So... It was really hard to not be a groupie here, but GUESS WHO WAS AT Susan Massie's Funeral?!
Francis Collins!
Who is he?
well... the Director of the Human Genome Project... and now of the NIH. This is HUGE!
Anyway, I am extremely blessed. I have met him a couple times, and I really wanted to re-introduce myself, ask him 2 questions, and get my picture taken, but Shannon was like, "That is not happening today!" Then she gave me her mommy look. Shannon! He's famous! He is a HERO of mine... I was only kidding... kind of.
Actually, I was really touched by his demeanor. He read Lamentations and his wife was really, REALLY upset. Susan Massie was an amazing woman who touched many, many lives. The church was shoulder-to-shoulder full and a remote site was set up with closed-circuit TV so all who wanted to, could attend her funeral.
Anyway, here I must say, many of my ideas on things like what genetic information should be (and NOT be) used for, "socialized" health care, biomedical research, etc has come from talks by and conversations with him. He is brilliant. Truly. The "funny" thing is, I am sure unless they knew he was coming and who he is, no one knew.
Guess where he got his bachelor's?
I really love this interview. Francis Collin's father was a drama professor at Mary Baldwin. Susan Massie was one of his students.
2 comments:
I love you, Crystal. :)
He and the girls spend a lot of time together -- I'll talk Grace.
Thanks, Shannon. We are actually interested in having him give the high-prestige lecture at JMU. There is an honorarium and all, it would be nice to be able to talk to him about it. He really is an amazingly brilliant man.
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