This started as a Friday Follies post because I saw this snippet in the February, 1965 Sallyport and immediately recognized comic perfection. Everything about this story is just as it should be:
Then I started researching the stretcher-ridden patient, Dick Wesley ’65, and I discovered yet another spectacular Rice alumnus and a different kind of perfection. Wesley became a doctor after he left Rice, a pulmonologist, and spent his career in Washington state. He died of ALS in 2015. Here is a link to the memorial page assembled by the Department of Political Science at the University of Washington, where in retirement he became a beloved member of that community. These are moving tributes to a gifted and remarkable man, with contributions from childhood friends in Beaumont as well as professors whose classes he took near the end of his life. Really, you should read it.
Bonus: Gads, this is beautiful.
I first heard this story from Ken Kennedy a short while after he returned as a faculty member in Mathematical Sciences. Ken had a mean impression of Holmes Richter. IIRC, Ken was taking the exam when this occurred.
By fall 1970, the only acceptable excuse for missing an exam was “a death in the family….your own”. I guess G.H.R. Learned from the stunt and closed the loophole. 😀
It was one of Ken’s favorite stories.
That was in the December 1965 Sallyport. I remember…I was struggling with the same exam.
See if you can convince the Alumni/Development Office to restore deceased Alumni to the Alumni 0Directory!
Nancy Bailey, I also want to see deceased alumni in the rice alumni directory!
And if the Alumni Directory included deceased alumni, you would quickly have realized that Dick was Wiess’67. See ’67 Campanile entry:
wesley, richard b. b.a. elec. eng. beaumont, texas…tau beta pi; sigma tau; college court justice 67, college fellow 67; ieee, treas. 67; varsity cross-country 66; intramurals 6465; amyx memorial scholar; honor roll
Tell me about it. This is driving me absolutely batty.
“Gads”?
I did read the tributes. What an amazing way to be remembered at the end of the day!
@ Dr. Kean –
Could you do a post on all of the iterations of Sammy and the Rice logo? I have some Rice memorabilia and would like to be able to tell what decade pieces came from.