Tag Archives: oral roberts university

Oct 31

Guys, dolls and research

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The American Cancer Society posted a video link to Facebook in which an amiable young researcher talked about the process of getting grant funding for his work and how important it was to him. I was watching it, to see if it was something I could use to promote Relay For Life, and I did a double take when he said he’d been applying for funding from various sources, among them “Leukemia/Lymphoma Society, Damon Runyon, American Cancer Society, the NIH.”

I had this strange vision of a man in a fedora and a pinstripe suit, talking like Nathan Detroit, handing out bundles of money to cancer researchers.

I didn’t realize that there was such a thing as the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation. Yes, it is named after writer Damon Runyon, whose short stories led to gangster-with-a-heart-of-gold movies like “Guys and Dolls,” “Little Miss Marker,” and “Pocketful of Miracles”; after Runyon’s death from cancer, Walter Winchell (!) used his radio show to ask for donations towards cancer research, which led to the foundation.

I wonder if there’s a term for using a person’s name as shorthand for something associated with or named after that person? My English professor sister-in-law might know.

Back when I attended what I jokingly refer to as Famous Televangelist University, the basketball tickets usually said something like “University of Evansville vs. Oral Roberts,” which gave me the humorous image of Oral, by himself, dribbling down the court towards five enemy players.

Dec 07

He’s a doctor, not a cowboy. Oh, wait; he IS a cowboy

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I got home and turned on TCM, and they were running “Warlock,” a 1959 western with Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda and Anthony Quinn.

All of a sudden, DeForest Kelley turned up in a small role. Kelley, who died in 1999, did a number of westerns, including multiple appearances on “Bonanza,” but it’s still jarring for me to see good ol’ Dr. McCoy turn up in a non-“Star Trek” role. I’ve seen Shatner and Nimoy in many other projects, of course. The second-tier cast isn’t quite as iconic. Somehow, it’s the strangest for me to see Kelley out of context.

Most of the cast members in the terrific 2009 “Star Trek” movie wisely avoided doing too-close impersonations of their TV prototypes, but Karl Urban – just as wisely – channeled Kelley, and it was wonderful.

By the way, I played the Dr. McCoy role in a Star Trek parody back in college which Famous Televangelist University’s TV production class did as a class project. I was OK, not great. There was one scene where I got to say “He’s dead, Jim. …. No, wait, he’s alive, but his brain is gone!” I kept cracking up, and even in the take they used you can see me just beginning to smile at the end of the line.

I wish that were on YouTube somewhere so that I could link to it. I have a tape of it around here somewhere, which I need to burn to DVD.

Dec 15

Oral Roberts

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In the spring of 1983, a new slate of officers was elected for the Oral Roberts University Student Associations. After 2 1/2 years as campus film chairman, I had run for the office of vice president in charge of student activities, and had been elected handily, with 75 percent of the vote against two opponents (one of whom was Joel Osteen’s sister, long before anyone knew who Joel Osteen would turn out to be).

The new slate of officers was invited to have lunch with President Oral Roberts in his offices on campus. That’s when this photo was taken:

From Drop Box

Oral Roberts died this afternoon in California.

Obviously, my sympathies are with the family, and with the faculty and student body at my alma mater, ORU.

As anyone who knows me is aware, I have a lot of negative attitudes towards TV evangelism in general, towards Richard Roberts, and towards what the Oral Roberts television ministry became over time. But I also had a great deal of respect for what Oral Roberts was able to achieve. ORU was a good place for me, and in some ways my time there was one of the happiest periods of my life, and a key growth period for me spiritually (although that growth wasn’t always in the exact directions which the Powers That Be would have intended). At the period in the late 1970s when I was looking at colleges, ORU’s stated emphasis on balancing the academic, the spiritual and the athletic appealed greatly to me.
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Mar 11

Imagine

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When I was a student at Oral Roberts University, I spent 2 1/2 blissful years in charge of the campus movies. For the most part, things went well — but when we did have problems, it was usually from a fellow student taking umbrage at something rather than from the administration cracking down. I still remember showing the animated movie “Yellow Submarine,” and a student wrote a letter to the editor of the campus paper excoriating the Student Association for bringing this particular piece of filth to campus. He accused the Beatles of various real and imagined sins, and mentioned real and imagined drug references in some lyrics. My response was that we had to judge the movie on its own merits, not necessarily on the private lives of its creators. And “Yellow Submarine” can certainly be enjoyed as a harmless, whimsical, G-rated fantasy tale.

Anyway, I got my ORU alumni e-newsletter today, and was amused to read this item:

The “Lennon Bus” Is Coming to ORU!

The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus will be on the ORU campus from April 8-9. The bus is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) mobile audio and HD video recording and production facility. Since 1998, the Bus has provided free hands-on programs to hundreds of high schools, colleges, Boys and Girls Clubs, music festivals, concerts, conventions and community organizations. ORU students will get their chance to take part in the bus. Tours of the bus are open to the public.

I don’t know if Ron C. is also on the alumni mailing list, but I would love to have seen his reaction.