Traveling Turtle
Since WM Fall 2016 was about traveling and also contained an article about the research Bill Parker ’64 and my husband, Eliot Williams H’53, conducted on box turtles in Allee Woods, I thought you might be interested in a story about a “traveling” turtle.
About 20 years ago, a box turtle with a Wabash College tag on its shell was found on the banks of the Ohio River in Kentucky. It surely could not have walked that far, so a spring flood must have washed it into Sugar Creek and down the Wabash River to the Ohio, where it was finally deposited on the bank.
The finder, noticing the Wabash tag, phoned the College to report his discovery, and the biology department had records showing exactly where and when the turtle had been collected originally; but alas, there was no point in returning it to its former home—the poor thing had not survived its journey.
— MRS. JEAN WILLIAMS H’53 | Crawfordsville, IN
The Friendship of D-III Athletes
I really am enjoying WM Fall 2016, which arrived today. It looks so good.
But what inspired me most to write were the opening and back-page photographs. They are not only beautiful but also so evocative of the friendships and shared commitments of D-III college athletes—those who are training and competing because they want to. They value the sport, the competition but also, perhaps most significantly, the relationships. The photographs depict this so well.
Also loved the insights on traveling from various experienced travelers. Having lived a bunch of places overseas, it all rang true to me.
And it was especially cool to see the Greek alumnus mentioned in the great soccer article by Tim Padgett ’84. Seeing he is now in Thessaloniki, I was wondering if he is from Anatolia College— where I worked for two years after Wabash, inspired by John Fischer and through my friendship with fellow ’71 grad, Yiannis Roubatis, an Anatolia grad.
— TOM MARTELLA ’71 | Washington, DC
Thanks for your encouragement, Tom. Dimitris “Jimmy” Liatsis did indeed attend Anatolia College, graduating in 1980.
A Missed Connection
WM Fall 2016 arrived and I knew immediately where the cover picture was taken. Grand Prismatic was in the territory I called home during my 13 years working in Yellowstone for the National Park Service.
While Wabash had prepared me for my work as a naturalist, Yellowstone proved to have other connections to my alma mater. I was surprised as I read the article by David Krohne that the editor did not highlight these connections. Especially since William Doemel H’74 had a featured place in this issue.
Professor Doemel and Wabash students played a role in important microbiological discoveries in Yellowstone. I took microbiology from Professor Doemel and we used the microbiology text written by Thomas Brock, who discovered in Yellowstone the first thermophilic organism. I met researchers in Yellowstone still searching the secrets of thermophilic bacteria who remembered the Wabash connection.
It's too bad that was not brought to our community’s attention.
— TOM HOUGHAM '73 | Trafalger, IN
Thanks for pointing out that missed opportunity. We’ll add this from “A Model Learner,” WM Fall 2011:
When Doemel chose Brock to be his mentor in the late 1960s, many scientists were skeptical of the microbiologist’s work.
“Nobody realized that there was life that could exist above the boiling point of water because DNA melted—all the studies that had been done in the test tubes proved that,” Doemel recalls. “It was in all the textbooks.”
Since Brock first found hyperthermophiles in 1969, more than 70 species have been discovered, including one that thrives at 250 degrees Fahrenheit.
“I learned then the most important thing I know about science: Everything changes. And today, almost 90 percent of what was so-called scientific fact when I was a grad student is not there anymore.”
Read “A Model Learner” at WM Online.