University News

Rigge Science Labs Honor Four Friends

Four refurbished physics laboratories were dedicated this spring at Creighton, bearing names of four friends long associated with the University — or with friendships that intertwined with Creighton along the way.

Thanks to an anonymous donor, the laboratories are named for: Vincent McAndrew, the Condensed Matter Student Physics Laboratory; Kevin O’Connor, the Nuclear Instruments and Methods Student Physics Laboratory; Robert T. Reilly, ARTS’45, the Electronics Student Physics Laboratory; and David L. Shanahan, BA’66, the Atomic Physics Research Laboratory. While family members of all the honorees were on hand for the March 30 event, only Shanahan survives to have been present at the ceremony.

All believed in the value of a Jesuit education, according to dean emeritus of the College of Arts and Sciences, Robert Kennedy, Ph.D., at the dedication. And, according to friends through the years, they also believed in the joy of the game of golf.

McAndrew, a blacksmith for Union Pacific, taught golf to grandkids and neighborhood kids in his spare time.

Starting life with the intention of joining the Jesuits, O’Connor was for 50 years caddy master at the Omaha Country Club, where he would eventually start a scholarship for the young caddies.

One young caddy was Shanahan, who helped pay his way through Creighton Prep with money earned — while working for O’Connor.

And Reilly, who directed public relations at Creighton for many years and was a gifted writer, was a neighbor of the McAndrews, and swung a club with the best of them.

Now those four names will embellish the physics labs in Rigge Science.

Nearly half of the undergraduate students at Creighton major in the sciences, Kennedy told his audience at the March event, and Creighton has a well-earned national reputation for success in science education.

Creighton’s physics program, for example, ranks in the top 12 percent in the nation, Kennedy said, while “our biology program is in the top 3.5 percent and the chemistry program in the top 1.5 percent.”

Kennedy concluded that the University was “pleased these laboratories will be named in honor of four friends who believed in the value of Jesuit education,” friends who have been so generously honored by one who wishes to remain unnamed.