The Republican candidate for president is Mitt Romney, '69 (see more below) . . . . Principal deputy solicitor general Srikanth Srinivasan, '89, MBA '95, JD '95, has been nominated by President Obama to the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia circuit. . . . Stanford professor Robert Tibshirani, MS '83, PhD '85, has received the Statistical Society of Canada's highest honor. . . . The Orange County Register and six other daily newspapers have been bought by an investment group led by Aaron Kushner, '94, MA '94. . . . The new host of public radio's Marketplace Tech Report is David Brancaccio, MA '88. . . . Rebecca Love Kourlis, '73, JD '76, executive director of the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, received the American Bar Association's 2012 John Marshall Award. . . . In the "Amen" episode of HBO's The Newsroom, Amin El Gamal, '08, played the title role of an Arab Spring journalist. . . . Investor and philanthropist Tim F. Wray, MS '02, has been elected chair of the board of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
The 1965-66 school year Willard Mitt Romney spent at Stanford may be only 1/65th of his life, but it was a heady time for the future Brigham Young University graduate. Romney biographers Michael Kranish and Scott Helman describe a young man who moved into Rinconada, where his roommate was quarterback and first baseman Mark Marquess, '69 (the Farm's head baseball coach since 1977). Mitt—the son of Michigan Gov. George W. Romney and brother of G. Scott Romney, '63—was quick to get involved in campus activities, notably the Axe Committee and guarding the Big Game bonfire. The iconic photo from that time shows him protesting in support of President Wallace Sterling—his sign reads "Speak Out, Don't Sit In"—as campus antiwar tensions heated up. Romney left Stanford for Mormon missionary service the following year.
