Three Cheers for the 2005 Distinguished Honorees

Each year the Alumni Association recognizes exceptional alumni—be it through service to Centre, professional achievements, or civic accomplishment—with the Distinguished Alumnus/a Award. The Young Alumnus/a Award honors alumni who have graduated within the last 15 years.

P. Marshall Wilt ’64

Hometown: Louisville

Now lives in: Danville

Family: wife Betsy Gillis Wilt ’65, daughter Allison

Education: B.A. math and physics, Centre; Ph.D. physics, Vanderbilt University

Bio: Graduated as valedictorian, went on to teach physics at Centre for 36 years, retiring in 2005. Earned 10 patents while a scientist for two years with Continental Group.

Honors: Centre’s Kirk Teaching Award (1998), Kentucky Academy of Science Outstanding College/University Teacher (1990)

Quote: “As a student I most enjoyed science and found physics to be the most intellectually challenging science. I later found that my enjoyment of physics was heightened by teaching it to others. I also worked as an industrial scientist, and that experience was quite different. In many ways the job of a professor is far removed from the mainstream of work in our nation.”

For more about Marshall Wilt ’64, please see his retirement profile in the summer 2005 Centrepiece.

Mary Cronan Oppel ’74

James V. Oppel ’75

Hometown: her Finchville, Ky.; him Louisville

Now live in: Bourdeilles, France

Education:her B.A. history, Centre; him B.A. government, Centre

Once upon a time, Jim and Mary Cronan Oppel ’75 and ’74 seemed destined to spend their lives in the Commonwealth. Both Kentucky natives, they sunk themselves even more deeply into the area after graduating from Centre; he as editor of Louisville Magazine, and she as director of the Kentucky Heritage Commission and as an urban preservationist. They even built their house, a log cabin, out of materials they salvaged from 19th-century buildings.

And then they decided on a radical change. In 1994, they packed their possessions into a couple of suitcases and set off with two dogs for a new life in the Dordogne region of southwestern France.

“When I began working at Louisville Magazine at age 27, I made a vow to myself that at age 40 I would make a career change,” Jim explains. “I felt that life is too full of possibilities to do the same thing forever.”

A month before his 40th birthday, he left the magazine and began planning their move to a foreign country. They considered Mexico (Jim had studied a little Spanish), Ireland, and Costa Rica, but decided France offered the best combination of natural beauty, culture, and history.

“The impetus was to slow our lives down, to live closer to nature and to live in a culture that places great value on the quality of life,” Mary says.

Life in a new country was not without its challenges—starting with the language, which neither of them spoke.

“I would have liked to have been able to say that my one semester of French, freshman year with Monsieur Sommeville, enabled me to speak beautiful French!” says Mary. “Alas, at the time, I was a poor student in the language. However, that background has served as a base which has been an enormous help in learning French.”

The business side of their venture includes a partnership with a group of friends that they set up to buy a 200-year-old farm hamlet. The other partners share use of the main farmhouse, while the Oppels live in an 18th-century stone barn on the property that they renovated.

“Lord knows what to call what Mary and I do,” Jim says. “We are sort of innkeepers, and also restorers and renovators of old houses.”

Five years ago they restored a 17th-century former abbot’s house in a nearby village. Their current project is a peasant’s cottage that dates to about 1800. Typically they start with “not much more than exterior stone walls and dirt floors,” he says.

The two credit Centre with giving them the courage to try their experiment in international living. Jim recalls in particular a Western political theory class in which government professor Larry Matheny discussed at length the Platonic notions of material income and psychic income. Without the class, says Jim, “I suspect that I would have placed much more value on the material and might still be churning away at a more conventional life.”

Walter M. Herd ’83

Hometown: Louisville

Now lives in: Fort Knox, Ky.

Family: wife Ann, daughters Caty (12) and Hannah (9)

Education: B.A. history, Centre; four master’s degrees in human resources and military sciences

Bio: Joined ROTC while at Centre, the fifth generation of his family to serve in the military. Now a colonel, he has served in more than 25 countries, including Bosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq during the first Gulf War. He was the top special operations commander in Afghanistan in 2003-04 and currently commands an Army brigade at Fort Knox, Ky., with battalions at Fort Knox, Fort Bragg (N.C.), and Fort Benning (Ga.).

Honors: Medals include Bronze Star and Combat Infantryman’s Badge

Quote: “My greatest personal pride is in my family. My greatest professional privilege has been to lead American patriots in combat. On countless occasions, I’ve seen our American warriors accomplish incredible feats of valor, kindness, and brilliance so that their constituents can sleep soundly at night. To be a part of that is why I continue to do what I do. My years at Centre taught me to not only see what happened, but why it happened. I also learned that higher expectations generally get higher results.”

Walter Herd ’83 wrote about his experience in Afghanistan in the winter/spring 2005 Centrepiece.

Young Alumnus

Chandler Van Voorhis ’94

Hometown: Chatham, Va.

Now lives in: The Plains, Va.

Family: wife Heidi, son Claiborne (4), daughter Haley Roo (2)

Education: B.A. history and government, Centre

Bio: Cut his environmental teeth after graduation on a successful campaign to stop Disney from building a history theme park on the Civil War battlefield at Manassas; was a founder and co-host of GreenWave Radio, a syndicated program that focused on the business of the environment. Currently a founding partner in C2i working on the “Million Acre Project,” a plan to turn marginal farmland into forest; project advisors include Swiss Re and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

Honors: co-winner of a 2002 ChevronTexaco Conservation Award

Quote: “I’m a conservation capitalist. I look for business deals with conservation outcomes. The Million Acre Project brings together two worlds that do not necessarily talk to each other: environmentalists, who like that forests remove greenhouse gases from the air, and Wall Street, which has an appetite for timber investments. If we don’t figure out ways to use market-based solutions, then we’re just going to continually have to front conservation with charity or government subsidy. And that’s really, in my estimation, a broken model. Unless you can bring the power of the marketplace into solutions, rather than relying on philanthropy, you’re not going to achieve the large-scale change that we need.”

For more about Chandler Van Voorhis ’94, please see the profile in the winter 2002 Centrepiece.

2005 Hall of Fame Inductees

The Centre College Athletic Hall of Fame was established in 1992. The 2005 inductees include the storied 1955 football team (pictured here at Homecoming and in the 1956 yearbook). Undefeated in 1955, the team received (though did not accept) an invitation to the Tangerine Bowl.

The individual 2005 Hall of Fame inductees are: (from left) Carlton Shier ’92 (soccer), Beth Grohmann Burnett ’92 (swimming), and Marcia Mount Shoop ’91 (cross country and track).

—D.F.J.

Centrepiece
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