Tailgate party draws good crowd

About 100 alumni and guests attended the REA Baseball Tailgate Party in early April. The earliest alumnus in attendance was Robert Manning (Mech ’46) and the most recent was Diana Yen (Stat ’08)—a span of more than 60 years! Other alumni included Associate Dean Bart Sinclair (Elec ’73) and retired faculty member Richard Massey (Elec ’53).

The Baseball Tailgate is a long-standing REA annual event, taking advantage of warm spring weather and Rice’s strong baseball program. The tailgaters gobbled up all of the hot dogs and hamburgers and nearly all of the cold drinks. And the Owls came through on the diamond, beating Tulane 11-3.

Tracy Volz ’78, director of professional communication development, came as a guest as of the REA. She gave a short talk about the design project poster competition, which was to be held the following week, and several alumni volunteered as judges for the event.

The lead organizer for this year’s Baseball Tailgate was Mario Macia (Materials Science ’91) of the REA’s Social Committee. Staffing the grill were head chefs Nate Richards (Comp Sci ’01) and Doug Coleman (Mech ’91), while Tim Masuda (Chem E ’78) and Siva Nadarajah (Civ E ’85) led the set-up and logistics. This year the committee collected and recycled nearly 100 percent of the glass, aluminum, and plastic generated by the event. Finally, the Baseball Tailgate would not have possible without the invaluable support of Chad Benedict ’01 and LaCresha Lamb of the Office of Alumni Affairs.

The Baseball Tailgate was the REA’s third successful social event of the academic year, following October’s fall social at the Saint Arnold Brewery, and February’s ice cream study break for engineering students at the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen.

George Webb (Elec ’88, MEE ’91)
REA Board and Social Committee Chair