GEORGIA
TECH BLUEPRINT 1952 ANNUAL YEARBOOK ATLANTA GA PHOTOS HISTORY MEMORIES
*INCLUDES APOLLO 16 ASTRONAUT
JOHN YOUNG ALTHOUGH THIS IS NOT HIS PERSONAL EDITION*
Blueprint is the official
student yearbook of the Georgia Institute of Technology. It was established in
1908 as The Blue Print and is the second oldest student organization on
campus. The first issue was edited by
John G. Chapman. It was published for the Georgia School of Technology, as
Georgia Institute of Technology was known at the time. It featured sections on
the history of the school, the classes, sports, organizations, fraternities,
and advertisements. Sections were broken up with poems inserted throughout the
book.
The yearbook was first published
in 1908 under the name Blue Print. The publication won some prominent awards
early on, including the American Award from the National Scholastic Press
Association in 1930, 1931, and 1932. The name changed to Blueprint in 1956
The Georgia Institute of
Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia,
as Tech, is a public research university and institute of technology in
Atlanta, Georgia. It is part of the University System of Georgia and has
satellite campuses in Savannah, Georgia; Metz, France; Athlone, Ireland;
Shenzhen, China; and Singapore.
The school was founded in 1885
as the Georgia School of Technology as part of Reconstruction plans to build an
industrial economy in the post-Civil War Southern United States. Initially, it
offered only a degree in mechanical engineering. By 1901, its curriculum had
expanded to include electrical, civil, and chemical engineering. In 1948, the
school changed its name to reflect its evolution from a trade school to a
larger and more capable technical institute and research university. Today,
Georgia Tech is organized into six colleges and contains about 31
departments/units, with emphasis on science and technology. It is well
recognized for its degree programs in computer science, engineering, and
business.
Student athletics, both
organized and intramural, are a part of student and alumni life. The school's
intercollegiate competitive sports teams, the four-time football national
champion Yellow Jackets, and the nationally recognized fight song
"Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech", have helped keep Georgia Tech in
the national spotlight. Georgia Tech fields eight men's and seven women's teams
that compete in the NCAA Division I athletics and the Football Bowl
Subdivision. Georgia Tech is a member of the Coastal Division in the Atlantic
Coast Conference.
Georgia Tech teams are variously
known as the Yellow Jackets, the Ramblin' Wreck and the Engineers; but the
official nickname is Yellow Jackets. They compete as a member of the National
Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level (Football Bowl
Subdivision (FBS) sub-level for football), primarily competing in the Atlantic
Coast Conference (ACC) for all sports since the 197980 season (a year after
they officially joined the conference before beginning conference play),
Coastal Division in any sports split into a divisional format since the 200506
season. The Yellow Jackets previously competed as a charter member of the Metro
Conference from 197576 to 197778, as a charter member of the Southeastern
Conference (SEC) from 193233 to 196364, as a charter of the Southern
Conference (SoCon) from 192122 to 193132, and as a charter member of the
Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SIAA) from 189596 to 192021.
They also competed as an Independent from 196465 to 197475 and on the 197879
season. Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, football,
golf, swimming & diving, tennis and track & field; while women's sports
include basketball, cross country, softball, swimming and diving, tennis, track
& field and volleyball.
The Institute mascots are Buzz
and the Ramblin' Wreck. The Institute's traditional football rival is the
University of Georgia; the rivalry is considered one of the fiercest in college
football. The rivalry is commonly referred to as Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate,
which is also the title of a book about the subject. There is also a
long-standing rivalry with Clemson. Tech has seventeen varsity sports:
football, women's and men's basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball, golf,
men's and women's tennis, men's and women's swimming and diving, men's and
women's track and field, and men's and women's cross country. Four Georgia Tech
football teams were selected as national champions in news polls: 1917, 1928,
1952, and 1990. In May 2007, the women's tennis team won the NCAA National
Championship with a 42 victory over UCLA, the first ever national title
granted by the NCAA to Tech.
Fight songs
Tech's fight song "I'm a
Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech" is known worldwide. First published in
the 1908 Blue Print, it was adapted from an old drinking song ("Son of a
Gambolier") and embellished with trumpet flourishes by Frank Roman.
Then-Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev sang the
song together when they met in Moscow in 1958 to reduce the tension between
them. As the story goes, Nixon did not know any Russian songs, but Khrushchev
knew that one American song as it had been sung on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Six women, wearing a uniform of
a white skirt and a white and gold cropped top with the word "Tech"
on the front, ride onto the football field on the running boards and rear seat
of a white-and-gold-painted antique car.
"I'm a Ramblin' Wreck"
has had many other notable moments in its history. It is reportedly the first
school song to have been played in space. Gregory Peck sang the song while
strumming a ukulele in the movie The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. John Wayne
whistled it in The High and the Mighty. Tim Holt's character sings a few bars
of it in the movie His Kind of Woman. There are numerous stories of commanding
officers in Higgins boats crossing the English Channel on the morning of D-Day
leading their men in the song to calm their nerves. It is played after every
Georgia Tech score in a football game.
Another popular fight song is
"Up With the White and Gold", which is usually played by the band
preceding "Ramblin' Wreck". First published in 1919, "Up with
the White and Gold" was also written by Frank Roman. The song's title
refers to Georgia Tech's school colors and its lyrics contain the phrase,
"Down with the Red and Black", an explicit reference to the school
colors of the University of Georgia and the then-budding Georgia TechUGA
rivalry.
Georgia Tech has a number of
legends and traditions, some of which have persisted for decades. Some are
well-known; for example, the most notable of these is the popular but rare
tradition of stealing the 'T' from Tech Tower. Tech Tower, Tech's historic
primary administrative building, has the letters "TECH" hanging atop
it on each of its four sides. There have been several attempts by students to
orchestrate complex plans to steal the huge symbolic letter T, and on occasion
they have carried this act out successfully.
One of the cherished holdovers
from Tech's early years, a steam whistle blew five minutes before the hour,
every hour from 7:55 a.m. to 5:55 p.m. However, starting in the fall semester
of 2017, due to a new classroom scheduling template, the whistle no longer
adheres to this convention and follows a modified schedule. The whistle also
blows every spring during the "When the Whistle Blows" remembrance
ceremony. The faculty newspaper is named The Whistle.
Many distinguished individuals
once called Georgia Tech home, the most notable being Jimmy Carter, former
President of the United States and Nobel Peace Prize winner, who briefly
attended Georgia Tech in the early 1940s before matriculating at and graduating
from the United States Naval Academy. Juan Carlos Varela, a 1985 industrial
engineering graduate, was elected president of Panama in May 2014.[250] Another
Georgia Tech graduate and Nobel Prize winner, Kary Mullis, received the Nobel
Prize in Chemistry in 1993. A large number of businesspeople (including but not
limited to prominent CEOs and directors) began their careers at Georgia Tech.
Some of the most successful of these are Charles "Garry" Betty (CEO
Earthlink),David Dorman (CEO AT&T Corporation),[ Mike Duke (CEO Wal-Mart),
David C. Garrett Jr. (CEO Delta Air Lines), and James D. Robinson III (CEO
American Express and later director of The Coca-Cola Company).
Tech graduates have been deeply
influential in politics, military service, and activism. Atlanta mayor Ivan
Allen Jr. and former United States Senator Sam Nunn have both made significant
changes from within their elected offices. Former Georgia Tech President G.
Wayne Clough was also a Tech graduate, the first Tech alumnus to serve in that
position. Many notable military commanders are alumni; James A. Winnefeld, Jr.
who served as the ninth Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Philip M.
Breedlove who served as the Commander, U.S. Air Forces in Europe, William L.
Ball was the 67th Secretary of the Navy, John M. Brown III was the Commander of
the United States Army Pacific Command, and Leonard Wood was Chief of Staff of
the Army and a Medal of Honor recipient for helping capture of the Apache chief
Geronimo. Wood was also Tech's first football coach and (simultaneously) the
team captain, and was instrumental in Tech's first-ever football victory in a
game against the University of Georgia. Thomas McGuire was the second-highest
scoring American ace during World War II and a Medal of Honor recipient.
Numerous astronauts and National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) administrators spent time at Tech;
most notably, Retired Vice Admiral Richard H. Truly was the eighth
administrator of NASA, and later served as the president of the Georgia Tech
Research Institute. John Young walked on the moon as the commander of Apollo
16, first commander of the space shuttle and is the only person to have piloted
four different classes of spacecraft. Georgia Tech has its fair share of
noteworthy engineers, scientists, and inventors. Nobel Laureate Kary Mullis
developed the polymerase chain reaction, Herbert Saffir developed the
Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, and W. Jason Morgan made significant
contributions to the theory of plate tectonics and geodynamics. In computer
science, Krishna Bharat developed Google News,[269] and D. Richard Hipp
developed SQLite. Architect Michael Arad designed the World Trade Center
Memorial in New York City.
Despite their highly technical
backgrounds, Tech graduates are no strangers to the arts or athletic
competition. Among them, comedian/actor Jeff Foxworthy of Blue Collar Comedy
Tour fame and Randolph Scott both called Tech home. Several famous athletes
have, as well; about 150 Tech students have gone into the National Football
League (NFL), with many others going into the National Basketball Association
(NBA) or Major League Baseball (MLB). Well-known American football athletes
include all-time greats such as Joe Hamilton, Pat Swilling, Billy Shaw, and Joe
Guyon, former Tech head football coaches Pepper Rodgers and Bill Fulcher, and
recent students such as Calvin Johnson and Tashard Choice. Some of Tech's
recent entrants into the NBA include Josh Okogie, Chris Bosh, Derrick Favors,
Thaddeus Young, Jarrett Jack, and Iman Shumpert. Award-winning baseball stars
include Kevin Brown, Mark Teixeira, Nomar Garciaparra, and Jason Varitek. In
golf, Tech alumni include the legendary Bobby Jones, who founded The Masters,
and David Duval, who was ranked the No. 1 golfer in the world in 1999.