Our Highlanders are using their education to do extraordinary things. In this column, we highlight some notable mentions from local, regional, national and international news media. Whether our students, alumni, faculty and staff are featured as subject matter experts in high-profile stories or simply helping make the world a better place, we’ll feature their stories.
Highlanders come home
Twin waves of high spirits (and no small amount of tartan) collided on campus recently as the university hosted both its Homecoming 2025 weekend and the Radford Highlanders Festival Oct. 9-11.
The dual events fused reunions of alumni and faculty across generations, tributes to Scots-Irish heritage, food trucks, fall festivities, sheepherding demonstrations and, of course, kilt-centric Highland games such as stone-lifting and caber tossing (that’s the event in which athletes hurl tall wooden poles that measure in excess of 16 feet and which can weigh as much as 100 pounds or more).
Visitors also got to sample a hearty buffet of music, from acts that included the Radford University Pipes and Drums, the Appalachian Piping Academy, the Tartan Terrors and Ally the Piper.
Local media took note, with WSLS-10 serving up a video tour of the Highlanders festival.
Advance coverage of the events was provided by the Pulaski County Patriot, as well as WDBJ-7, which offered an interview with event host Radford Mayor David Horton ’90 and games organizer Jonathan Harding.
Horton told the station the festival began in 1996 when the Highlander mascot was
introduced, and it has since become a staple of the university’s homecoming celebration.
“A lot of people in the region … have Scottish and Irish heritage,” Horton said, “and
even if you don't, we want you to come out and be a part of it.”
Radford also has extensive coverage of Homecoming 2025 and the Highlanders Festival on its news page.
Approaching the net
Christiansburg High School senior and standout volleyball star Ela Shepherd has declared that she will become a Highlander next year. She announced her decision
in an Oct. 4 post on Instagram.
“I’m beyond excited and blessed to announce my commitment to Radford University to
continue my academic and athletic career to play Division 1 volleyball!” Shepherd
wrote on the social media site.
Her decision was covered in an Oct. 14 article in the Montgomery News Messenger and in the Radford News Journal, which called Shepherd “one of the top players in the state.” The piece also reported
that earlier this month, she’d set a new volleyball record at her school, and that
she plans to major in psychology.
“I chose Radford University because of the incredible coaches and teammates,” the
story quoted Shepherd as saying. “From the very beginning, they made me feel truly
welcomed and accepted as part of their family. The culture they’ve built, and the
positive, supportive environment immediately stood out to me. I knew it was exactly
where I wanted to be.”
Iron (City) women
As its name suggests, Women We Admire is an organization that singles out highly accomplished female executives and other
figures from across North America, then shares their achievements with its website’s
audience of about 32,000 readers.
“Our goal is to provide members with powerful leadership insights and an unrivaled
close-knit community of extraordinary women who enrich each other's career journey,”
the group’s editors wrote.
On Oct. 14, they released their list of the top 50 women leaders of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and among that collection were Lara Ramsburg, M.S. ’99, and Denise LaRosa ’03.
For the past decade and a half, Ramsburg has worked for the Pennsylvania-based pharmaceutical company Viatris, and since 2019, has served as its chief corporate affairs officer.
Prior to that, she was the director of communications, then director of policy, for
the West Virginia governor’s office.
“Ramsburg is a highly regarded industry veteran with over 30 years of experience helping
organizations fulfill their objectives through purpose-driven messaging as well as
internal and external stakeholder collaboration,” the article said.
LaRosa, who studied dance at Radford, later moved into education and, in 2021, earned her doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh.
She’s now the director of culture and community life at the Ellis School, an independent,
all-girls preparatory school in the city’s eastern end.
“Dr. LaRosa continues to shape the next generation of changemakers through her leadership,
teaching, and advocacy,” WWA’s editors wrote. “A proud wife and mother of two daughters,
she brings both heart and scholarship to her work, striving each day to make schools
places where every voice is valued and every story matters.
Full-court press
After Zach Chu took on the job as Radford’s new men’s basketball coach in March, he faced a significant
challenge right out of the gate – putting together a roster.
When Chu succeeded Darris Nichols last spring, there was just one player from the
previous year’s team due to return for the upcoming season, so the new coach had to
get a little creative.
According to a recent account in The Roanoke Times, Chu’s approach to the transfer portal drew inspiration from “Moneyball,” the film
adaptation of Michael Lewis’ book about the Oakland Athletics’ 2002 season, when that
club’s general manager, Billy Beane, assembled a potent team by using sports analytics
to seek out players with unique attributes.
“We took a couple different approaches in terms of the construction of the roster,”
Chu told the Times, “one of which was to recruit high-major players in the portal
that we felt like had a … sense of being overlooked at their previous schools.
“Based on the models that we have, we feel like we’ve been able to … recruit players
that we feel will be super impactful within our league,” he explained, and indeed
Chu has added four freshmen, two of which are international players, as well as eight
transfers.
You can read about Chu’s selection process, plus many of the new teammates, in the Oct. 16 story.
The day before that piece ran, the Highlanders were picked fourth of nine teams in
the Big South’s preseason coaches’ poll, the story said.
Radford’s season opener against Western Illinois will tip off on Nov. 3 at the Dedmon
Center.