Rust Deming ’64 2014 Distinguished Alumni Award Recipient
“Establishing trust in relationships between officials is essential,” says Kristen Bracewell Deming ’62. “Rusty has a good analytic mind, strength of character, discretion, and good judgment.” As a result of his success in the Foreign Service, Deming returned to academia in 2005. He teaches at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. “Some of my colleagues, when they retire from the Foreign Service, they leave the world entirely,” Deming says. “They go and open a bed and breakfast in Maine or do something completely unrelated to the Foreign Service, something they’ve always wanted to do. I never had that breadth of interest to do other things.” Deming’s father, Olcott Hawthorne Deming ’35 ’94 H , also
served in the Foreign Service, setting a family precedent. The family spent three years in Thailand and three years in Japan before moving back to the U.S. when Deming was 12. By the time he graduated from high school, he had attended 12 schools. “Somewhere along the line, I missed fourth grade,” Deming says. “Whatever one learns in fourth grade, I never learned.” Seeking warm weather and following in his parents’ footsteps (his mother, Louise MacPherson Deming ’37, also graduated from Rollins), Deming was drawn to the College, where he wrote for The Sandspur and participated in intramural sports. “Everything worked out very well,” Deming says. “I was lucky enough to go to a school that really did help prepare me to get into a career that I really enjoyed and was able to be successful in.”
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