Friday,
February 4, 1983
Alumnus MarshallHouts:
The Clarion
By Jon Zillioux
^Explosion Of Knowledge’ Is Opportunity
Brevard College Alumnus Mar
shall Houts (’37), the world’s
foremost medilegal attorney,
says that today’s “explosion of
knowledge” is the means by
which Brevard College students
can hope to achieve success in to
day’s world.
“Today’s students are much
more sophisticated,” stated Mr.
Houts in a recent Clarion inter
view following his Spring Con
vocation address in Dunham
January 19,
Mr. Houts says that the stu
dent’s accessibilty to today’s
growing technology gives him “a
deeper sense of knowlege and it
gives him motivation. Financial
ly, today’s student has more op
portunities,” stated the Brevard
graduate.
But as he pointed out in both his
Convocation address and the in
terview, college students didn’t
always enjoy the current benifits
which many students take for
granted today. “You worked like
heck in my day,” he recalled.
“You didn’t look back.”
Undoubtedly Mr. Houts knew
what it meant to work because he
attended Brevard during the
worst of the depression. When he
arrived on campus during the
summer of 1935, he had only $4.79
with him.
“Brevard College was in the
middle of a ‘cashless society': I
don’t like to use the word ‘ poverty’
to describe Brevard because the
people here weren’t impoverish
ed. They had spirit, but they just
didn’t have the money,” he ex
plained.
Houts says that spirit and
dedication were the tools with
which Brevard College was con
structed: “There was a certain
spirit here I never found
anywhere else-a spirit of mutual
assistance, of living in harmony.
Self-help was the whole theory on
which the college was founded.”
. Houts studied hard during his
stay at the young college, and
during the summer he drove a
farming tractor, at ten-cents per
Lour, to earn his keep. “Driving
that tractor was perhaps the
hardest task I’ve undertaken,”
he joked. “Nothing could have
been worse than that!”
Compared with the students of
the 1930’s, Mr. Houts sees a
change in attitude in many of to
day’s students. He explained,
“There are too many drop-outs;
they say they’re trying to ‘find
themselves’, while others drag
out their stay in college for years.
‘There are too many
(college) drop-outs.’
"Dropping out isn’t a way to
find yourself. If there’s any place
for that, it’s in college,” he
stated.
While in college the most pro
ductive achievement a student
should aim for is what Houts calls
“the command of the English
language”. His advice to BC
students is this; to become suc
cessful communicators. “Power
of speech is the most powerful
thirtg you can learn at Brevard
College,” he said. “It’s a thrill to
be able to express yourself effec
tively.”
He added, “I got as sound a
footing here culturally and
academically as I could have
elsewhere. My training stood on
par to all competitions.”
Regarding Mr. Houts’ acquired
position in the legal world today,
apparently Brevard did give him
just that.
After graduating from
Brevard, Mr. Houts went directly
into law school his junior year at
the University of Minnesota
where he went on to earn both his
BSL and doctor degrees in law.
During WWII he entered the
FBI and served as an undercover
agent for the OSS (forerunner of
the CIA) in Brazil, attempting to
watch the Nazi’s “extensive es
■
I
Brevard graduate Marshall Houts:“My training here
stood on par to all competitions.”
pionage and sabotage
operations” which were then
plaguing that country.
That story itself could fill a
whole page.
After the war Houts began his
law practice. And it was “almost
by accident” that he discovered
the field of forensic medicine, a
field which he has devoted most
of his career to, and the field
which has made him well-known
to lawyers worldwide.
Houts had been reinvestigating
a murder case in which the cause
of death had not been firmly
established. What he discovered
from this case, as well as many
others, was an innocent convict,
poor police work, and a poor
autopsy.
‘Dropping out isn’t
the way to
find yourself.’
A_ publisher heard of Houts’
work and was interested. “A
publisher came to us and asked
us to write a book on this,” Mr.
Houts said.
“We were the first (in the field
of medilegal studies) ; from that
first book we took off and no one
else has come close to us yet,” he
explained. “We were at the right
place at the right time.”
Since then Mr. Houts and a
small editorial staff have written
35 medilegal books, including
“Lawyers’s Guide to Medical
Proof” and “Seminar in Cour
troom Toxicology”.
Another notable achievement of
Houts’ is his reinvestigation of
over 600 murder cases. “We did
this in an effort to see if any of
those found guilty were actually
innocent.”
Not only did he find some con
victs who insisted they were inno
cent, he was able to prove so, us- something from one of your books
ing the medilegal knowledge he and it helped us,’is what satisfies
had accumulated. us the most.
Mr. Houts says he wants to use “We are
monthly hard-cover publication
for lawyers which he writes a ma
jority of, edits, and publishes.
“Trauma has the largest circula
tion of its kind (7000) in the
world,” Mr. Houts stated.
Not only has Houts’ work at
tracted the attention of the public
and criminal lawyers nationwide,
it has attracted the ever action-
seeking moviemakers of
Hollywood.
In additions to NBC’s “Quincy”
series being derived from a book
Houts wrote, the movie industry
is currently interested in his
work. “MGM has adapted one of
our books into a movie called
‘Eureka’,” he said. “Eureka
stars, among others, Gene
Hackman and Teresa Russels.
However, Mr. Houts points out
that “Eureka” is “typically
Hollywood; it’s as close to the
book as Hollywood ever gets.”
The movie is scheduled to air
sometime this spring.
‘You worked like heck
in my day; you
didn’t look back.’
In addition to editing Trauma,
Mr. Houts tours the country lec
turing on his books and work. He
is currently planning a fall trip to
Red China where he says he’s go
ing to elaborate his medilegal
techniques to the Chinese.
Mr. Houts explained that the
successful use of his ideas as
brought forth in his books and
Trauma by the many lawyers na
tionwide is what makes his work
satisfying. “To have lawyers
come up to us and say, ‘We used
his work as a “vehicle to increase
public interest in this field. We
want to uncover poor autopsies
and poor police work to prevent
these miscarriages from occur-
ing again.”
What keeps Houts the busiest
today, however, is Trauma, a bi
being used by
lawyers; our work helps them,
and this helps their clients,” Mr.
Houts concluded.
“I’d like to quit,” he said with
regards to the near future, “but
I’m afraid that I’m too busy to do
that.”
BC Is Catching Up With The ComputerAge
By Wanda Raines
The addition of two computers
to the Brevard College
Registrar’s office is only the
beginning of a big project that the
College is planning.
The two microcomputers were
3dded to aid in registration, and
eventually more will be added for
use in other areas.
Dean Wray stated that this is a
D'g project for the College, and he
's obviously very excited.” He
3 so commented that there is still
3 long way to go before
everything planned will be ac-
wmplished.
I do not know how it would be
possible to make more progress
®one semester,” said the Dean,
uean Wray credited Bobbie Jean
Nicholson, Steve Holland, and
Bill Gash for working
® essly with the computer,
in the Registrar’s office, the
y O' this computer, and Olivet-
will increase semester by
semester. This semester the com
puter is being used to keep stu
dent schedules and to get com
puter printouts to the teachers of
their class rolls.
The next step for the computer
is to retain past semester records
and combine semesters to pro
duce transcripts. Dr. Wray stated
that the transcripts would be
more accurate and could be pro
cessed more quickly than by
hand.
Other projects planned for the
computer are a printout of re
quirements for graduation which
will be sent to the student and his
advisor at the end of each
semester. Another printout will
also be sent to the Business Office
for each student, so that special
fees may be billed.
Grades will also be sent to
students on a printout, as was the
case for this past grading term.
Dean Wray said that the next
big project will be to develop a
two-year, university-paralle.
computer science program. Computer Science Department of year private college will have
Talks with consultants in this Brown University was here to better facilities than we do at
area have already begun. offer advice on the program. Brevard; we expect our facilities
Last week the Chairman of the “When we are finished, no two- to be a model,” Dean Wray said.
Whara rt
over o
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