CAPE NATIVE TEMPORARY SEMO CHIEF

The Board of Regents Friday chose blunt-talking Cape Girardeau native Dr. Bill L. Atchley as Southeast Missouri State University's interim president.

He will officially begin his job Sept. 1, although Atchley expects to be on campus the last week of August.

Atchley will run the school while a search is under way to hire a permanent president to replace Dr. Kala Stroup. Stroup is leaving to take a job as Missouri commissioner of higher education.

The 63-year-old former president of Clemson University and the University of the Pacific made it clear he wasn't applying for the permanent job at Southeast.

"The only way I would even consider that is if, for some reason, they couldn't find the right person," he said.

Atchley, who was once a student at Southeast, said he won't be a passive administrator and that he isn't taking the job for an ego trip.

"If they want a caretaker, they don't want me," said Atchley, who was one of four candidates in the running for commissioner of major league baseball in the early 1980s.

"I am not going to be a hands-off person. I want to do what is best for the university," said Atchley, who was a pitcher in the New York Giants organization from 1951 to 1952.

Atchley said he believes in a common-sense approach to education.

While president of Clemson University in the 1980s, the former University of Missouri-Rolla engineering professor refused to grant himself tenure.

If he serves a full year, Atchley will make a salary of $121,500, the same as Stroup's current salary. He will get the same benefits Stroup now has, including living in Wildwood, the president's home.

If he serves less than a year, he will receive a termination allowance equal to one month's salary.

The decision to hire Atchley was unanimous, said Don Harrison, president of the board.

Atchley said universities are in the business of educating people, and university employees are there to serve, not be served. Sometimes they forget that, he said.

The white-haired, tanned Atchley shakes hands like he talks, with friendly firmness.

He just resigned after completing eight years as president of the University of the Pacific at Stockton, Calif., a school with about 6,000 students spread over three campuses.

Atchley thinks seven years should be a sufficient term for any university president.

He recently told his wife, the former Pat Limbaugh of Cape Girardeau, he wouldn't take another job as a full-time university president.

They planned to move back to South Carolina.

But that was before he stopped to visit his mother, who is in a Sikeston-area nursing home.

Atchley read in the newspaper that Southeast was looking for an interim president.

He told university lobbyist Marvin Proffer of his interest in the job, and Proffer conveyed the information to Regent Don Dickerson.

"Sometimes fortune smiles upon us," Dickerson told reporters in announcing the hiring decision Friday afternoon.

For Atchley and his wife, this is a homecoming.

Atchley grew up in Cape Girardeau. He attended May Greene Elementary School and graduated in January 1951 from Cape Girardeau Central High School.

In high school, he played baseball, basketball and football.

Dickerson recalled that Atchley was a "wild-throwing kid" when he pitched at Cape Central.

Pat Atchley grew up in a house on North Henderson, across from the University Center.

"The campus was my playground," she recalled.

Her late father, Ruthford, was a nephew of Rush Limbaugh Sr., father of the talk show host.

The couple's oldest daughter, Julie, graduated from Southeast. Their other children are Pam, a Clemson graduate, and David, a graduate of Wofford College.

Pat Atchley said her husband paints with "a broad brush" and she "dots the I's".

As for Bill Atchley, he described himself as straightforward. "I am just what you see, nothing more or nothing less."

PORTRAIT OF AN INTERIM PRESIDENT

Dr. Bill L. Atchley

Born Feb. 16, 1932, at Cape Girardeau. Married to the former Pat Limbaugh of Cape Girardeau

Attended May Greene Elementary, Cape Central High School and Southeast Missouri State University. EArned bachelor's and master's degrees in civil engineering from University of Missouri-Rolla and doctorate from Texas A&M University.

President of University of the Pacific at Stockton, Calif., from July 1, 1987, to June 30, 1995.

President of the National Science Center for Communications and Electronics Foundation Inc., 1985 to 1987.

President of Clemson University, July 1979 to July 1, 1985

Dean of the College of Engineering at West Virginia University, 1975-1979.

Engineering faculty member at the University of Missouri-Rolla from 1957 to 1975.