Newsmakers

JORDAN RAPP ’02 won the Ironman U.S. Champion­ship Aug. 11 in New York City, after completing a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a 26.2-mile run ending up in Riverside Park. He finished in eight hours, 11 minutes, and 18 ­seconds. … TED CRUZ ’92 won the Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas July 31, when he topped a runoff after finishing second in the state’s May 29 primary to lieutenant governor David Dewhurst, who did not earn the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff. Cruz faces Democrat Paul Sadler in the November election. … Indiana Gov. MITCH DANIELS ’71 will become Purdue University’s president in January, after completing his second term. ... If Words Could Save Us, the poetry collection by ANTHONY ABBOTT ’57, was chosen in June as a co-winner of the Brockman-Campbell Award, given annually to the best book of poetry by a North Carol­in­ian. Abbott “distills a lifetime of experience into a lyrical language that brings us close to human salvation,” said the judge, poet Norbert Krapf.