University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe has been inducted into the Rock Bridge High School Alumni Hall of Fame an honor he said people wouldn't have predicted when he was a student.

"I just wasn't that good," he joked during an acceptance speech this morning at the high school's homecoming assembly. "I wandered around the halls. I had a great time, but I was a better athlete."

Wolfe who took the helm of the four-campus UM System in February after a career as a software executive graduated from Rock Bridge in 1976 and was part of the first class to fully go through Columbia's second comprehensive high school.

In an email to the Tribune, Wolfe said although he didn't stand out academically at Rock Bridge, "I was fortunate enough to have teachers who believed in me, challenged me and inspired me."

Specifically, those teachers included physics instructor Alan Hatfield, math teacher Evelyn Ahlbrandt and football coach Rich Davies.

"In physics and math, I learned the analytical side of solving problems," he said. "Through athletics, I learned the value of hard work, focus and teamwork."

Wolfe, the school's quarterback who led the football team to a state championship, also was one of the first to experience the high school's block scheduling and unassigned time students still enjoy today.

"It was the wild, wild west," Wolfe recalled before praising administrators for trusting Rock Bridge students with independence.

Wolfe was among five inducted into the Alumni Hall of Fame. Joining him today were Kathryn Peters, a 2002 graduate who has co-founded TurboVote, a company that makes it easier for people to vote; Courtney Schapira, a 1993 alumnae who is a dentist in the Air Force and recently helped modernize dental practices in Afghanistan; and Wallace Thoreson, a 1975 graduate who is now a medical researcher at the University of Nebraska.

Inductee Jake Adelstein, class of 1987, lives in Tokyo but provided an acceptance speech video. Adelstein was the first American citizen to work as a Japanese language reporter and covered crime in Japan that he documented in a 2009 book, "Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan." His father, Eddie Adelstein, an MU professor, accepted the award on his behalf.

Read more here:
Rock Bridge hall of fame inductees include Wolfe