About Frank

Please note the picture at the beginning of my blog of me with my bike at the Channel 5/KTLA Newsroom Studio in Hollywood.  For those of you not from Los Angeles, KTLA is the most watched morning news station in Los Angeles.  Bruce Lederman (my friend and fellow biking partner, Penn Class of 1964) and I were interviewed in July 2007 by Sam Rubin, the Entertainment Voice of L.A. regarding the Bucknell-Penn Alumni Bike Race Across America for Scholarship.

I have placed this picture at the beginning of my blog because it represents to me a reminder of why I have decided to do this cross-country ride from Santa Monica, CA to Atlantic City, NJ (and then on to Lewisburg, PA) with a goal of raising $1 million for the Scholarship endowment of Bucknell University (I was the Class of 1969).

As I sat on the studio floor waiting to be interview, I thought about why I was doing this ride.  Many of my friends have said to me it would have been easier to gift the money I was spending to fund the ride to Bucknell, than to do the ride..

But, doing the ride is more to me than just giving money.

The ride is about my celebrating with other Bucknell alumni (3 generation of them, at last count) all that Bucknell has meant to me over the last 43 years.

I recognize that I got a great education in the classroom and on the athletic fields.  My professors and coaches also instilled in me the knowledge that I could do whatever I wanted to do when I left Bucknell.  And I have.

What I did not know when I made the decision to attend Bucknell, was that it would provide many choices for professional and personal development with fellow Bucknellians, as well as many lifelong true friends.

As I sat on that step in the studio, I also thought about all the alumni and friends of Bucknell over the last 162 years who made a decision to help people like me.  High school students who met the academic qualifications of Bucknell, but whose familys’ did not have the economic means to afford Bucknell.  What a priceless gift I had been given.

That smile on my face in the picture is a sweet thank you for all the alumni and friends of Bucknell who wanted to find and satisfy the dreams of young high schools students like me!