TECH HISTORY air-conditioned trackless trolley system, implemented briefly in Atlanta in 1945, and became a passionate advocate for nuclear power. “He saw responsible use and appreciation for the environment as a key factor in Atlanta being a great city and Georgia being a great state,” McDow says. Despite an illustrious career, a loving marriage, three kids, more grandkids, and memberships in nearly a dozen professional and environmental organizations, Randolph Whitfield never let his alma mater slide into his past. He served as president of the Greater Atlanta Georgia Tech Club, and trustee of the Tech National Alumni Association. He volunteered as an usher at Bobby Dodd Stadium for 40 years, and in 1995, he earned the Alumni Distinguished Service Award. Even at home, within the family, Whitfield refused to let up. Not long after McDow, his grandson, first started working in the President’s Scholarship office, McDow mentioned that he might forego football tickets to save a little money. “He went over, wrote a check, and said, ‘You are buying football season tickets,’” McDow says. “The idea of not supporting the football team was just not comprehensible to him.”
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IN 2007, Whitfield’s family—all the kids and grandkids and great-grandkids—jointly endowed a President’s Scholarship in his name. They’d long talked about honoring him this way after he passed, but it was McDow, who’d earned a President’s Scholarship himself in 1990 and now helped administer the program, who suggested they establish the fund while Whitfield was living, so he could enjoy the results. Later that year,
“I’M NOT USUALLY MUCH FOR
after Whitfield turned 98, the first Whitfield President’s Scholarship was awarded to Sarah Anderson, BME 11. “He was just so tickled,” says Croom Whitfield Coward, his daughter. “They have a little signing ceremony, and her parents were there, and Daddy got to meet her and her parents, and it was just a really wonderful experience.” Georgia Tech initiated the President’s Scholars Program in 1981 as a tool for recruiting the country’s top students. It’s supported by more than 100 endowments. As the years passed, the Stamps Family Charitable Foundation began donating more and more to the program, and eventually became such prominent benefactors that Tech rechristened it the Stamps President’s Scholars Program. The award now includes eight semesters of funding, in addition to $15,000 for international travel and more. In 2011, McDow moved from Tech to the national Stamps Scholars Program, where he now serves as executive director. When Tech sent over their roster of the 2020 recipients, the address of one particular scholar, Sarah Rutledge, stood out: 2540 Dellwood Drive. “I about fell out of my chair,” he says. “What a fascinating connection to a Georgia Tech alumnus who would be just tickled pink to have an engineer win the scholarship.” Whitfield would have been hard-pressed to find a more qualified candidate. When Rutledge was still in middle school, she found her parents watching a documentary about prostheses, how users could now feel sensation and control the newest limbs with their mind alone. “It was a very strange thing,” she says, “but it was fascinating to me.” From that point forward, still approaching her
SIGNS,” McDOW WROTE HIS FAMILY A
FEW WEEKS LATER, “BUT THIS CHOKED ME UP PRETTY GOOD.”
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FALL 2020 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE