Scholarship Honors Fallen Alumnus
Throughout his career, Mike Goodrich carried with him the memory of Tulane classmate Tim White, a brilliant young civil engineer whose life was tragically cut short in the Vietnam War. Now, four decades later, Goodrich has given White's legacy a permanent place at Tulane in the form of a new scholarship in his name.
Tim White spent hours tutoring his Green Wave teammates at Tulane, recalls his brother, Dick White. A classmate has given a scholarship in Tim's honor. An Army officer, he died during the Vietnam War. (Photo from Tulane athletics department)
Goodrich met White, a Texan on a Tulane football scholarship, in a tiny, close-knit class of 12 civil-engineering undergraduates in the early 1960s. An ROTC member, White was called up for service in Vietnam in 1969 but, barely three months into his tour as a first lieutenant, he died in a helicopter crash in Long Khanh Province.
“It was one of those things that will stay with me for a lifetime,” Goodrich recalls. “His wife called, and I said, 'How's Tim doing?' The minute I said that, I knew he'd been killed.”
Linda White Chenoweth, Tim White's widow, says, “It never occurred to me to think that he would not come back. I guess for Mike it was kind of the same thing. It was a thing you don't forget.”
Goodrich rose to become president of Alabama-based BE&K Building Group, speaking often with both Chenoweth and Nicholas J. Altiero, dean of the Tulane School of Science and Engineering about his desire to honor White's memory. Goodrich retired in 2008 and the following December he established the Timothy C. White Memorial Scholarship Endowed Fund, pledging to grow it to $600,000.
The first scholarship was awarded last semester to J. P. Greene, a chemical-engineering student from Texas.
“We're particularly grateful to see a civil engineer support us at this level,” Altiero says. “We have many alumni in programs that have been phased out who recognize the important work that remains at the forefront of science and engineering.”
R. M. Morris is a writer in the Office of Development.
