[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 139 (Tuesday, October 1, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12143-S12144]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     DRS. JOHN AND WINONA VERNBERG

 Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, South Carolina has been dealt a 
double blow by the retirement of two leaders who have dedicated their 
professional lives to the public good. Drs. John and Winona Vernberg 
have been the University of South Carolina's power couple in the areas 
of public health, science, and the environment.
  This beautiful couple has been together for nearly 50 years and has 
been serving the public just as long. They met in the Navy Hospital 
Corps at the end of World War II, and embarked on stellar careers in 
academia afterwards at Duke University and then at the University of 
South Carolina. John became a Guggenheim Fellow, both won Fulbright-
Hayes Fellows, both won the Russell Award for Research in Science and 
Engineering, both received the William S. Proctor Prize for Scientific 
Achievement, and Winona was named Woman of the Year in 1980 by the 
University of South Carolina.
  While their academic work has been top notch, they have not confined 
their activities to the classroom or laboratory. Winona became dean of 
the School of Public Health at USC in 1978, and within a year it was 
accredited. She has made that school an active, leading institution. It 
has 10 times the staff and 30 times as many students as when she took 
over. It has taken on the environmental health questions of our times 
in an interdisciplinary way and with an eye to the future. More 
recently, the university has recognized her management skills and 
longstanding contributions to the institution by naming her acting 
provost.
  While Winona has been dean of the School of Public Health, John has 
been dean of the School of the Environment and head of the Baruch 
Institute at the University. We in South Carolina have a treasure in 
the coastal ecosystem, and John and Winona have worked in concert to 
understand it, to teach others, and to protect it. Diverse research

[[Page S12144]]

within the Baruch Institute's 17,000-acre coastal preserve has ranged 
from studies of ocean tides, to tracking sea turtle nesting sites, to 
collecting data on the effects of Hurricane Hugo on the ecosystem. For 
John's part in these and other efforts, he has been named South 
Carolina Conservationist of the Year by South Carolina Wildlife and was 
honored with the Waddell Lifetime Achievement Award by Friends of the 
Coast. John and Winona often publish joint research projects, and 
Winona's environmental leadership was recognized through the Water 
Conservationist of the Year award by the South Carolina Wildlife 
Federation.
  Mr. President, the Vernbergs are a couple we will continue to admire 
and cherish in South Carolina, and we will watch for their continued 
accomplishments as professors emeritus at the university. The 
institutions they have led and built up will continue to be a force for 
the good in our State and the Nation. I commend their work to my 
colleagues interested in public health and the environment, and wish 
the Vernberg family my best in the years ahead.

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