The Badger State has a quirky past, and many of the tales that didn’t make it into Wisconsin’s official history have campus ties.

A descent of Yosemite Park’s El Capitan, which is twice the height of the Sears Tower, is daunting enough at nighttime. But with an injured climber on a stretcher in tow, it drew on all the climbing skills that park ranger Eric Gabriel ’88 could muster, and won him a medal of valor for his efforts.

Although The Oprah Winfrey Show has only one name in its title, pulling off the details to produce one of the most-watched daytime television programs takes a team with creativity and persistence — and, in this case, eleven Badgers.

Mark Stein ’73 discovered a “splendid logic” when his lifelong curiosity about our states and their shapes took him on a journey through American history.

As a mathematician and journalist by training, Sergio Fajardo MA’81, PhD’84 was an unlikely candidate to do the impossible: restore the peace and self-confidence of a city known worldwide for drug-related violence. But as mayor of Medellín, Colombia, Fajardo “changed the skin of the city” to accomplish just that.