| Days Until Graduation |
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| Class of 2024 |
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| Class of 2025 |
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| Class of 2026 |
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| Class of 2027 |
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| Days Since Graduation |
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| Class of 1975 |
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| Days Since 5 July 1971 |
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Now that’s short! Mike McClendon competed in the National Short Takeoff and Landing (STOL) event in December 2023 flying his stock Maule M-7 235-C, which he hangars at his private airstrip in Texas. He came in fourth with a combined takeoff and landing distance of 360 feet. To put that in context, he could have done the takeoff and landing on the grass square in the middle of the terrazzo and had 250 feet to spare. In fact, he could have taken off and landed on the roof of Mitchell Hall! It’s all a matter of perspective. The roof of Mitch’s would look like a postage stamp to a pilot on short approach to it, but the length of the floor under the roof probably looked like a two-mile-long tarpit to Jerry Wallace before he started his bare butt run in 1974.
Mike and Jan Goyden attained the rank of great-grandparents with the help of their granddaughter, Helen. Mike had an L4-L5-S1 spine fusion in early November, followed by seven weeks with a back brace, the removal of which allowed him to start physical therapy. It’s a slow process, but it beats the alternative.
Your lowly scribe (moi) has a similar tale of woe. In late September I had a fusion of vertebrae C2 through T2, because, apparently, the discs between those vertebrae only had a 70-year warranty on them. The doctor removed a one-inch-wide and 6-inch-long channel of bones and smooshed discs 
from my spine and attached two 6-inch titanium rods to the vertebrae on both sides of the gap with what appear to be decking screws because, as he said, “Without the rods your head will just flop around.” Two months later, while I was waiting in the doctor’s reception area, wearing a neck brace and minding my own business, a woman plopped down in a chair next to me, leanedover and said, “So what’s the deal with you?”
