Recognition Series: pt. 16 - Kendall R

Kendall was another guy I became real close with over my years at Clemson. Though Kendall had been in a few of my classes before sophomore year, my second year English class was where I first got to know him. Before then he had always been that long-haired-always-wears-a-backwards-hat-and-looks-kinda-asian-skater kid. In fact I sat next to him in that English class specifically because I knew he was in the architecture major, but that was the only reason.

Over that semester, Kendall and I would often compete in that class, and he would always manage to literally get 1 point higher than I did on everything. In fairness, he is an absolutely brilliant kid who works incredibly hard, and fully deserves the perfect 4.0 GPA he achieved for his four undergraduate years (super impressive).

Later that year we took the same statistics class and began lifting together, at which point we began to make goofy names for kids at both at the gym and in our stat class. Among them were Mystique, Complaining Girl, Ginger Kid, Ripped Asian, Aslan, and others. Everything was always a big joke and it was great to bring some laughter and humor into life during the long nights of architecture.

One thing I always admired about Kendall was his seeming ability to manage his time perfectly. Keep in mind this kid had a perfect GPA throughout college. Yet almost always got a good night's sleep, was involved in religious groups, went downtown with friends, played intramural frisbee, lounged at Y-beach, took trips hiking or back home to Greenville, and came on bike rides with us. It's just insane. I'll have to try to model his dedication in grad school or I may not survive...

Kendall also was in the group that I went to Barcelona with, and provided a lot of entertainment there. He made good friends there from both Texas AM (another group we went with) and some of the local kids there. Kendall is another one I'll miss for sure, if only for someone to motivate me to get to the gym (though that's far from the only reason).

Though Kendall also applied to UC Denver and UOregon like me for grad school (and got in both places) he decided to go to Clemson to earn his master's in architecture. He'll do great things I'm sure, and is now on his second summer working for a firm, so I'm really happy for him. Keep an eye out in the papers for this guy, because he'll be doing great things in the future.