system that’s supplying power for the construction process. Brian graduated in May with a bachelor’s and master’s in architectural engineering and is the construction project manager.
And this last shot is of Dan Sutton, whose hardhat sports the logo of this year’s team.
The overall crew—numbering about 150 students—is currently racing to get the house finished by mid- to late-September. A big target date is Sept. 25, when they’ll be offering tours of the house to the public—and when actor and environmental activist Ed Begley Jr. will be in town to see the house and give a public talk.
Tina Hay, editor
And in Food News…
One of our freelance writers, Mike Weinreb ’94, mentions on his Twitter feed that the Washington Post has an interesting story today about D.C.-area convenience stores: specifically Sheetz vs. WaWa. Who knew that you could get a 3,000-word magnum opus out of convenience stores? But it’s an interesting read.
Sheetz is a Pennsylvania-based chain but has since spread out over the mid-Atlantic states. It was founded by Penn Stater Steve Sheetz ’69 (who, with his wife, Nancy, recently gave a record-breaking gift to Penn State Altoona).
Also today, a colleague over in the College of Engineering, Curtis Chan ’94, called my attention to yet another story in today’s Washington Post. This one is on Penn State entrepreneurs Casey Patton ’03 and David Mazza ’01, who are getting some nice attention for their new restaurant, called Taylor Deli. They renovated a rundown old building and turned it into something beautiful. You can see some of the other media attention Patton and Mazza garnered by checking out their blog.
Speaking of Twitter, you can follow me on Twitter and catch lots more Penn State-related nuggets that don’t always show up on our blog.
Tina Hay, editor
Can You Name This Building?
We’ve talked about doing a photo essay in the magazine sometime where we show you little pieces of buildings at University Park and other Penn State campuses and challenge you to figure out what the buildings are.
I took this photo the other evening. Something tells me that this one might be too easy to include in the quiz. Anybody want to say what building it’s from?
Tina Hay, editor
Penn State’s Unlikely 2010 Road Trip: At Indiana … in Landover, Md.?
FedEx Field will feel like home next November
This just in: The Nittany Lions’ 2010 road game “at” Indiana will be played at FedEx Field, home of the Washington Redskins. The reason? As Chris Korman ’04, sports editor for the Bloomington (In.) Herald Times tells us, it’s all about the money. Korman reports that the Hoosiers stand to make $3 million playing a “home” game about 650 miles from campus, much more than they’d make if they actually played at home. Of course, given D.C.’s proximity to State College and Penn State’s substantial alumni base in and around the nation’s capital, most of the 92,000 fans inside FedEx next November 20 will be clad in blue and white.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
September-October Issue Coming Your Way
Our pal the UPS guy showed up at lunchtime today with boxes of the September-October issue of the magazine—our office copies. That means readers should start getting their copies today as well. How soon you get yours depends on where you live: If you’re in the mid-Atlantic states, watch your mailbox in the next few days; if you’re on the west coast or Florida or across the Atlantic, well, it might take a little longer.
(And if you don’t get the magazine at all, perhaps you need to join the Alumni Association!)
Our cover story is a collection of tales submitted by readers about their very first day at Penn State. We’ve got three other features besides that one:
—A feature-length profile about Penn State’s new wrestling coach, Cael Sanderson.
—A photo essay featuring some really ethereal photography from Paul Duda ’89.
—A very engrossing story by our ace freelancer Vicki Glembocki ’93, ’02g about Betsy Aardsma, the grad student who was stabbed to death in the Pattee stacks 40 years ago this fall.
Our “My Thoughts Exactly” is an essay by a young alumna, Amanda Berkey ’07, who’s doing a Teach for America gig in inner-city Philadelphia … our “Everyday People” profilee is Rick Johnson ’82, the newly hired horticulturist for the Penn State Arboretum … our lead story in Penn State Pulse is a profile of Penn State Altoona prof Athleen Stere, who has retired (sort of) at the age of 88 … and the athlete profile that leads off the Sports section is Jason Yeisley, an oft-injured soccer player who is finally back on the field for the Nittany Lions.
This is our fattest issue ever: 104 pages. We’ll look forward to hearing your feedback on it.
Tina Hay, editor
Women’s Soccer Opens With a Win — and Some National Ink
On a beautiful Friday night at Jeffrey Field, the women’s soccer team opened Penn State’s fall sports season with a 1-0 victory over Virginia. The Nittany Lions didn’t actually look great, wasting a few chances in the first half and allowing UVA way too much possession in the second, but a combination of Dani Toney’s terrific solo goal — she beat the entire Virginia defense on an end-to-end run — and Penn State’s stingy defense meant they were good enough. And good enough is still pretty good in August, especially considering the Nittany Lions started three true freshman, a point noted in this ESPN.com column. Yes, the Worldwide Leader had a correspondent at the game, which is pretty cool indeed.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
The Students are Definitely Back
Click on the photo to see a much larger version of this enthusiasm. Photo by Annemarie Mountz.
The State College area has about 41,000 more people in it than it did last week at this time: The students are back. They moved in over the weekend, and classes started today already. (Is it just me, or is that some kind of record for Earliest First Day of Classes Ever?)
Last night the Alumni Association’s student alumni corps, the Lion Ambassadors, put on their annual “Be a Part from the Start” pep rally in Rec Hall. Judging from the photos you can see here, it looks like it was its usual noisy success, complete with Blue Band, cheerleaders, the Lion mascot, and some words from Jay Paterno ’91.
Tina Hay, editor
Steve McCurry in Hot Water (Briefly) in Kenya
Photographer Steve McCurry ’74 was in Kenya a few days ago, and almost got hauled off to jail for taking a picture of a Kodak sign on a building. You can read the tale on his blog.
Tina Hay, editor
Margaret Carlson on Bob Novak
I don’t think Margaret Carlson ’66 and Bob Novak could be farther apart politically. If you ever saw the two of them go at it on CNN’s Capital Gang, you know what I mean. But Carlson (she was Margaret Bresnahan as a Penn State undergrad) has written a lovely tribute to Novak, the curmudgeonly, conservative columnist who died of cancer this past Tuesday. She talks of his “big heart” and says she was blessed to know him. A very sweet essay.
Tina Hay, editor
Subscribe
