Apalachicola
native and former Florida A&M University President Frederick S. Humphries will
get a statue in his honor at the FAMU campus in Tallahassee next month.
Humphries was born in
Apalachicola in 1935 and attended the Holy Family Catholic School and the all-black
Wallace M. Quinn High School.
He became a champion of
education, especially for disadvantaged young people.
He graduated with honors from
FAMU in 1957, with a degree in chemistry, then earned his master’s and
doctorate degrees in physical chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh.
He was Pitt’s first
African-American Ph. D. in chemistry.
Humphries returned to FAMU as
a chemistry professor in 1968; in 1985 he became the school's 8th president
where he drew increasing numbers of National Achievement Scholars to the
school, ranking first in the country three times and outpacing Ivy League schools.
Under his leadership, FAMU was
named college of the year in 1997 by the Time Magazine/ Princeton Review,
enrolled a record number of students, and increased corporate financial support
for the University substantially.
He also planned to open a FAMU
branch campus in Apalachicola, though that plan never came to fruition.
He served as president until
2001.
In 2001 he helped FAMU win a 2.5-million-dollar
grant from NOAA to conduct research in the Apalachicola Bay.
A street in Apalachicola was
named in his honor.
Dr. Humphries’ Statue will be
unveiled during FAMU Homecoming week at 8 AM on Friday, October 17th
at the University Quadrangle.
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