KINDER'S COMMENTARY: ABOUT HEROES AND LEADERSHIP...

A nice crowd turned out Tuesday at the Holiday Inn for a ceremony awarding "Heroes" awards to 25 thoroughly deserving recipients. Sponsored by Hardees restaurants and KGMO radio, the group of awardees and guests heard an address by new Southeast Missouri State University President Bill Atchley.

Dr. Atchley was impressive in the first time this listener had heard him make a public address. He spoke of the need for heroes -- how little we hear this today! -- and listed three who have inspired him during his distinguished lifetime of service.

The heroes Dr. Atchley commended to his audience: Adm. James Stockdale, the highest ranking officer shot down during the Vietnam War, who later spent nearly eight years of abuse, torture and isolation in North Vietnamese prisons; thrilling African-American Olympic medalist Wilma Rudolph, who achieved greatly against overwhelming odds, including rising above poverty and conquering childhood polio; and, on the local level, the late Coach Lou Muegge, of whose tender mercies Atchley said, "He set me on the right path," including the use of some tough-love measures which, one fears, might draw a lawsuit in today's over-litigious, victim-happy society. Of Muegge, especially, Dr. Atchley stressed that this remarkable man probably influenced more young people more positively during his service at Central High School than any figure he could name.

I left the brief ceremony renewed and impressed, as most folks have been who have interacted on any level with Bill Atchley since his serendipitous arrival back home.

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Speaking of heavyweight leaders in higher education, another native Southeast Missourian returned this past Monday and simply wowed a capacity crowd at the Cape Girardeau Rotary Club. I speak of Dr. George Russell, president of the University of Missouri system and a native of Bertrand in Mississippi County, where he grew up chopping cotton as a young boy from sunup to sundown.

After invoking with obvious feeling his local and area roots, Dr. Russell spoke impressively, as he always does, of the need for leaders in higher education to get their own house in order before constantly blaming others for whatever problems they confront. George Russell talks about as bluntly as any leader in higher ed you'll hear these days -- or any other days, for that matter. There's something to be said for hiring such an MIT-trained, rocket-propulsion scientist, such a retired naval officer, at an age and a point in a career when he didn't really need the work or the aggravation and when he is thus free to tell some blunt truths and to confront the sacred cows and to step on the eggshells where others fear to tread.

Here, truly, is a man who speaks the unvarnished truth, who sees the world real and whole, without illusions, and yet with full appreciation for all the rich promise of our state, its people and our leading public research institution. I am convinced that when the history of the last decade at the University of Missouri is written, the hiring of George Russell -- for which former MU curator John Lichtenegger can take a large measure of credit -- will be seen to have been one of the great and most positive turning points in the institution's history. George Russell may be in his 70s -- he looks and acts 10 years younger -- but I hope he has many years of service left. His legacy will be rich, deep and longlasting.

After Dr. Russell's speech, visiting with Dr. Mark Scully -- a Rotarian who knows something about running a lean institution of higher ed -- I remarked on my admiration for Dr. Russell and for the remarkable character of his leadership. Mark Scully proudly claimed his fellow Mississippi County native and said the only thing wrong was that MU hadn't made him president 10 years earlier.

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One wonders: With these two guys and Kala Stroup in Jefferson City -- Southeast Missourians, all -- could we be witnessing the Golden Age of leadership in higher education in Missouri?

~Peter Kinder is the associate publisher of the Southeast Missourian and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.