(This article reprinted with permission, featuring Tom Boster, class of 1954, appeared in the Eastside Messenger on December 4, 2000)  

When one thinks of physics, the names Isaac Newton, Enrico Fermi and Albert Einstein come to mind.

But the career of physicist Tom Boster has brought him into contact with the likes of Princess Diana, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Evel Knievel, as well as Edward Teller, the “father of the hydrogen bomb.”

“It’s been fun. And the thing is, I just sorta fell into it,” said Boster, a 1954 graduate of Bexley High School and a partici­pant in this year’s Judah Folkman scientist in Residence Program.

The program, named for the 1950 Bexley graduate and noted cancer researcher, brings accomplished scientists into the classroom to inspire students.

Like last year’s Folkman scientist, cardiologist Louis Cannon, Boster’s high school academic career was less than inspiring, he admitted.

“To me, a ‘C’ was a great grade,” he told a ninth grade physical science class. He earned straight A’s in physical education only because varsity athletes were excused from the class at that time. “I was not the very best student.”

Boster distinguished himself on the football field, earning a scholarship to Capital University, and was part of a championship track team.

Good with his hands, he had planned on finding a job as a machinist. As a 12-year-old, he had talked his way into a job at a Main Street bicycle shop, at 25 cents an hour.

Teachers such as Carlton Smith and Charles Hoel tried to drill an education into Boster’s head, but he pretty much remained indifferent into his junior year of college.

It was on the college football field that Boster has his epiphany, watching an angry teammate taking out his frustra­tions on a tackling sledge.

“And I thought to myself, there has to be more to life than beating up on an inanimate object,” Boster recalled.

The experience was enough to get him out of his academic inertia.

Convinced that he would eventually flunk out, Roster had become a physics major because he thought it would look bet­ter to his family if he failed in a rigorous pursuit.

One professor asked Boster where he planned to attend graduate school, to which the student replied “What’s gradu­ate school? You mean there’s more?”

But after his moment of enlightenment, Boster applied himself and earned straight A’s in his last year of college. He went onto earn master’s and doctorate degrees from Ohio University.

After puttering around Europe for a summer on a $25 Puch motorcycle, Boster followed friends to California, attracted by the surfing and skydiving. He had $14 in his pockets.

He went to work for the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, doing research on X-ray laser technology. He also did research on hydrogen bomb explosions conducted a mile and a half underground.

He attracted the attention of Teller, who summoned him to the Hoover Institute to discuss Boster’s research. They later became colleagues, and Teller used part of Boster’s research to propose to President Ronald Reagan the Strategic Defense Initiative “Star Wars” missile defense system.

Boster’s daredevil nature later merged with his professional background to launch him into the area of accident investigation.

His firm, Boster, Kobayashi and Associates, took on a case involving jockey Willie Shoemaker.

Boster drove over a cliff seven times prove that the average motorist would not have been seriously injured in a similar accident.

Accident investigation took him onto the sets of Hollywood movies, where he began designing stunts for such productions as “Terminator 2.”

His encounter with Evel Knievel, the motorcycle stunt jumper, proved to be a case of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object.

When Boster walked into the room, Knievel snarled, “I ain’t workin’ with no pinheaded scientists. I been doin’ all my life what you guys said I couldn’t do.”

Boster had an equal and opposite reaction to Knievel’s attempt to bully him.

“I turned and said to the people I was with, ‘This guy ain’t as ugly as you said he was.’ Knievel stuck his finger into my chest and said ‘Tom, you can call me Evel. Whatta you ride?’”

Boster would design the successful jump by Knievel’s son, Bobby, over the fountains at Caesar’s Palace, a jump the elder rider had failed to make.

Boster’s work has taken him all over the world, from Egypt to Israel, from the lava field of Hawaii to London and Paris, where he continues to investigate the crash that killed Princess Diana.

Boster never could have envisioned the career he has followed while he was faking it in Latin class 46 years ago.

“It shows that with a little bit of luck, and a little bit of determination, probably a lot of determination, you can overcome a spotty academic record,” Boster told the students.