Early morning wakeup at 4:30AM to get our the door and over to Starkville by 9:00AM. Sam and I did not realize that State was playing Texas A&M the next day, and the campus was buzzing with activity when we arrived. We made our normal stop for breakfast at the Jacks in Reform, so we were ready to start our tour when we arrived. Sam got to pet a fake Bully in the Wade center. Apparently the Wade family really liked clocks, as they had alot of them.
Mississippi State did a much better sales job on this trip, and they had a great hype video, that Sam and I both thought they should have played last time. The hype video is crucial. And instead of a bunch of old folks talking to me about family and price, they let students take us around the campus tour, which appealed to Sam more. We had a civil engineering senior named Jacque that walked us around. I basically just sat back and let them interact, with my interjects of "Oh yeah, I made it to the roof of that building"...which apparently was what you did before cellphones.
We next went over to the Electrical Engineering tour, and we had a young guy that was super excited to meet Sam, as he "never gets an Electrical Engineer". He spoke kindly of the old Simrall building, but it had been recently renovated. Then he took us into the high voltage lab area that was pretty cool to see. It was apparently the largest college owned high voltage lab, and we saw Bob there, a mannequin suspended high in the air. We asked about Bob, and the student got very excited, and told us about Dr. Wallace had a young kid ask what would happen if someone touched the high voltage lines. Then the student showed us a video test where Bob did touch it...and with the fire and lightning bolt of electricity that went into Bob...it made for a fantastic video. And a great way to remember Bob. Then the student told us about how Dr. Wallace had been hit by lightning earlier in life, and shouldn't have survived, but then the student admirably said "But he is Dr. Wallace, he can survive anything".
I think this tour helped Sam move MSU up higher on the list. He has already applied and been accepted, and has scholarships for about 85% tuition covered. He has his name in the hat for Housing already, and a buddy from high school that is interested as well. I think this will be a good fit for Sam, but I needed something else to help sway him in this direction. So where did we go for lunch? The little Dooey of course. We got into the large line of both locals and A&M Aggies visited the hallowed ground and BBQ mecca. And with a plate of BBQ and beans...all just felt right in the world. I told Sam about my friend from Scotland that had visited Dooeys during a campus recruiting visit. His comment when eating here was "This is like Mary, the mother of Jesus, came to Earth and laid her hands on this BBQ". Hahaha....I don't know about that, but we enjoyed a big meal, and even had enough to bring some back to Magan.
