On Raudenbush's plaque: He was the 1953-54 recipient of the University's Class of 1915 Award, the Spoon Award recipient for his class, and the Student Award of Merit. He graduated with three individual school records and earned All-America with a second-place finish in the 880 at the 1953 NCAA Championships. That same year, he won the 1,000 yards at the Indoor IC4As, and at the 1953 Heps he set a meet record in the 880 that broke a 37-year-old school mark held by Olympian Ted Meredith and itself held up for 13 years. He also anchored Penn's two-mile relay team that reset the program record several times.
 
By Joe Juliano
 
Still going strong in the tenth decade of a life well lived, Paul Raudenbush owns an impressive list of achievements, both on and off the track.
 
Of course, there are his performances that landed him in the Penn Athletics Hall of Fame, a career as an excellent middle-distance runner highlighted in 1953 when he broke a 37-year-old school record—once a world record—in the 880-yard run.
 
However, track was only a small part of his life. Raudenbush spent 21 years as a fighter pilot in the Air Force, a career that included two tours of duty in Vietnam and a stint as the chief pilot of the Eighth Tactical Fighters "Black Sheep" Squadron.
 
He retired from the Air Force in 1976, settling in El Paso, Texas, and finally set out on a career for which he had studied at the Wharton School. He worked as a controller, first for an apparel manufacturing company and later for a department store chain. He left that line of work in 1983 and opened his own accounting practice.
 
That was nearly 40 years ago. These days, at the age of 90, he remains active as a partner at the CPA firm of Clifford, Ross, Raudenbush and Cooper. He cites the example of his grandfather, who lived to be 104.
 
"He set the goal for me," said Raudenbush, who lives in Boise, Idaho, but maintains his El Paso client base working remotely. "I think keeping busy and keeping your mind engaged is important.
 
"It's sort of like a paying hobby. Keeping up with all the tax changes and all that kind of keeps me mentally alert. I do find I'm slowing down a little bit but I enjoy doing it. I really haven't thought much about complete retirement. I'm not sure what I'd do if I completely retired."
 
Raudenbush graduated in 1950 from Media (Pa.) High School. He did not compete in track until his senior year but won the Delaware County championship despite not having a coach. A 1954 story in the Daily Pennsylvanian described him as "a mediocre high school runner," and he recently called that characterization "fairly appropriate."
 
When he arrived at Penn, Raudenbush met famed head track coach J. Kenneth Doherty, who was impressed when the young freshman won the half-mile in an intramural competition. Because he could not compete on the varsity, he ran in club and freshman meets, and set a freshman record of 1 minute, 53.5 seconds in the 880, the first time he had ever broken two minutes.
 
Raudenbush credited Doherty, whom he described as "a wonderful coach and a wonderful person," for his development.
 
"He had a very positive influence on my life beyond track," he said. "He was kind of an amateur psychologist. He knew how to get the best out of people. His innovative training techniques and his emphasis on knowing pace were keys to my being an overachiever. Whenever I started a race, I knew the pace that I should be running, whatever anybody else did. I always had a ferocious finish, so that's where I won all my races, at the end."
 
Raudenbush broke the long-standing program record for the 880-yard run during the 1953 Heptagonal outdoor meet at Yale with a time of 1:51.8, also an Ivy League and meet record. The old mark of 1:52.2—which also was a world record at the time—had been established in 1916 by Ted Meredith, a fellow Media High alumnus. Meredith won the gold medal in the 800 meters at the 1912 Olympics.
 
Raudenbush said he did not realize immediately that he had broken Meredith's record. The accomplishment made him a star of sorts in Media.
 
"Everybody in Media knew Ted Meredith, he was a local hero," he said. "One of our neighbors told my mother, 'Well, Paul may have broken the record but he's not another Ted Meredith,' which was true. But it was kind of fun to break the record of a guy from Media."
 
As a senior and team captain in 1954, Raudenbush established another school record, this one in the 600-yard run at the indoor IC4A meet. He became the fourth track athlete to win the Class of 1915 Award presented to the athlete who "best exemplifies the spirit and tradition of University of Pennsylvania athletics," and captured the Spoon Award given to the most popular senior.
 
"I loved competing," he said. "I never felt pressure. My pressure was always what I put on myself to win. Whether it was a dual meet at Princeton or a national AAU meet, I just always wanted to win. To me there's only two places in the race: you're either first or you're not first."
 
However, his running career suffered a major setback that outdoor season when he suffered a broken foot. He never completely recovered from the injury, and that put an end to his hopes of competing in the 1956 Olympics.
 
"I was disappointed, but I thought that maybe it's time to move on," he said. "You just reach a point where it's time to move on to the next chapter. That was getting out of the Air Force and getting rich with my Wharton education."
 
Fate would intervene, however. Raudenbush, who joined the Air Force ROTC upon entering Penn, went ," into the Air Force six months after graduation for pilot training. After being assigned to the Air Force Olympic Development team at March Air Force Base in California, he re-injured his foot and spent the final 18 months of his commitment flying a KC-97 aerial tanker.
 
At that point, Raudenbush said his squadron commander wanted him to stay. He had a big decision to make.
 
"I was adamant about leaving the Air Force to pursue the career I had trained for at the Wharton School," he said. "He finally asked me if I would like to fly fighters for the rest of my commitment. I thought that would be an interesting challenge, so I said, 'Yes.'
 
"I never really planned to make the Air Force a career. I just kind of enjoyed the flying and the camaraderie and that kind of kept me going until I decided to retire."
 
What he thought would be an 11-year career became a 20-year stint that entitled him to a full Air Force retirement. He has seen much of the world as evidenced by the birthplaces of his four children: France, England, Homestead, Fla., and Germany.
 
He flew fighter jets—the F-84-F, the F-100, and the F-105. He said the highlight of his career came in 1972 after he completed his first tour of Vietnam, when he was assigned to Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico to be chief pilot of the "Black Sheep" squadron. The group eventually was ordered to deploy to Takhki, Thailand, and played a significant role in ending the Vietnam conflict.
 
"Probably the greatest achievement of my life was taking 30 fighter pilots and 30 weapons systems officers into combat and bringing them all home," he said. "It's hard to match that."
 
Raudenbush stayed an extra year as the commander of an F-4 squadron at Holloman and retired in 1976. It was the final act of an outstanding military career, which followed his short but accomplished time as a track athlete. Upon his graduation from Penn, Raudenbush held school records in the 600-, 880- and 1,000-yard runs, and helped lead the Quakers' distance medley team to victory at the 1953 Penn Relays.
 
Raudenbush returned to campus in 1979 to continue the tradition of the Spoon Award, in which the recipient 25 years earlier presents the honor to the next winner. He gave the award to Tony Price, star of the Quakers' Final Four men's basketball team, at the Penn Relays.
 
After attending the Penn Athletics Hall of Fame dinner in May, he and his wife will fly to Fort Walton Beach, Fla., for a 50th-anniversary reunion with his fellow Black Sheep pilots.
 
It's the latest in the long line of significant moments for Paul Raudenbush. He may be "slowing down a little bit," but he has grasped life and enjoyed it to the fullest.