Mascot makeover?

Super Frog’s been working out.

In fact, when he makes his debut at the home opener against Arizona, fans will hardly recognize him, said Dale Young ’66, cheerleader sponsor.

“He was hurt by the comments that he was looking too much like a Barney character,” Young said. “He said people wanted him tougher, more powerful, like our football team. We agreed.”

Sources also disclosed that TCU’s top Frog had begun to wrinkle — and smell — having gone 20 years without a real bath.

A top-secret group of personal trainers and image consultants have worked since June with the silent one, fortifying his diet with extra red ants and surgically implanting ice packs and a head fan to keep the more vigorous Frog cool during games.

“The word is that Super Frog looks more like the Frog you see on the team helmets now,” Young said. “I guess that since our teams are getting better, Super Frog decided to get in shape too.”

All that jazz.

More than 40 would-be Dizzy Gillespie’s turned out for the first-ever Lone Star Jazz Camp in July, including 73-year-old Ray Roberts of Las Vegas, Nev. The players practiced daily, but the highlight for each was playing with the Jim Widner Big Band at week’s end. “Jazz is a difficult art form,” said Prof. Curt Wilson, the camp’s director. “For budding musicians, it requires a lot of practice and a lot of time, not to mention a formidable purchase of a musical instrument. This camp shows me that the future of jazz will continue to be bright.”

Storming the Bastille.

Among the latest TCU London Centre students this summer were Julie Covert, Allisen Broadie, Julie Paullin and Krista Unger, who took time away from gray London for gay Paris, including such sights as the Arc de Triomph, Champs Elysées and Sacré Coeur.

A long way in Alaska.

Try running for an extended period of time in the Texas heat and you probably won’t make it very far. Perhaps that’s why seven current and former TCU students went to Anchorage, Alaska, for the Mayor’s Midnight Sun Marathon June 19. The marathoners ran for the Luekemia Society of America and raised $4,000 each in the process. News-editorial journalism senior Aimée Courtice said “running for the Luekemia Society puts being a student in perspective. When you run for somebody else, it helps you realize there are larger things in life than college worries.” From left to right in back are sophomore Jay Hurst, Matt Blakely ’98, senior Carlo Capua and sophomore Tim Bates. In front are Aimeé Courtice, Jennifer Schooley ’95 and sophomore Lauren Wylie.

Head nurse.

New Harris College of Nursing Dean Rhonda Keen-Payne said in July that she hopes to help nursing students envision careers that go far beyond E.R. and Chicago Hope. “A hospital is no longer the center of care, and the average stay in an emergency room is quite brief,” she said. “The spectrum of care includes our homes, the hospital, clinics, schools, perhaps places we’ve not yet identified.” Joining Keen-Payne in deanship roles are Dr. David Whillock, interim dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communications, and Dr. Bill Moncrief, interim dean of the M. J. Neeley School of Business. All three appointments mark a change of guard not seen at TCU in more than a decade.

Internet 2

By Spring of 2000, TCU hopes to obtain Internet 2, the high-bandwidth information superhighway, exclusively for institutions. Already, TCU is the only school in North Texas offering a highly interactive intensive English program for non-English speakers around the world, administered through the new Union Pacific Learning Lab in the library. Internet 2 will accelerate the program’s speed.