Retired Texas Tech professor George Tereshkovich has been named to the university's Department of Plant and Soil Science Faculty Hall of Fame. He is the fourth member to be added to the distinguished group.

A reception honoring Tereshkovich will be held at 5:30 p.m. on Friday (Oct. 12) in Room 115 of Tech's Plant Science Building. "George Tereshkovich was a valued faculty member during his tenure at Texas Tech," said Richard Zartman, chairman and Leidigh Professor of Soil Physics in the Department of Plant and Soil Science. "He remains an advocate for the department." Tereshkovich's university service ran from 1968 to 1995.

Aside from his academic duties, Tereshkovich is noted for a message in a bottle. After 14 years and an ocean trek measuring a quarter of Earth's waistline, a message that he placed in a bottle popped up in the dunes along the beaches of Southwestern Australia's Big Quaram Beach.

On Feb. 19, 1997, Tereshkovich, aboard the Holland-America's grand ocean liner SS Rotterdam, wrote out a note, addressing it to an anonymous recipient who might find it and promising him or her $5. As the sun set, Tereshkovich tossed the sealed bottle, which also included his business card, into the ocean. "I told the wife what I was going to do," the 81-year-old said. "She thought I was seasick or something, throwing a note overboard. We continued cruising, and I completely forgot about it." That is until late April 2011, when a couple on a hiking trip spotted the bottle, 6,000 miles from its origin.

Written by Norman Martin

CONTACT: Christi Chadwell, Communication and Recruiting Coordinator with joint appointment with the Fiber and Biopolymer Research Institute, Department of Plant and Soil Science, Texas Tech University at (806) 742-2838 x233 or christi.chadwell@ttu.edu

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