George P. Burdell is a fictitious student officially enrolled at

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...

in 1927 as a practical joke. Since then, he has supposedly received all undergraduate degrees offered by Georgia Tech, served in the military, gotten married, and served on ''Mad'' magazine's Board of Directors, among other accomplishments. Burdell at one point led the online poll for ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

''s 2001 Person of the Year award. He has evolved into an important and notorious campus

tradition A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...

; all Georgia Tech students learn about him at orientation.

History

Origins

George P. Burdell was created by William Edgar "Ed" Smith ( BS in

Ceramic Engineering Ceramic engineering is the science and technology of creating objects from inorganic, non-metallic materials. This is done either by the action of heat, or at lower temperatures using precipitation reactions from high-purity chemical solutions ...

) in 1927. Smith conceived the idea for Burdell when he mistakenly received two Georgia Tech enrollment forms. In a 1977 Atlanta newspaper interview, Smith said that he originally intended to enroll his Academy of Richmond County principal, George P. Butler, but instead changed the last name to Burdell, the maiden name of his best friend's mother. After enrolling him, Smith signed Burdell up for all the same classes he had. With the help of friends, Smith would do all schoolwork twice, changing it slightly to avoid

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

s catching his sham. When he had a test, he would take it twice and then turn it in under both names. By 1930, the school had awarded Burdell a bachelor's degree, and a few years later awarded the fictitious student a master's degree. The college listed him as an official alumnus, even though his name has remained on the active student rolls. In 1930, the ANAK Society, Georgia Tech's oldest secret society, offered Burdell membership. An early prank using Burdell's name came after someone was snubbed by a fraternity he had intended to join. "That irritated im He ordered a truckload of furniture to be delivered C.O.D. to that fraternity. Of course, the order was made by George P. Burdell."

World War II

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, service members continued the hoax, with Burdell's name appearing on various fronts. For example, he was listed on the flight crew of a

B-17 bomber The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...

, flying twelve missions over Europe with the

8th Air Force The Eighth Air Force (Air Forces Strategic) is a numbered air force (NAF) of the United States Air Force's Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC). It is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. The command serves as Air Forces ...

in England, until a Georgia Tech graduate became the new operations officer, recognized the name on the flight log, and ended the charade.

Postwar

In 1958, members of the senior class of Agnes Scott College announced the wedding engagement of Burdell and fictional Agnes Scott student Ramona Cartwright in the '' Atlanta Journal-Constitution''. The 50th wedding anniversary, of "Mr. and Mrs. George P. Burdell from Atlanta" was acknowledged on the September 23, 2006 broadcast of '' A Prairie Home Companion''. A recording can be found a
a time of 1:13:55
To this day, George P. Burdell is listed as a letterman in the official media guides of two Tech sports: from 1928 to 1930 in football and 1956 to 1958 in basketball. In 1969, Georgia Tech computerized its class registration, believing it had successfully found a way to keep students from registering Burdell for class that semester. As it turned out, hackers registered him for every class at the school that quarter, over 3,000 credit hours. He was subsequently re-enrolled several times, including in 1975 and 1980. George P. Burdell is listed as Georgia Tech Swimming & Diving's team captain of 1988 on their record board, even though there was no team that year after the demolition of the Heisman Gym. The publishers of ''Mad'' magazine listed Burdell as a member of its board of directors from 1969 until 1981. In 1991, a check from

Kraft Foods The second incarnation of Kraft Foods is an American food manufacturing and processing conglomerate, split from Kraft Foods Inc. in 2012 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It became part of Kraft Heinz in 2015. A merger with Heinz, arran ...

bore the signature "George P. Burdell". When ''Time'' magazine was attempting to select their Person of the Year for 2001, George Burdell was the leading candidate (holding at least 57 percent of the votes) until the magazine removed him from the running.

WREK WREK (91.1 FM "Wreck", from the Ramblin' Wreck) is the radio station staffed by the students of the Georgia Institute of Technology. It is also located on channel 17 on the Georgia Tech cable TV network, GTCN. Starting as a 10-watt class D, ...

, the Georgia Tech student radio station, lists him as a staff member, and he is credited for playing baritone on the 1995 album '' Jesus Christ Superstar: A Resurrection'', which was made in Atlanta by musicians from the local

alternative rock Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commerci ...

scene. In 2000, Burdell was named an alternate delegate to the Democratic National Convention from Georgia. Burdell was credited as a member of the choir of the 2006 album ''There is a Place''. George's fictitious son, George P. Burdell Junior, has been a proctor for several classes at Georgia Tech.

Criminal record

On November 27, 2014, George P. Burdell allegedly hacked into the

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

's online master calendar to post a new event titled ''"Get Ass Kicked by GT"'' during the time of the annual

football game . This prank was meant to celebrate the 100-year-old tradition of

Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate is an American college football rivalry between the Georgia Bulldogs and the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. The two Southern universities are located in the U.S. state of Georgia and are separated by . They have been heat ...

. While the author of the new calendar event was marked as ''George P. Burdell'', undergraduate Computer Engineering student, Ryan Pickren, was ultimately arrested and indicted for the crime.

Space exploration

On June 25, 2019, George P. Burdell's name flew engraved on the Prox-1

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioi ...

mission designed and built by the Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering at

. His name is listed along with all the other students who worked on the mission. The satellite was part of the

Space Test Program The Space Test Program (STP) is the primary provider of spaceflight for the United States Department of Defense (DoD) space science and technology community. STP is managed by a group within the Advanced Systems and Development Directorate, a d ...

2 (STP-2) launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy Rocket.

Legacy

Burdell is a campus icon at Georgia Tech, and incoming

freshmen A freshman, fresher, first year, or frosh, is a person in the first year at an educational institution, usually a secondary school or at the college and university level, but also in other forms of post-secondary educational institutions. Ara ...

are introduced to him as one of the greatest alumni to graduate from the school. George P. Burdell is often paged over the public address system during football games and also at airports, bars, and hotels. Georgia Tech students or alumni often use his name as an alias when they do not want to disclose their real name. There is a store in Georgia Tech's student center named "Burdell's". During a speech made by US President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

held at

in the

McCamish Pavilion Hank McCamish Pavilion, nicknamed The Thrillerdome and originally known as Alexander Memorial Coliseum, is an indoor arena located on the campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia. It is the home of the Georgia Tech Yellow ...

on March 10, 2015, the president jokingly indicated that he was supposed to be introduced by George P. Burdell, but no one could find him.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Burdell, George P. Nonexistent people used in jokes Georgia Tech Georgia Tech alumni Hoaxes in the United States 1920s hoaxes Fictional characters introduced in 1927 Fictional characters from Georgia (U.S. state) Fictional World War II veterans Running gags