Jim Amidon — We’ve just heard in from our Italian Bureau Chief, Mark Shreve ’04, who is on assignment in Perugia, Italy, where he works with an American study abroad program at the Umbra Institute.
Shreve reports that Wabash student Ross Dillard admirably represented his alma mater in a recent pizza eating contest, winning his heat by "stuffing his face" with two whole pizzas in just six minutes.
The mild-mannered Little Giant lost the overall contest when a 6-foot, 7-inch student from Rochester Tech beat him in the next heat by gobbling down three pizzas in six minutes.
Come to think of it, if I was a poor college student on a study abroad program and I could have all the free pizza I could eat in six minutes, I’d stretch myself, too.
Dillard, a junior, is studying in Perugia with his Beta Theta Pi pledge brother Adrian Starnes. Shreve reports both young men are great examples of Wabash men abroad. In fact, while grabbling lunch for the Umbra staff from the same pizzeria, Mark bumped into Greg and Robin Starnes, Adrian’s parents. Small, small world.
Check out Mark Shreve’s Umbra Institute blog.
Tough job, Mark has: Supervising pizza eating contests; visiting Perugia’s famed Baci candy company; taking students to Florence; spending the weekend in Tuscany; wine tasting and grape stomping; oh, and the occasional reports to the West Central Indiana home office. And to think he gets paid for it…
