Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey Brainstuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren bog Obam here. Student life at the Georgia Institute
Speaker 1: of Technology in Atlanta, known familiarly as Georgia Tech, is
Speaker 1: not for the delicate of heart or the weak of mind.
Speaker 1: Tech as a serious school for serious students who take
Speaker 1: classes like competatorics, Deformable Bodies, quantum information and quantum computing,
Speaker 1: and multi variable calculus. That last one, according to the
Speaker 1: school catalog, covers linear approximation and Taylor's theorems, lagrange, multiples
Speaker 1: and constrained optimization, multiple integration, and vector analysis, including the
Speaker 1: theorems of Green, Gauss and Stokes, which means a need
Speaker 1: a class just to understand what that class is about.
Speaker 1: But it's also in this place that the big hearted,
Speaker 1: practical joker George P. Burdell lives and flourishes. At Georgia Tech,
Speaker 1: where the nerd quotient is admittedly and proudly high and
Speaker 1: the academic pressures absurdly fire. It's important to have an
Speaker 1: alumnus like old George as a beacon. You see, George
Speaker 1: has made it through Georgia Tech and then some. The
Speaker 1: man is a practical legend. Around Georgia Tech. Check that
Speaker 1: George P. Berdell is in fact a literal legend at
Speaker 1: Georgia Tech, and that's where things get interesting. Let's take
Speaker 1: a step back. For the past twenty five years, Maryland
Speaker 1: Summers has been running the Living History program at Georgia Tech,
Speaker 1: designed to collect, preserve, and present stories of the institution,
Speaker 1: which opened its stores to students in Summers has supervised
Speaker 1: for posterity more than one thousand, one hundred on camera
Speaker 1: interviews with alumni and other people who have a connection
Speaker 1: to the school. She said, I learned something new about
Speaker 1: Georgia Tech with every single interview I do. I know
Speaker 1: more about Georgia Tech than I do about myself and nobody.
Speaker 1: But nobody knows more about George P. Berdell than Summers.
Speaker 1: The naturally reclusive Burdell, Summers says, has several degrees from Tech.
Speaker 1: According to his rest Amy, Summers has the diplomas to
Speaker 1: prove it. Burdell's first, a Bachelor of Science in General Science,
Speaker 1: was awarded in nineteen thirty. Since then, Burdell has never
Speaker 1: strayed far from Tech. According to Summers, he was registered
Speaker 1: for more than three thousand hours of classes in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine, and in nineteen seventy five was registered for
Speaker 1: every class in the spring semester. He was named a
Speaker 1: regent's professor in nineteen seventy one. Throughout the years, he's
Speaker 1: been named host of countless balls and dances on campus.
Speaker 1: He's evidently lettered in both football and basketball. There was
Speaker 1: a time even recently when you couldn't find a petition
Speaker 1: at Tech that didn't have George Peeberdell's name on it.
Speaker 1: Outside of Tech, he was reportedly involved in several flight
Speaker 1: missions in World War Two and in the Korean War,
Speaker 1: Vietnam Operation Desert Storm, and in the conflicts in both
Speaker 1: Iraq and Afghanistan. His name has appeared on the membership
Speaker 1: roles of just about every church in synagogue in the
Speaker 1: greater Atlanta metro area. He is such an outside legend
Speaker 1: now at sometimes dead Series Tech that a story is
Speaker 1: told to everyone who attends FACET, the orientation program for
Speaker 1: first year's Exchange and Transfer students, and their families. He
Speaker 1: has become at this point as much tradition as legend.
Speaker 1: It's probably important to point out here that George P.
Speaker 1: Berdell technically was never alive. He sprung into being, as
Speaker 1: it were, through the whim of a real life student,
Speaker 1: William Edgar ed Smith. In Smith had an extra application
Speaker 1: for the school, known then as the George's School of Technology,
Speaker 1: and proceeded to fill it out with the name of
Speaker 1: his high school principal, a University of Georgia alum by
Speaker 1: the name of George Phineas Butler. Smith wrote in the
Speaker 1: newspaper The Atlanta Constitution on September eleven of ninety seven,
Speaker 1: nothing could be more amusing than to register him as
Speaker 1: a tech freshman. But I lost my nerve after writing
Speaker 1: George P. And finished with Burdell. Burdell was the maiden
Speaker 1: name of his best friend's mother and was also, it seems,
Speaker 1: the name of the family cat. Smith's creation took all
Speaker 1: the classes that Smith did, with Smith and his friends
Speaker 1: who were in on the prank helping with homework and tests. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Burdell earned his first degree when Smith graduated in nineteen thirty,
Speaker 1: the same year that George P. Earned that initial degree.
Speaker 1: Other students took up where Smith left off. George P.
Speaker 1: Berdell became part of tech lore, and the legend lives
Speaker 1: on Summers tells the story of a tech military alum
Speaker 1: returning bone tired from duty overseas, who heard this welcome
Speaker 1: at the airport once he got home. George P. Berdell,
Speaker 1: Please contact the concierge. She has endless stories like that.
Speaker 1: George P. Has been paged in airports and restaurants and
Speaker 1: sporting venues all over the world. At Florida Citrus Bowl
Speaker 1: in Orlando, as Tech was on its way to winning
Speaker 1: a share of the nineteen ninety National Football Championship, George P.
Speaker 1: Was being called over the public address system. Tech students
Speaker 1: passed and present all know and share in his exploits.
Speaker 1: When Time magazine conducted an online poll in two thousand
Speaker 1: one first person of the Year, Burdell edged his way
Speaker 1: toward the top of voting until someone at the magazine
Speaker 1: got wind and shut down his candidacy. New York Mayor
Speaker 1: rute Off Giuliani was instead honored that year. Back in
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, a rumor circulated among Atlanta institutes of
Speaker 1: higher education that Burdell was engaged and later married to
Speaker 1: one Ramona Cartwright of nearby Agnes Scott College, and Summers
Speaker 1: says the union never took place, not only because of
Speaker 1: Burdell's oft engaged but never married reputation and other more
Speaker 1: corporeal reasons. But because miss Cartwright never existed either, George's
Speaker 1: name still finds its way onto wedding registers all the
Speaker 1: time and whenever summers can get her way onto the
Speaker 1: guestbooks at the funerals of Georgia Tech alums in this
Speaker 1: pressure packed school, though the name Burdell is most synonymous
Speaker 1: with good hearted, mostly harmless pranks, unless that is your
Speaker 1: local business person who have largely grown wise to his tricks.
Speaker 1: Back in the day, it was said Burdell had furniture
Speaker 1: delivered to rival frats and to campus offices cash on delivery.
Speaker 1: He has signed up for countless magazine subscriptions, online rebates, sweepstakes, entries, surveys,
Speaker 1: you name it. He's on LinkedIn and Facebook. Twitter has
Speaker 1: several accounts in his name. He has a great record
Speaker 1: on rate by professors one review. You can't make up
Speaker 1: how good this guy is. He's listed under the faculty
Speaker 1: section in Tech School of Mechanical Engineering. President Barack Obama
Speaker 1: gave him a shout out during a packed speech on
Speaker 1: the Tech campus in two thousand and fifteen. Quote now
Speaker 1: I understand George Peberdell was supposed to introduce me today,
Speaker 1: but nobody could find him. He is omnipresent. Summers calls
Speaker 1: him the spirit of Georgia Tech. The Living History Programs
Speaker 1: Endowment Fund bears his name. A few years ago, Summers
Speaker 1: sat down with George P. For the Programs One interview,
Speaker 1: still reclusive, so much so that he requested his face
Speaker 1: and voice be obscured in the video. Berdell, born in
Speaker 1: a manner of speaking on April Fool's Day of eight,
Speaker 1: described his childhood in Augusta, Georgia, his days at Tech,
Speaker 1: and the world of tech today. These days, more than
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand undergraduates are enrolled at Georgia Tech. It ranks
Speaker 1: among the nation's top eight public schools, among the top
Speaker 1: feign innovation and the top foreign engineering. It's graduated a
Speaker 1: president Jimmy Carter, numerous athletic icons, including golfer Bobby Jones,
Speaker 1: several astronauts, a ton of business titans, a Southern bred
Speaker 1: comedian Jeff Foxworthy, and kind of one George P. Burdell,
Speaker 1: who stands today as it's most famous alum. Though to
Speaker 1: be sure, fame can be a little bit problematic, Summer said,
Speaker 1: if your name is Burdell, you can't order a pizza
Speaker 1: within fifty miles of Atlanta. Today's episode was written by
Speaker 1: John Donovan and produced by Tyler Clay. Brain Stuff is
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio's Has Stuff Works. For more
Speaker 1: on this and lots of other legendary topics, visit our
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