Can you tell me if the statue that my friend and I left when we were students
in the biology department’s greenhouse is still there?” That rather unusual request
came into the annual fund office from Barbara Searle Kim ’86 and (now husband) Daniel Youngho
Kim ’83, and began the search for a three-inch Buddha that was left nestled beneath a jade
plant more than 20 years ago.
The search was complicated by the recent remodel of the biology building, which took much of the
building down to its studs. However, associate professor biology Keith Karoly vaguely recalled seeing
the small statue. He contacted lab and stockroom manager Kristine Gunter, who said as soon as he began
describing it, she knew she had the “bio Buddha.” It was tucked in a stockroom bookshelf
and had survived its decades at Reed and the recent remodel mostly intact. Said Kristine, “We
find plastic dinosaurs and all sorts of things in the greenhouse regularly, but he was just too special
to toss.”
Barbara Kim was happy to learn the statue is still at Reed. “Now, we hope he gets to go home
to the greenhouse.”
The search was complicated by the recent remodel of the biology building, which took much of the
building down to its studs. However, associate professor biology Keith Karoly vaguely recalled seeing
the small statue. He contacted lab and stockroom manager Kristine Gunter, who said as soon as he began
describing it, she knew she had the “bio Buddha.” It was tucked in a stockroom bookshelf
and had survived its decades at Reed and the recent remodel mostly intact. Said Kristine, “We
find plastic dinosaurs and all sorts of things in the greenhouse regularly, but he was just too special
to toss.”
