Carolina Alumni Review - July/August 2007

Character Building

MICHAEL FRITH

About four years ago, Doug Schmidt

’ 87 left Wall Street to pursue a long-held interest in entertainment. He first provided financial backing, as executive producer, for the action film Turn the River, due out this fall. But soon he was caught up in someone else’s dream.

One night over dinner, children’s television veteran Sophie Ali described an incident in which soldiers had ordered Pakistani children into a building that was mined. She told Schmidt that Pakistani culture promotes rote learning and discourages questioning, so the children had obeyed and were killed. Her dream was to create a TV series that would teach critical thinking and creative learning to children of the Indian subcontinent.

“I saw what she was trying to accomplish,” Schmidt says. “I believe in living by the Golden Rule, but usually that means something small, like holding the door for someone or saying, ‘Thank you.’ Here was a

Doug Schmidt ’ 87 visits with cast members of The Magic Tent, a TV show for children of the Asian subcontinent.

chance to do something larger.”

Schmidt signed on as producer. Ali tapped her connections with veteran puppeteers from The Muppet Show and Sesame Street, Michael Frith and his wife, Kathryn Mullen, and she recruited music star Ali Azmat and actor Naseeruddin Shah, who has been in some 120 films, including Monsoon Wedding. The group created a story board and a family of puppets and went to Noida Film City to film the pilot episode of The Magic Tent. If all goes well, the show will be broadcast not only in India, but throughout the subcontinent, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

Schmidt admits he put in a lot of time long before he could see where the project was going but says he has no regrets.

GIVING BACK

Covering All Bases

Long after B.J. Surhoff ’ 86 is inducted recruited the Orioles to sponsor a into the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame in Pathfinders for Autism event that raised August, autistic children and their parents money for research on siblings of autistic will celebrate his work off the field. children, research that facilitated earlier

Surhoff ranks ninth in the Oriole’s all- detection and enabled early intervention. In time RBI average and was named Most 2005, when Surhoff received the $25,000 Valuable Oriole Player in 1999. He was National Roberto Clemente Award, he ACC Male Athlete of the Year in 1985 and donated it to Pathfinders for Autism. played a variety of positions at Galli, who serves on UNC, beginning his pro career the GAA Board of as catcher with the Milwaukee Directors, met the Brewers. By the time Surhoff Surhoffs in 1997 after her left the game in 2005, he’d daughter Madison, who is added left field, right field, third autistic, brought home a base, first base and designated crumpled yellow paper hitter to the list — playing inviting parents of chil-every position in the major dren with autism to the leagues except pitcher. Surhoff home to find out Inspired by his autistic son, about a therapist who Mason, Surhoff and his wife, had helped their son. Polly Winde Surhoff ’ 86, and Galli credits that therapist their friend Rebecca Smith with teaching her daugh-Galli ’ 80 founded Pathfinders ter how to talk. “This for Autism, a nonprofit resource shows how important the for parents of children with _{B.J. Surhoff} _{’ 86,} _who _will _be _inductedinformation you got by autism, in 2000. ^into ^the ^Baltimore ^Orioles ^Hall ^ofhappenstance was for us

Fame, advocates for children with

TODD OLSZEWSKI

That first year, Surhoff _autism. in those days,” Galli says.

NOSTALGIA

Model Spam

A friend from California sent Georgia Carroll Kyser ’ 70 an unusual gift: a can of Spam commemorating the 70th anniversary of the famous Hormel Foods product. The can shows Kyser as a young woman, talking on the telephone.

“I didn’t even know about this,” she said. “After 50 years, a photograph belongs to the public domain. I never know where my face is going to appear next. A while ago, a full-color, half-page photo appeared in the Style section of The Ne w York Times. Some friends came across a photograph of me in the south of France.” Her face also has graced many magazine pages, including Vogue.

After high school, she and her family took a cruise from Galveston to New York. An aunt shepherded her into a modeling career and a Warner Brothers contract. In 1943, the studio sent her to sing for the troops with Kay Kyser ’ 27 and his band. The next year, they were married, and seven years later, they moved to Chapel Hill, where they raised three daughters, all Carolina alumnae. Kay Kyser died in 1985.