Under the baobab: Changes in Happy Valley, reflections and more
Welcome to Matt Campbell, Penn State’s new head football coach. Matt comes to Penn State from Iowa State in the Big 12, where he won Coach of the Year three times. Iowa State finished 2024 with 11 wins. Congratulations to Terry Smith, PSU’s interim head coach, who brought the team back from despair after they had lost a modern record six games in a row.
Under Smith’s leadership PSU will be pitted against Clemson in the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium on Dec. 27. Fortunately, afterward Smith will be staying on to coach in Happy Valley.
We wish bon voyage and future success to former coach James Franklin, who has accepted the position of head coach at Virginia Tech. Franklin, one of the best coaches in college football, ran the PSU program for 12 seasons, delivering six seasons with 10 wins and losing only one, the COVID year of 2020. His 104 wins rank him tied for second in number of victories at Penn State.
And congrats to State Rep. Paul Takac for facilitating the awarding of more than $6.2 million in Community Development Block Grant funding to support essential improvements across the commonwealth, in particular $1,235,000 dedicated to a critical sewer infrastructure project serving residents of the Eagle Creek community in Centre County.
On Pearl Harbor Day, Ann Marie Stanley, director of the Penn State School of Music, presented the 18th annual Mosaic Concert to a packed Eisenhower Auditorium, featuring Centre Dimensions led by Joshua Davis; Percussion Ensemble at Penn State; Trumpet Studio led by George Carpenter; Symphonic Wind Ensemble led by James Gates; the PSU Rock Ensemble; Essence of Joy conducted by Arreon Harley-Emerson; the PSU Jazz Combo, the Oriana Singers conducted by Emily Wertz; the Saxophone Studio led by David Stambler; the Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Gerado Edelstein; the University Choir, the Concert Choir, Glee Club conducted by Christopher Kiver. Soloist included Xiang Su on piano, Max Dungan on guitar, Yirui Ma on piano, and soprano Eunmi Hwang with Charles Lisa on piano.
The United Nations Association of Centre County, led by President Eva Letwin and VP Savita Iyer-Ahrestani, celebrated the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with a book reading at Webster’s Bookstore Cafe. Professor Samuel Kolawole read from his prize-winning novel, “The Road to the Salt Sea,” which explores the global migration epidemic from a Nigerian perspective. Prof. Kolawole said, “Home is not only a place of life trajectories, experiences and relationships, but also a place where you are free.”
A look back
The year 1955 was an epic one in modern history, globally and personally. Emmett Till, a Black kid from Chicago was lynched, the Montgomery Bus Boycott under the leadership of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. legally liberated the racial segregation laws when it came to public transportation, and I went to a YMCA sleep away camp. I came home a week later with a high fever and some muscular discomfort. I was diagnosed with a polio infection, a disease that had contributed to President Roosevelt’s untimely passing a few years earlier. I was admitted to the hospital.
Soon thereafter one of America’s great heroes, Dr. Jonas Salk, discovered and donated to the world, a cure, a methodology that led to a vaccine that saved my life and ultimately the lives of millions of others. By 1994 the disease was eliminated in North and South America.
Today there are those in authority attempting to end mass inoculations claiming they can cause autism. There is little scientific evidence for this assertion but as a result there has been a regional rise of polio cases among non-inoculated people, particularly children. I am not a doctor. I am a survivor. I am alive because of the polio vaccine. Thank you, Dr. Salk.
Charles Dumas is a lifelong political activist, a professor emeritus from Penn State, and was the Democratic Party’s nominee for the U.S. Congress in 2012. He is a Lions Paw honoree. He lives in State College with his wife and partner of over 50 years.