As a graduate student at MSU, Linda Nelson lived in the Paolucci Building for six weeks at a time.
Nelson studied home management, a program that is extinct today, and lived in the building as an instructor with other female students as part of the program.
"It was really lots of fun," she said. "It was probably the most fun when (the girls) didn't come in on time (at night)."
She would go to old travelogues shown in the Auditorium on Saturday nights.
These movies about people who traveled to different places around the world sparked desires in her to do the same thing one day.
Nelson, Gerald Elson and David Hollister are three of the 20 alumni honored in late October as Distinguished Alumni.
Ten other alumni were recognized with Honorary Alumni, Alumni Service and Philanthropist awards.
For her doctoral research, Nelson got to experience the world by traveling to Latin America, where she said she initiated women's education programs as part of her work.
After she worked abroad for 16 years, Nelson came back to MSU to be the chairwoman of the Department of Family & Child Ecology in the College of Human Ecology. She is now retired.
Nelson said she loved East Lansing so much, she still lives across the street from MSU and enjoys coming over to do some watercolor painting on campus.
So much has changed from her student days at MSU, she said, adding that she remembers walking across Grand River Avenue to a Kroger grocery store.
Nelson and the girls she lived with would get 5-cent avocados on Saturday afternoon, since the store was closed on Sundays.
"What I really liked about Michigan State is that it has the right mix of rural and urban," she said.
"I did my undergraduate (education) in the middle of Philadelphia, and MSU is in the middle of a cornfield."
The Distinguished Alumni Award is the highest honor the association gives to individuals who have demonstrated outstanding credentials in character and integrity, volunteering and professional experience.
"These are the absolute best," said Robert Bao, editor of the Alumni Association magazine. "If you read the requirements, this not only rewards people who have risen to the top of their field, but also exhibited model character issues.
"It is a way for the university and Alumni Association to honor the best and the brightest."
Nelson, Elson and Hollister, all of whom graduated from MSU in the 1960s, said they have strong connections with the university and vivid memories of their time as students.
Elson is a former vice president of General Motors Corp., and Hollister is a former mayor of Lansing and current director of the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth.
