Universities I was born in 1935 and raised in Berwyn, Illinois-a Czech-speaking, close-in suburb of Chicago. Though my upbringing was urban, summer exposures to small-scale dairy farming in central Wisconsin attracted me. I chose to study Dairy Husbandry at Purdue University (BS 1956 , MS 1957 ) and was exposed to laboratory research there. After 6 months of active duty for training as an Army officer, I began doctoral studies in Dairy Science at the Ohio State University in January of 1958. My study was intended to address the transfer of immunity from the cow to the calf in colostrum-the first milk produced after the cow gives birth. Fortuitously, I was assigned to a laboratory in the School of Veterinary Medicine that had begun studying porcine enteroviruses, supported by the Office of Naval Research. The leader of the group was Edward H. Bohl, DVM, PhD, who was willing to expand his studies to include bovine enteroviruses. My mentor in the laboratory was Louis Kasza, DVM, who had left Hungary during the 1956 revolution. His knowledge and laboratory skills were excellent, but his spoken English was somewhat challenging. I had grown up in a community where English was the second language, so I had relatively little problem learning from him. He taught me what were then state-ofthe-art laboratory methods in cell culture and virology. We later became roommates; and still later, he was ''best man'' at my wedding (Kasza 2003) .