Press Releases

August 18, 1999
Back Home! " Pedaling Professor" Reaches Southampton After 5,000-Mile Bike Trip

Yoshi Higa, 61, Concludes Seattle-to-Southampton Trek to Raise Scholarship Funds

Contact:
Joe Dionisio
(516) 287 8313
Fax: (516) 283 4081

Southampton, NY -- The cycle is complete for Yoshiharu Higa.

Three months after leaving Seattle to begin a 5,000-mile fundraising bicycle trip, the 61-year-old "Pedaling Professor" successfully reached Southampton College of Long Island University at 12:10 p.m., August 17. His journey raised over $5000 in scholarship funds for Arts and Media students.

As Higa pulled into the College's Montauk Highway entrance, nearly 100 people-- including students, staff and the Northport High School Marching Band-- were on hand to greet the immensely popular professor.

"This country is so beautiful, and the people are so nice," Higa told the spectators, some of whom showered him with champagne upon his arrival, and stayed for a reception in the College's Fine Arts Building. What was his reaction to the grueling cross-country trip, they asked? "I think everybody should do it."

Higa left Seattle May 17, and averaging six hours a day, safely traversed a northern route cross-country. He cycled past 8-foot snowbanks in the Cascade and Rocky Mountain ranges, headed briefly north into Canada's Alberta province, crossed the midwest plain states in 100-degree heat, circled the northern portion of Lake Ontario past Toronto, reached his Manhattan apartment last week, and returned to the College 93 days after he began.

Higa had little time to rest upon his arrival. That same afternoon, he was back en route to Manhattan-- mercifully by automobile-- to be interviewed by several members of the Japanese media.

Higa, a renowned photographer whose work has been featured in Life magazine and exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, teaches photography and art at Southampton College. He is the founder of the Japanese American Young Artists festival, and the biennial International Photography Symposium in Okinawa, Japan, where he was born.

###