HOUSTON – A 90th birthday party for a very special University of Houston alumnus raised money and brought a lot of smiles to the Junior League of Houston building.
In 1926, Calvin Coolidge was president of the United States, Houston was a much smaller city and "Bye Bye Blackbird" was the most popular song. It was also the year Bill Sherrill was born.
From ragamuffin to Marine, Pearl Harbor led Sherrill to enlist in the Marines when he was only 15. He lied about his age.
He was accepted into the Corps and was sent to the Pacific Theater, to Iwo Jima, where he was wounded in battle and sent home on a medical discharge.
He got in -- barely -- but graduated as class president. He went on to earn a master's degree from Harvard.
Sherrill became a banker, developer, and twice served as a federal reserve governor, and director of the FDIC. But he never forgot the University of Houston where he co-founded the Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship..
His 90th birthday celebration also helped raise contributions for the school.
A distinguished life of service from battlefields to boardrooms, and at 90, the member of the Greatest Generation continues to set an example for a new generation.