Tom Turpin: A Girl in a Long Black Dress, Little Red Chickens, and a 90 Mile-Per-Hour Fastball

Abstract

Frank Tomas “Tom” Turpin is a professor of entomology at Purdue University—where he has been a faculty member for 45 years—and a Cooperative Extension Service entomologist. A popular speaker, he gives presentations on a variety of entomological and agricultural subjects to audiences of all ages. In 1990, Turpin created the Bug Bowl at Purdue University, which modestly began as a glorified cockroach race. The annual two-day festival of insects now attracts 30,000 people, as well as worldwide media attention, and features audience participation in cockroach tractor-pulls (big roaches, little tractors), cricket-spitting contests for distance, and edible mealworm stirfry with sauteed garlic, ginger, onions, and hot bean paste. Turpin has been featured in People, Time , and National Geographic World magazines, quoted by The New York Times and The New Yorker , and appeared on Good Morning America, Whad’Ya Know? with Michael Feldman, and Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion . Since 1988, Turpin has channeled his fascination and expertise on all those creatures that jump, crawl, fly, and bite into a bi-weekly column called On Six Legs , which in 2012 morphed into a podcast. Tom Turpin, Professor of Entomology, Purdue University, 1996. Turpin earned a B.S. (Biology & Math, 1965) from Washburn University and a Ph.D. (Entomology, 1971) from Iowa State University. During 1967-1969, he was a math and science teacher and a coach at BGM High School, Brooklyn, Iowa. Always the dedicated teacher, Turpin has received numerous teaching honors including Purdue's Charles B. Murphy Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching (1992), Indiana Professor of the Year, Carnegie Foundation for the Advance of Teaching (1992), Outstanding Teacher Award, Purdue University School of Agriculture (1995), …