Kelly Higdon (LA’96), known to followers by her show name, “Kelly K,” is always up before you. She sets her alarm for before the sun rises and uses her irrepressible personality as a lifeline for thousands of WDJX listeners in the Louisville, Kentucky, area. “I went to school with the intention of concentrating on TV […]
Amanda Harvey (ME’92) has worked in different aspects of the movie business for years, but her latest project, as lead producer on the Hemingway-centric docudrama, PAPA: Hemingway in Cuba, made history. It’s the first Hollywood production filmed on location in Cuba since the 1960 trade embargo that essentially closed the island nation to US business […]
When a baseball is thrown, the batter has a split second to decide what type of pitch is being thrown and whether he should swing or not. Having a good eye at the plate is an important skill to have. But unlike some of baseball’s other talents — like power and speed on the base paths — […]
Human resources professionals deal with the core of any strong business — human capital. Without a strategy to motivate and retain employees, even the most in-demand company can fail. For a multi-billion-dollar corporation like PepsiCo with a workforce that spans economic backgrounds, education levels, and geographic regions, human resources officers play a significant role in […]
As a kid in the ‘80s, Melvin Lenzy mowed lawns for five bucks apiece to afford his first pair of Nike’s Air Jordans, the iconic basketball shoes that changed the sports apparel industry forever. Many years later, while a student at Purdue, he worked at the Tippecanoe Mall’s Finish Line store, selling such products right […]
He sliced into a discarded champagne bottle with a tile saw for the first time in September 2009, and Adam Fetsch (HHS’05) admits, “I had no idea what I was doing.” He learned, though, and now his Rewined Candles in Charleston, South Carolina, transforms more than 40,000 bottles a month into wine-scented candles sold in […]
Sometimes you don’t know what you really want until you don’t have it anymore. When Jennifer Rumsey (ME’96), a native of Columbus, Indiana, graduated from Purdue, she was pretty sure she was done with Midwestern life. Rumsey went to Boston, where she earned a master’s degree at MIT and then went to work for Nuvera […]
It’s minutes before kickoff and the crowd at Ross-Ade Stadium has fallen to a whisper. Thousands of fans are on their feet with their heads angled upward, hearts swelling with pride, tears pooling in the corners of their eyes. A rich baritone voice fills the air, the solemnity of the words echoing out across campus. […]
When Mardi Johnson Moore (M’82) was a teenager, she started coming to Purdue to visit her older sister, Virginia Johnson Pillman (HHS’76). It was then that her sister introduced her to Original Frozen Custard in Lafayette. At the time, it was just a tasty treat, not an epiphany. But it’s funny how things work out […]
From tiny Davis, West Virginia, through Purdue to New York City, Robert Kovach (MFA’00) has parlayed small-town sensibility into Big Apple success. Whether he’s designing a General Motors launch of a new vehicle or setting the stage for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat from off-Broadway to theaters across America, Kovach has built a reputation […]
