Hall of Distinction Inductees

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Iveson B. Noland  |   1970

An LSU Alumnus has risen through the Episcopal hierarchy to be named Bishop of the Diocese of Louisiana.

Iveson B. Noland

An LSU Alumnus has risen through the Episcopal hierarchy to be named Bishop of the Diocese of Louisiana – the first graduate of the University to be so honored. The Reverend Bishop Iveson B. Noland, a 1937 College of Arts and Sciences graduate, had earlier in 1969 been elected Bishop Coadjutor of Louisiana as well as being elected the first Suffragan Bishop in the history of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Louisiana in 1952.

A native of Baton Rouge, the Rev. Mr. Noland followed his baccalaureate studies at LSU by enrolling at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennesee, where he was awarded the Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1940. He was ordained a priest in the Protestant Episcopal Church that same year after having been made a deacon in 1939. He was curate of St. James Church in Baton Rouge in 1940, then rector of Trinity in Natchitoches and St. Paul's in Winnfield from 1941 to 1946. He served as a chaplain in the Army during World War II, was at the Church of the Holy Comforter in Charlotte, North Carolina, 1945-50 and at Church of the Good Shepherd in Lake Charles until elected Suffragan Bishop in 1952. Mrs. Noland is the former Nell Killgore of Baton Rouge, and they have three sons.

Max Faget  |   1971

In the esoteric little world of spacecraft, Maxime Faget may be termed a scientist's scientist.

Max Faget

In the esoteric little world of spacecraft, Maxime Faget may be termed a scientist's scientist. In 1969, he was inducted into the Space Hall of Fame alongside such household words as von Braun, Glenn, Shepard, Goddard, and Gilruth. He also designed and holds the patents on the Gemini and Mercury spacecraft from which all of America's more recent vehicles descended. Faget was born in British Honduras where his physician father was employed by the British health service. Later moving on the West Coast, he studied for two years at San Francisco Junior College and then transferred to LSU. Despite the family's medical tradition, his genuine interests were in the field of engineering. During the war, Faget joined the Naval deck officers' program. After his graduation in 1943, he became an ensign in the submarine service and spent most of the war aboard the USS Guavina on combat patrol off the Indo-China and South China coasts.

During a visit to LSU, a former aeronautics professor recommended that Max go to Langley Field in Virginia and apply to another LSU alumnus named Paul Purser, who was already in on the ground floor in America's budding rocketry-missilery program. He joined the Langley Research Center as a research scientist and was soon named to head the performance aerodynamics branch of the Pilotless Aircraft Research Division. Later he was in the original 35-man cadre known as the Space Task Group, which was assigned in 1958 as nucleus for the Manned Spacecraft Center. That same year he was made chief of the Flight Systems Division and was given his present position.

Faget designed a complete ramjet flight test vehicle which at one time held the speed, altitude and acceleration record for air-breathing engines. He designed and developed a ramjet burner system for this and other vehicles. He holds the joint patent on the Mercury escape tower, and he designed the ‘Faget Couch’ which cushions the astronaut against the shock of blast-off and re-entry. Acting in an advisory capacity, he was instrumental in the design of the Navy's Polaris missile. With possibly a nod to his medical forebears, Faget even made substantial contributions to the new field of aeromedical research in the late 1950's, when his experiments proved that a man can endure at least 20 G's – or 20 times the weight imposed on him by the earth's gravity.

In 1943, while he was assigned to a naval diesel school at Penn State, he met Nancy Carastro of Philadelphia, who was an undergraduate there, and they married after he war. They have four children. In 1969, when he was installed in the Space Hall of Fame, he also received the government's Exceptional Service Medal. Even more recently he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, the most coveted distinction that can come to an American in the field. Faget has also received the Arthur S. Fleming Award for outstanding leadership, the Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award, and an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree from the University of Pittsburgh.

Katherine Kendall  |   1972

She was born Katherine Anne Tuach in Muir-of-Ord, high up among the hills and locks of Ross-shire in the Scottish Highlands.

Katherine Kendall

She was born Katherine Anne Tuach in Muir-of-Ord, high up among the hills and locks of Ross-shire in the Scottish Highlands. She grew up to be Dr. Katherine A. Kendall, distinguished American, internationally-recognized educator, author and consultant in the field of social work. Dr.Kendall came to Baton Rouge to be the first woman honored by the LSU Alumni Federation in the seven-year history of its annual award. She is honored by this University where she was awarded a Master of Arts degree in social welfare in 1939. Dr. Kendall now serves as secretary-general of the International Association of Schools of Social Work, with headquarters on East 46th Street in New York City. Her life and work are celebrated everywhere in the world that social work is practiced.

Dr. Kendall was a Phi Beta Kappa and a member of Mortar Board during her years at the University of Illinois, earning her baccalaureate degree in philosophy, with romance languages and history as her major fields of interest. While on a post-graduate visit to Britain, she met a young Rhodes Scholar named Wilmoore Kendall, and they were married. Upon returning home her husband went to work on his doctorate in political science at the University of Chicago and was one of a considerable group of brilliant young scholars who was recruited by LSU in the late 1930's during the University's continuing drives to enrich its faculty. As matters developed, the School of Social Welfare was getting under way during the same period, and Mrs. Kendall was drawn to it immediately. She began her career in the local welfare program after being awarded a 1939 master's degree. After a year, her activities were transferred to Virginia, first as a caseworker and supervisor, later as an assistant professor at the Richmond School of Social Work. She spent the war years as an official of the Ameican Red Cross home service and as a lecturer at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration.

Mrs. Kendall's knowledge of the Spanish language, learned during a year in Madrid, stood her in good stead when the U.S. Children's Bureau organized its first inter-American unit. She served as a consultant to the government of Paraguay in the first technical assistance program arranged with Latin America. When the young United Nations set up its first technical assistance program–also in social welfare–she became a social affairs officer at the U.N. secretariat at Lake Success, NY. In 1950 she completed her doctorate at Chicago, left the United Nations, and began a career in national educational counseling. For two years she was executive secretary of the American Association of Schools of Social Work; then from 1952 to 1971, she served in various official capacities with the Council on Social Work Education. After 1954 Dr. Kendall also held part-time positions with the International Association of School of Social Work, and when a full-time position as secretary-general opened in 1971, she was the only logical choice.

Dr. Kendall is undoubtedly one of America's best-traveled women. In between trips she has found time to edit Popular Dynamics and Family Planning: A new Responsibility for Social Work Education and Social Work Values in an Age of Discontent, to co-edit International Social Work quarterly, and to author countless reports and articles in journals, pamphlets, and reference works. LSU's School of Social Welfare has accorded her its Distinguished Service Citation in 1962, and last year the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration presented her its Distinguished Alumni Citation. She holds the gold Service Medal of the Council on Social Work Education, the Diploma of Honor from the Republic of Paraguay, and the Honorary Presidency of the Pan American Congress of Schools of Social Service.

Glenn Daigle  |   1973

Lieutenant-Commander Glenn H. Daigle is one of the two known LSU Alumni among the prisoners-of-war released under the North Vietnamese cease-fire agreement.

Glenn Daigle

Lieutenant-Commander Glenn H. Daigle is one of the two known LSU Alumni among the prisoners-of-war released under the North Vietnamese cease-fire agreement. He spent upward of seven years in North Vietnamese POW camps, acquitted himself with honor during the long ordeal, and returned to the United States a better man and better American than when he left. Far from being scarred mentally, he appears to be a man at peace with himself and with the world, more appreciative of life's little things than ever before.

Glen Daigle's career as a captive started out just as inauspiciously. He was in the rear seat of an RA 5-C Vigilante flying off the Kitty Hawk two days after Pitchford's mishap. He was part of a pre-strike mission between Hanoi and Haiphong, with a power plant as a secondary target, but never made it. If anyone in the POW camps could be called ‘lucky’, Cmdr. Daigle apparently was. Unlike Pitchford, he received excellent medical treatment, including an operation on his right arm that Navy medics later called ‘as good as we could have given you at the time.’ He thus emerged to freedom in the best of health. Glenn didn't get any favored treatment in the camps, however. He was once placed in total isolation for 10 days as a punishment for some minor offense and was subjected at all times to a degree of humiliation that he recalls with more vividness than his physical trials.

There is no apparent reason why Glenn Daigle should not round out a full career in the Navy, and this he plans to do. He does hope, however, to undertake graduate study in the area of political science, although he originally embarked on a pre-med course at LSU and wound up as a chemistry major. While awaiting the Navy's pleasure, he is making his home in Napoleonville with Mrs. Daigle, the former Irene Menuet, also a LSU graduate of the Class of 1963.

John Pitchford  |   1973

Lieutenant-Colonel John J. Pitchford is one of the two known LSU Alumni among the prisoners-of-war released under the North Vietnamese cease-fire agreement.

John Pitchford

Lieutenant-Colonel John J. Pitchford is one of the two known LSU Alumni among the prisoners-of-war released under the North Vietnamese cease-fire agreement. He spent upward of seven years in North Vietnamese POW camps, acquitted himself with honor during the long ordeal, and returned to the United States a better man and better American than when he left. He displays an open joy of being alive, free, and relatively well.

Jack Pitchford emerged from Hanoi with his service career in deep jeopardy because of a badly healed right arm that was virtually useless. He has spent some time since release visiting specialists, and it is not yet known whether the injury can be corrected sufficiently to permit his continuation in the Air Force. The arm was dislocated when he ejected from his damaged F-100 on Dec. 20, 1965. He made it to earth safely, only to be pounced upon by enemy troops, one of whom shot him thrice in the same arm with an automatic weapon.

Jack Pitchford's future is in question due to the outcome of his health limitations. Having spent well over two decades in the armed services (including some Army time prior to enrolling at LSU), he obviously intends to make a career of it, and the Air Force may be counted on to do everything possible to facilitate this. During his absence his wife Shirley purchased a home in the little West Coast community of Laguna Niguel, between Los Angeles and San Diego, and they are living there with the two of four children who have not grown and flown.

Walter Hitesman  |   1974

Walter Woods Hitesman, Jr. is president and chief operating officer of Reader's Digest, the world's most widely circulated monthly magazine.

Walter Hitesman

Walter Woods Hitesman, Jr. is president and chief operating officer of Reader's Digest, the world's most widely circulated monthly magazine. Hitesman, a 1939 graduate of the University, flew down with wife, Betty, April 20 to be honored in person at the Federation's Spring Banquet–but he came to give as well as to receive. He announced during his visit that the Reader's Digest Foundation would award a $50,000 endowment in his name to the LSU School of Journalism, provided only that the amount be matched from local sources. To get the matching effort on a running start, Walter pitched in his own personal check for $5,000.

LSU was not Walter's first stop after high school graduation. A scholarship was needed, and the only one that was offered at the time was an agriculture grant to southwestern Louisiana Institute; so he latched on to it, spent a year at Lafayette school, then transferred to LSU and its highly regarded School of Journalism. Like many other journalism students of the time, he had to help himself through by working part-time on the Baton Rouge papers at night; it served as a sort of lab course while helping pay his college expenses, and there was still plenty of time left over for other activities: Sigma Pi, Men's Interfraternity Council, Samurai, Honor Court, all on top of a Reveille editorship.

Hitesman worked full time for the Morning Advocate after graduation, but not for long. The world spent most of the year 1939 sweating out a war, and by the time it actually started on September 1, Hitesman was already in the U.S. Marine Corps, subsequently to accept a regular commission after graduation from the First Officers Candidates' Class. At the time when 2nd Lt. Hitesman was pinning on his bars, the Corps happened to be looking for journalism types to refurbish its official publications, Leatherneck Magazine and the Marine Corps Gazette. Walter was the one chosen to head up the Corps' publication office, and in that capacity, he was destined to serve right through the war and up to the rank of major. He and his substantial staff took pride in their work, and the results showed it. Now, more than a quarter-century later, these publications adhere closely to the high standards set during the Hitesman regime.

After the war he asked that his regular status be changed to reserve and joined the civilians. His first job was with the big and powerful McCall Corporation, but after three years he moved over to the Reader's Digest and found a home. First, there were two years at the Pleasantville headquarters learning the ropes. Then, in 1950, he was appointed managing director of the publication's Canadian affiliate, where he spent the next decade. He returned to Pleasantville in 1960 as vice president and director of the Books and Phonograph Records Division; he was promoted to senior vice president in 1969, to execute vice president and director of International Editions in 1970, to first vice president in 1971, and to president and chief operating officer in 1973. The company's magazines spread across the globe; furthermore books, phonograph records, and educational materials are published. Recently the business has joined United Artists Corporation in a joint venture to produce family motion pictures.

Frank Purvis  |   1975

This Alumnus of the Year has rarely pitched a tent beyond a comfortable drive of the campus where he graduated 40 years ago. He has literally watched LSU grow and helped cultivate it to a degree that few other alumni can claim.

Frank Purvis

This Alumnus of the Year has rarely pitched a tent beyond a comfortable drive of the campus where he graduated 40 years ago. He has literally watched LSU grow and helped cultivate it to a degree that few other alumni can claim. He has taught part-time on the law faculty, has headed the LSU Foundation and the LSU Law Alumni, and even served on the Board of Supervisors. He was honored because of the special niche he has carved for himself as an insurance executive of national–even international–stature. Purvis was born in the small town of Rayville in 1914 and was reared there through high school. He attended his first two years of post-secondary schooling at Kemper Military Academy in Booneville, MO, which offered a junior college-type curriculum leading to an associate in arts degree. Frank already had his sights set on the LSU Law School and was accepted for admission straight out of the military academy. In his senior year, 1934-35, he was tapped by ODK and elected president of the Law School. He also met a woman by the name of Miss Winston Wendt, who–it turned out–had come to stay.

Purvis soon had an offer to fill an attorney's slot in the office of the Secretary of State right there in the capital. He accepted the job, beginning a stint in state government that would carry right up to Pearl Harbor Day, and in due course he and Winston were married. Their union has prospered, and the Purvises have by now sent three grown children into the world.

During the period between 1937 and 1941, Frank had his introduction to the business which he would later enter, serving as ex-officio insurance commissioner and special assistant to the Attorney General. Then, after four years as a destroyer escort officer in both the Atlantic and Pacific, he returned to Baton Rouge and accepted an appointment as deputy insurance commissioner for the State of Louisiana and special assistant attorney general. During his four year tenure in that dual role, he was in charge of drafting the Louisiana Insurance Code, which was adopted by the Legislature in 1948. Pan-American Life Insurance Company hired him in 1949 as assistant general counsel and thereby started its future top executive on his way up the ladder.

Purvis is currently board chairman and chief executive officer of Pan-American Life Insurance Company. His spare hats include those of president and director of International Reinsurance Company, among others. He also holds positions of leadership as the 1972 chairman of the American Life Convention, the 1973 charter chair of the American Life Insurance Association, the 1969-71 chairman of the Health Insurance Association of America, and many more. There has been hardly a year since the 1950's when he has not served as an officer or chairman of at least one important committee in one of the industry's major trade organizations. Despite the demands of his professional and civic responsibilities, he enjoys teaching and has managed to do a great deal of it throughout his career. In the early years he taught courses in insurance law at the LSU Law School and after going to work for Pan-American in New Orleans, lectured in Tulane's University College. Just this past spring he found time to teach some courses at Baylor University. Before serving on the LSU Board of Supervisors, he had been a member of the Board of Regents of Loyola University in 1965-67. In brief, he has tithed regularly of his means, time, and talent in order to pour much more back into higher education than he has taken from it.

Russell Long  |   1976

Throughout some very interesting years on Capitol Hill, Senator Long earned very few implacable critics in Congress; it has instead won him a heterogeneous crew of friends and professional admirers, for there are few lawmakers of any persuasion who have not benefited by his advocacy on one or more occasions.

Russell Long

Throughout some very interesting years on Capitol Hill, Senator Long earned very few implacable critics in Congress; it has instead won him a heterogeneous crew of friends and professional admirers, for there are few lawmakers of any persuasion who have not benefited by his advocacy on one or more occasions. His proficiency in caucus and committee-room may be awesome, yet it does not sum up his whole impact in Congress, for he is an effective speaker who has been called ‘one of the last truly colorful performers in the Senate.’ Watching him in actionóarms flailing, voice cracking, his mind racing far out ahead of his speechóone veteran observer was quoted as saying ‘You'd never miss itóthat's Huey Long's son.’

Russell Long was steeped in politics almost from the cradle. He literally ‘hit the ground running’ when he enrolled at LSU in 1935, was elected president of his freshman class and followed that up by winning the presidency of the sophomore class in arts and sciences in 1936-37. It was a foregone conclusion that he would go for ‘the big one,’ and he did in 1938, staging a campaign for the student body presidency that added a new dimension to campus politics. The 1939 Gumbo speaks of ‘Russell Long, whirlwind president of the Student Body, whose progressive ideas have brought increased action from this year's council and improved campus conditions.’

Long earned his baccalaureate degree in 1941 and a law degree the following year, then set aside his political ambitions temporarily to serve as a naval officer for the duration. After discharge and an interval of private practice, he trained his sights on Capitol Hillóstill under the minimum senatorial age of 30. That was in 1948, and Russell defeated Governor-to-be Robert F. Kennon to fill the unexpired term of Senator John Overton, who had died in office. He had to mark time until his 30th birthday to take the oath. There can be little doubt that the name he bears was the key to Russell's election and served him well in subsequent campaigns; yet whatever political capital there was in the name proved less negotiable in Washington and, in any case, was soon spent. During the greater part of his 28-year senatorial career, Sen. Long has had to make it as his own man, and this he has done. As far back as the mid-1960s, he had stepped into his all-important Finance Committee chairmanship, was also Majority Whip, and clearly the rising power in the Senate. He peaked last year when colleagues voted him the second most influential senator in a U. S. News and World Report poll, ranked only behind Majority Leader Mike Mansfield. It was on the strength of Sen. Long's current dominant position in the halls of Congress that the LSU Alumni Federation voted him its Alumnus of the Year for 1976.

Edwin Edwards  |   1977

Edwin Edwards, one of this University's most prominent alumni, describes his college career as 'more than the facts, figures, and status a person memorizes.'

Edwin Edwards

Edwin Edwards, one of this University's most prominent   alumni, describes his college career as ‘more than the facts, figures, and   status a person memorizes. The University also instills values and   perspectives in a person.’ Governor Edwards—who was inaugurated in May 1972   and sworn in for his second term in May 1976—was presented the award at the   May 21 LSU commencement exercises. Since his own graduation, he has served in   the Louisiana State Senate; he has served four terms as Congressman from   Louisiana's Seventh Congressional District; he is in his second term as   Governor of Louisiana; he and his wife Elaine are parents of four and   grandparents of two; their son, Stephen, is in today's graduating class.

Born to French speaking sharecroppers near Marksville,   Louisiana, in 1927, Edwin Edwards was only 16 when he entered LSU. During   World War II, he served in the Naval Air Corps. He graduated from the LSU Law   School at 21 and married Elaine Schwartzenburg of Marksville the same year.   Once graduated, he practiced law in Crowley from 1949 to 1954, during which   time he took an active role in civic affairs. His career in public service   began in 1954, during which time he took an active role in civic affairs. His   career in public service began in 1954 with his election to the Crowley City   Council, from whence he went in 1964 to the Louisiana State Senate. In a   special election in October 1965, Edwards was elected to the U.S. House of   Representatives, where he served for nearly seven years with committee   assignments that included public works, judiciary and internal security; he   was also Whip for the Louisiana and Mississippi delegations for four years.   Then in 1971, with 18 candidates vying for the governorship of Louisiana, Edwin   Edwards led the field, went on to win the general election, and became—as he   is still becoming—a permanent and colorful political figure in the history of   a state famous for its vivid politicians.

George Kirby  |   1978

LSU's 1978 Alumnus of the Year, George Francis Kirby, Jr., was born in Cheneyville, Louisiana, on December 7, 1916.

George Kirby

LSU's 1978 Alumnus of the Year, George Francis Kirby, Jr., was born in Cheneyville, Louisiana, on December 7, 1916. He spent the formative years in Rapides Parish, partly in Alexandria, partly in the small South Rapides towns of Cheneyville and Longleaf; then he sailed through Louisiana College with honors, majoring in chemistry, physics, and English. The law was a fourth subject of his wide-ranging interests in those years, but by the time he graduated from Louisiana College, chemistry was top-most, and the LSU campus seemed the likeliest place to refine those sort of credentials.

Kirby was considered something of a phenomenon when he obtained the chemistry doctorate in 1940, several months before his 24th birthday. It marked him at Ethyl Corporation as a young-man-to-watch, in a relatively new, expanding company with plenty of room at the top. The chapters in the Kirby saga began to be written in rapid succession: a general managership for research and engineering, a vice presidency for research and development in 1955, an executive vice presidency in 1963, and the presidency in 1964. In 1969, while still Ethyl's president, Kirby accepted a directorship at Texas Eastern. The following year he severed connections with Ethyl—except for a berth on the board—in order to take the new post of executive officer. By 1975 he was chairman of the board.

At 61, an age when most men in similar shoes are at least cocking an eye toward retirement, George Kirby does not seem to have slowed down noticeably. Today he is a member of the development board of the University of Texas Health Science Center, the MIT Energy Laboratory advisory board, the advisory board to the University of Denver's College of Business Administration, and the Council for Financial Aid to Education. He has qualified for the Fortune 500 not only once, but twice, as the head of two different corporations.

Both Kirby and his wife of 36 years, the former Nannette Dutch, BA (Educ.) 1942, have had strong, well-nurtured ties to the University for four decades; since their lovely home southeast of campus is very much in their long-range plans as a retirement nest, there is every reason to expect that those bonds will be strengthened even more in the years to come.

James King  |   1979

James King, who is not only the greatest male vocal talent ever turned out by the LSU Opera Department, but whom some critics call the greatest heldentenor living today, has been named LSU's Alumnus of the Year for 1979—the first practitioner of the performing arts to be so honored during the 14-year history of the award.

James King

James King, who is not only the greatest male vocal talent   ever turned out by the LSU Opera Department, but whom some critics call the   greatest heldentenor living today, has been named LSU's   Alumnus of the Year for 1979óthe first practitioner of the performing arts to   be so honored during the 14-year history of the award.

King was born and raised in Dodge City, Kansas, but now makes   his home in the Bavarian capital of Munich. His primary commitment is to the   Berlin Opera, which 17 years ago, afforded him his breakthrough opportunity   as a professional singer; he is also a regular member of the Vienna State,   Munich State, Metropolitan, Royal, Covent Garden, LaScala, and San Franciso   companies, as well as the Festivals of Bayreuth and Salzburg.

Best known for his Wagnerian rolesóParsifal, Lohengrin, Dit, Die   Walkuereóhe is easily versed in Richard StraussóDie Frau ohne Schatten, Ariadne   auf Naxos, Elektra, and Salome. He is also at   home in the Italian and French repertoire: Aida, Otello, Manon   Lescaut, La Boheme, and Carmen.

During a trip to the Lamont School of Music in Colorado,   he met Chrystabelle Kisner, a member of the LSU faculty, who happened to be   summering there. She was taken with his voice and counseled him to ‘come on   down when you graduate from high school.’ That was all it took. He moved to   Louisiana and finished his undergraduate at LSU before earning a master of   music degree at the University of Kansas City. ‘I've had cause to be grateful   for the language training I had at LSU,’ he now says. ‘It put me far ahead of   other young singers at a comparable stage of development because the greater   part of the opera literature is in German, Italian, and French, you know.’

During his undergraduate days, King sang roles in LSU   Opera Workshop productions of Faust, La Boheme,   and Tales of Hoffman. He also found time to serve as choir   director at the University Methodist Church and to take part in the   activities of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the honorary music fraternity.

After failing to win at the American Opera Auditions, King   was taken on a European tour and eventually signed up for three performances   in Florence, Italy. With these performances and his experience singing in San   Francisco opposite of Horne in Carmen and opposite Steber   in Ariande auf Naxos, he signed with the Berlin Opera in 1962, thereby   forming a connection that has prospered to this day.