The Scholars of Dellwood Drive
Every few years, humoring a little nostalgia, Randy McDow, executive director of the national Stamps Scholars Program, drives past his grandparents’ old home in Buckhead, just off Peachtree Battle, where the pine trees sway overhead and four small dormer windows study the front lawn like a textbook. Designed by an architecture student at Georgia Tech in 1936, the home once stood alone, breezy on both sides, a world apart—or so it seemed back then—from the buzz of downtown Atlanta. Over the decades, of course, the neighborhood filled in, the trees filled out, and the storybook home at 2540 Dellwood Drive underwent several renovations. And finally, in 1992, his grandparents moved out.
Still, McDow, IE 95, MS PP 03, says the memories remain, dripping from the shutters and the short chimney above. It was during one of these trips down memory lane last June that McDow and his young family noticed something new. Something different. A small lawn sign—Congratulations, Sarah!—a smiling high school graduate standing beside the Ramblin’ Wreck, one hand resting on the fender, all that Tech gold shining behind her.
McDow rolled down the window of his Camry and snagged a quick photo to send off to his family. His grandfather, Randolph “Randy” Whitfield, ME 32, MS ME 34, a pioneering mechanical engineer and the man McDow was named after, was a Georgia Tech man through and through, a proud alumnus, and tireless booster until the very end. Nothing, McDow was certain, would have thrilled him more. “I’m not usually much for signs,” he wrote his family a few weeks later, “but this choked me up pretty good.”
