Actress Sharon Stone gets honorary degree at Edinboro

By Ryan Smith

03/08/07 — Awkward, eccentric, confused and irreverant.

Sharon Stone said while growing up in Saegertown and later attending classes at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, she was considered all of those things. Some of her teachers, she said, inspired her; others left her cold.

“I often got in trouble in school for saying what I think,” but “it’s the best thing I do.” Eventually, “I just found by listening and responding to the things that really touched me, I went toward (finding) myself,” the acclaimed actress and humanitarian told a crowd of hundreds of students at the university Wednesday.

Early life experiences hold lessons “that will carry on with us throughout our lives,” she said. “These things I’ve learned — they serve me. I’m proud to come from here. And it’s my experience that you can come here and be anything you want to be. But you’d better be good at it. ... Even in this continent, you’re a world citizen ... (and) it’s very important that you think about what you want your world to look like.”

A former Miss Crawford County and Saegertown High School graduate, the star of “Basic Instinct” and “Casino” attended classes at Edinboro University during the mid-1970s, when she was awarded a writing scholarship and majored in creative writing and fine arts. She was invited back to speak to students at the campus and to major contributors to the university as keynote speaker at Wednesday’s eighth annual Frank G. Pogue Honors Scholarship Luncheon.

An Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winning actress, Stone, who left Edinboro before graduation to pursue a modeling career, is “one of the university’s best-known former students,” said President Frank G. Pogue at the campus event. But “there is much more to Sharon than her film credits.”

Stone’s off-screen roles crusading for AIDS research and advocating for homeless and abused women and children through the far-reaching “Planet Hope” program, established and co-run with her sister, Kelly Stone, have earned her recognition as a leading modern humanitarian. The recipient of the Global Conference Institute’s Healthcare Humanitarian Award, she’s been proclaimed a leading health-care advocate for her work chairing the Campaign for AIDS Research of the American Foundation for AIDS Research.

For her efforts in raising money and bringing awareness to AIDS research, she also received the Peter J. Gomes Humanitarian Award from the Harvard University Foundation. In 2005, at the John F. Kennedy Center, Stone was the recipient of the People for the American Way Foundation’s Spirit of Liberty Award for her advocacy in AIDS research.

“My passion is AIDS research,” university nursing major Noma Nkomo, from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, told Stone during a brief discussion session at the end of the campus event. “Even when I start to talk about it, it hurts me so much,” she said, her voice wavering.

She continued to say that earning a degree from the university is what she considers to be the first step in helping to change the face of the disease, which is killing Zimbabweans in epidemic proportions. But “the problem is, when you’re small, nobody listens,” she said.

“That is absolutely not true,” Stone replied. “It’s not ‘I can make a difference.’ You are a difference. ... You, standing here today, making me speak” on the issue, “that means you are a difference.”





Stone honored for humanitarian efforts

Call her Dr. Stone.

Sharon Stone — the flamboyant Hollywood actress, globally-recognized humanitarian, Crawford County native and former Edinboro University of Pennsylvania student — received an honorary EUP doctor of philosophy in public service degree Wednesday at the university’s eighth annual Frank G. Pogue Honors Scholarship Luncheon.

“That’s so great. This is just so great,” Stone said as she donned a plaid graduation grown before a crowd of hundreds of the university’s major financial contributors.

Stone was the keynote speaker at the fund-raising event, and was bestowed the honor by President Pogue and other university officials in recognition of her humanitarian efforts, which include crusading for AIDS research and advocating for homeless and abused women and children through the far-reaching “Planet Hope” program, established and co-run with her sister, Kelly Stone. She also attended Wednesday’s events in Erie and on campus.

“She’s the one with the great talent,” Stone said of her sister. “I’m just the famous one. But I spend my fame well. Life is a service job. You’ve got to figure out how you serve people best, and do it.”

The annual luncheon expands the endowment of the Frank G. Pogue Honors Scholarship established by Pogue. Over the past seven years, the event has raised more than $900,000 to directly benefit university honors students. During his 11 years as the university’s 15th president, Pogue, who will retire June 30, has been credited for leading the university through a continuing period of unprecedented growth in academic, social and infrastructure development.

“The real reward in serving as university president,” Pogue said, “comes in the personal moments of joy, and of sorrow, that will stand out (in memory) through the passage of time.”

He shared some of those personal moments, including memories of personally helping students on more than one occasion who were stranded after their vehicles broke down in and around Edinboro.

“You need to really understand how valuable it is to have people who stop by the side of the road leading your school,” said Stone. “I am so grateful that I went to this school. It is very hard to be from here. Pennsylvania is a tough place, with tough people. But it has served me so well, and I am so proud to be from here.”

Other highlights of the event included the Edinboro University Foundation presenting a check to the university for $1 million to fund scholarships and the presentation of the Alumni Award of Excellence to Richard Wukich of the Class of 1965. The Slippery Rock University art professor is active with Potters for Peace, which teaches people in remote parts of the world how to manufacture porous pottery for the purpose of filtering life-sustaining water.

Previous event speakers have included Ben Vereen, Gen. Wesley Clark, James Earl Jones and, last year, Andrea Mitchell.



Ryan Smith can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at rsmith@meadvilletribune.com.

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