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>> I'd like to talk about Rice's food service, which has profoundly impacted my life,
not only my student experience but also afterwards.
So while we were at Rice, food was bad, generally speaking but Mark Ditman,
who is the head of housing and dining, he actually matriculated with me.
We both started at Rice at the same time.
I was from Virginia, he was from Virginia so we had this, this tight bond.
We were always talking about food and the quality of food service.
While I was the president of Lovett College, my junior year, he was out selling, selling,
selling on this whole concept of the serveries and if people weren't really buying
into the serveries, so the, the propaganda that he was throwing out there was oh,
we're going to have all these great vegetarian options and we're going to have, you know,
a fruit bar and we're going to have a salad bar and it's going to be so amazing.
Meanwhile, I was a recently former football player at the time and, you know, I like meat.
So I was just like Mark, I get it, I, I get it, it sounds great but what about the meat?
Can we have a meat bar at these serveries?
Obviously that was a nonstarter but when it came time for Lovett presidential changeover,
I was giving away the, the presidential responsibilities,
it happened to coincide with my 21st birthday.
So Mark Ditman surprised me for my 21st birthday for Lovett presidential changeover,
he had a meat buffet at Lovett, 21 different kinds of meat for my 21st birthday.
We had ribs, we had, like different kinds of steak, different meats.
We had, you know, huge turkey legs, it was absolutely amazing.
So it was indicative to me of just what can happen at Rice.
You know people, it's a small school and they totally come out of the woodwork to support you.
Go Owls and go meat, although now I'm basically a vegetarian.
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